Newsroom Stories

Patrick WinterIn laboratory tests, one very low dose of a drug was enough to have an effect on notoriously tenacious artery-clogging plaques. What kind of drug is that potent? It’s not so much the drug itself as how it was delivered. Fumagillin — a drug that can inhibit the growth of new blood vessels that feed atherosclerotic plaques — was sent directly to the base of plaques by microscopically small spheres called nanoparticles developed by School of Medicine researchers.

Photo by David KilperGraduate student Jason He (left) and Lars Angenent, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemical engineering and a member of the University’s Environmental Engineering Science Program, work with a version of their microbial fuel cell.In the midst of the worldwide energy crisis, WUSTL researchers have continued their work on a microbial fuel cell that generates electricity from wastewater. Advances in the design of this fuel cell in the past year have increased the power output by a factor of 10 and future designs, already in the minds of the researchers, hope to multiply that power output by 10 times. If that goal can be achieved, the fuel cell could be scaled up for use in food and agricultural industries to generate electrical power — all with the wastewater that today goes right down the drain.

Peter CookPaul MuldoonPaul Muldoon, “the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War” according to The Times Literary Supplement, will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14.

The MRI scans on the left show normal gray matter. The two on the right are abnormal.A Washington University pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital has found that performing MRI scans on pre-term infants’ brains assists dramatically in predicting the babies’ future developmental outcomes. Researchers studied 167 preterm infants in New Zealand and Australia and at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The findings are a breakthrough because previous technology — cranial ultrasounds — did not show the abnormalities in the infants’ brains.

Asthmatx illustrationA bronchoscope delivers thermal energy to airways during a bronchial thermoplasty treatment.Researchers at the School of Medicine are seeking participants for the AIR2 (Asthma Interventional Research) international, multi-center clinical trial, which explores whether a new asthma treatment improves asthma care. The trial, the first test of the procedure in the U.S., focuses on a procedure called bronchial thermoplasty to treat asthma.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesMary MazelloTango, rhumba and Indian bharata natyam will share the stage with contemporary multi-media works and live improvisation in Dance Closeup, the biennial concert of original choreography by faculty in the Dance Program in Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences. Launched in 1995, Dance Closeup regularly serves as the unofficial kickoff to St. Louis’ professional dance season. This year’s installment will feature ten works choreographed and performed by faculty and guest dancers.

Abnormal blood vessels and hemorrhage under the retina in wet macular degenerationAlthough some recent studies have suggested that inflammation promotes retinal damage in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), new work from Washington University ophthalmology researchers has found that a particular type of inflammation, regulated by cells called macrophages, actually protects the eye from damage due to AMD.

Constant blood flow shields the brain from cold, limiting the effects of any attempt to cool the brain.Attempts to cool the brain to reduce injury from stroke and other head trauma may face a significant obstacle: current cooling devices can’t penetrate very deeply into the brain. Scientists at the School of Medicine have shown that blood flow in the brain creates a “cold shielding” effect and have developed a method for calculating brain temperature that may be used to improve brain cooling techniques.

Stan StrembickiKemper Art Museum, detail of the southern facade. August 2006. In 1960 a young Japanese architecture professor named Fumihiko Maki completed his first-ever commission while teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. Four decades later, Maki is among the world’s premier architects, a Pritzker Prize-winner renowned for creating monumental spaces that fuse Eastern and Western sensibilities. Current projects include both the $330 million United Nations expansion in Manhattan and Tower 4 at the former World Trade Center site. Now Maki has returned to Washington University as architect of the new Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, a dramatic, light-filled structure that will showcase the university’s internationally renowned art collection.

Photo by Robert Boston Jean Audrain in the Department of Internal Medicine receives the Dean’s Distinguished Service Award from Larry J. Shapiro, M.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of the School of Medicine.