Newsroom Stories

Olga Pontes & Craig PikaardThe protein HDA6 shows up as a red stain in this Arabidopsis leaf cell nucleus.A team of researchers, including biologists at Washington University in St. Louis, has discovered the key role one protein plays in a major turn-off — in this case, the turning off of thousands of nearly identical genes in a hybrid plant. Studying the phenomenon of nucleolar dominance, in which one parental set of ribosomal genes in a hybrid is silenced, Craig Pikaard, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and colleagues have identified the protein HDA6 as an important player in the silencing. More…

Paul VertucioShapiro & Smith DanceEach year, the Edison Theatre OVATIONS! Series highlights music, theatre and dance by a variety of nationally and internationally acclaimed performing artists. The 2006-07 season — the Edison’s 34th — will include more than a dozen events, ranging from returning favorites to St. Louis and world premiers to the popular ovations! for young people series, which offers specially priced Saturday matinees for audiences of all ages.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesCatharina ManchandaCatharina Manchanda, Ph.D., has been appointed curator of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Manchanda succeeds Sabine Eckmann, Ph.D., who was named director of the Kemper Art Museum last year. Her appointment comes at a critical time for the museum, which will open a new 65,000-square-foot facility, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, in the fall.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have found that obese elderly people can improve their physical function and lessen frailty by losing weight and exercising.

Researchers seeking insights into kidney failure in human infants have located the source of a 30-year-old mystery mutation that causes similar problems in a mouse line.

WeidenbaumMurray L. Weidenbaum, one of the country’s most acclaimed economists and a distinguished Washington University professor for more than 40 years, received the Eliot Society’s highest honor at the 39th annual William Greenleaf Eliot Society dinner on April 26. The event was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Clayton and included a keynote address by the celebrated Irish singing sensation Ronan Tynan.

Some lung cancer patients — those with conditions that raise the potential for surgical complications — can be at a high risk from a lobectomy. More medical news

“When colleagues have professed great satisfaction about being a part of this community, it validates what we are doing,” Chancellor Wrighton said.

The Olin School of Business will honor the achievements of four alumni May 3 at the school’s annual dinner at the Ritz-Carlton St. Louis in Clayton. Business school Dean Mahendra Gupta also will present the Dean’s Medal to Stuart Greenbaum and his wife, Elaine, A.B. ’60. This year’s recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Awards are E. William Gillula, M.B.A. ’73, Lynn E. Gorguze, M.B.A. ’86, Lewis A. Levey, M.B.A. ’67 and Lin-Kuei Jackson Ling, M.B.A. ’04.

There are no campus watch items for this issue of the Record.