Newsroom Stories

Jessica Garz/Kelly ManningNew Orleans’ Central City, post-KatrinaThe French Quarter, the Garden District, the Treme, the Lower Ninth Ward. Perhaps more than any other American city, New Orleans is a collection of individual neighborhoods — 72 in all — each with its own history and culture. In many ways, these neighborhoods represent both the key and the key challenge to rebuilding the city, says John Hoal, Ph.D., associate professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Last week, Hoal’s firm, H3 Studio Inc., was one of five selected to lead the Unified New Orleans Plan, which will coordinate rebuilding in the city’s 13 planning districts. More…

Olga Pontes is Going FISHin’.Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have made an important breakthrough in understanding a pathway plant cells take to silence unwanted or extra genes using short bits of RNA. Basically, they have made it possible to see where, and how, the events in the pathway unfold within the cell, and seeing is believing, as the old saying goes. Craig Pikaard, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and his collaborators have described the roles that eight proteins in Arabidopsis plants play in a pathway that brings about DNA methylation, an epigenetic function that involves a chemical modification of cytosine, one of the four chemical subunits of DNA. More…

Recovering from a recession doesn’t include the entire economy.The “jobless recovery” that befuddled observers after the recession in the early 2000s was no fluke. It’s actually a pattern that we can expect to continue thanks to technology’s uneven impact across sectors of the economy. What’s more, this new trend in business cycles is as important in making policy decisions as it is in ensuring the stability of the country’s economy. More…

Neurosurgeons at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are renewing calls for a ban on use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) by children under age 16 after a 10-year review of injuries caused by the vehicles.

Image courtesy of Jewish Hospital; Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center; and University of LouisvilleLimb transplantation involves several kinds of tissue.Years ago, the idea of attaching a donor limb onto a patient’s body would have been the stuff of science fiction. But to date about two-dozen people around the world have received hand transplants. Thomas Tung, M.D., conducts research within this relatively unorthodox realm of surgery, investigating the use of therapy that could potentially allow the body to accept donor tissue without the use of immunosuppressive medication.

Red areas of the circled leg in the right image show increased blood flow due to angiogenic cells.To speed healing at sites of injury – such as heart muscle after a heart attack or brain tissue after a stroke – doctors would like to be able to hasten the formation of new blood vessels. One promising approach is to “mobilize” patients’ blood vessel-forming cells, called angiogenic cells, so these cells can reach the injured area. Recently, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrated that a drug called AMD3100 can mobilize angiogenic cells from bone marrow of human patients in a matter of hours.

College students should become familiar with the physical and mental health services offered on their campuses.The millions of college freshmen starting school this fall have a lot on their minds — making the grade, meeting new friends and being on their own. Another new challenge they’ll face is staying healthy. While students face a variety of health issues — including infections, stress and sexually transmitted infections — the key to wellness is knowing the resources available on their campuses, says a college health expert at Washington University in St. Louis. More…

Managers can find way to increase their compensation.Now that the U.S. Senate Finance Committee has returned from its summer holiday, members have put the recent spate of backdating stock options at the top of the agenda. Over the summer, several companies have been caught up in the practice, which skims the top off a firm’s profits. According to professors at the Olin School of Business, the backdating of options is just one of the ways to time executive compensation in a way that enable executives to maximize their own pay. More…

An experimental anti-cancer regimen combined a diuretic, a Parkinson’s disease medication and a drug ordinarily used to reverse the effect of sedatives. In research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the unusual mixture inhibited the growth of aggressive prostate tumors in laboratory mice.

In the battle against bullying, school officials and parents usually focus on the behavior of the bully, but to get to the root of the problem, they also must look at the physical structure of the school, says Ronald O. Pitner, Ph.D., school violence expert and assistant professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. More…