Newsroom Stories

The retired chair and chief executive officer of Mallinckrodt Inc. died Nov. 4 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.

Perlmutter (left) checks the lighting at a work area of client Gay Hirsch, who has low vision.Monica Perlmutter is taking her “show on the road” to help older adults with low vision live independently in their homes. Nearly 4 million adults age 65 and older have visual impairment severe enough to interfere with daily activities. Macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, inoperable cataracts and glaucoma are leading causes of low vision.

Lori Watt, Ph.D., assistant professor of history and of International and Area Studies, both in Arts & Sciences, at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named the fourth Earle H. and Suzanne S. Harbison Faculty Fellow. The fellowship provides research and teaching support for three years to a talented junior faculty member in Arts & Sciences.

Detecting breast cancer recurrence with a simple blood testPhysicians treating women with breast cancer recognize the need for a specific and sensitive method to monitor disease recurrence, so they should be encouraged by a new study that describes a biomarker that seems to fill those criteria. Researchers at the School of Medicine have shown that mammaglobin, a protein secreted by breast tumor cells, can readily be detected in the blood serum of patients with metastatic breast cancer using an inexpensive, reliable clinical test.

Lori Watt, Ph.D., assistant professor of history and of International and Area Studies, both in Arts & Sciences, at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named the fourth Earle H. and Suzanne S. Harbison Faculty Fellow. The fellowship provides research and teaching support for three years to a talented junior faculty member in Arts & Sciences.

All lit up: the dance floor in actionThe talent and ingenuity of Washington University engineering students are being put to the test with a large-scale, computer-controlled dance floor that will light up the night on Saturday, Nov. 12. That’s the date of the Engineering Student Council’s annual dance party, Vertigo, to be held from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. in Lopata Hall on the Washington University Hilltop Campus.

First Amendment and public law scholars from around the country will come together during “The Rehnquist Court and the First Amendment” conference from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 18 in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 309. The conference, sponsored by the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, will examine the development of First Amendment law over the past two decades under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

Children treated for sickle cell disease have worse symptoms if they are also asthma sufferers, physicians at the School of Medicine noted. Further, children with asthma often also have breathing disturbances during sleep.

Pitchers often lose range of motion in their pitching elbows.Now that the Chicago White Sox have swept the Houston Astros in the World Series, most baseball players are taking some time to rest. Time off is especially important for pitchers because throwing a baseball overhand is both an unnatural motion and a burden on the shoulder and elbow. Now a research team led by Washington University sports medicine specialists has found that professional pitchers have significantly decreased range of motion in their throwing elbows.

A dotted line shows the former position of the thyroid.When a child inherits an abnormal gene that leads to thyroid cancer, surgical removal of the thyroid gland before the cancer spreads is the only sure cure. Now a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows it is best to take out the thyroid before a child turns eight to guarantee a life free of thyroid cancer.