Newsroom Stories

Dr. James Lowe in the operating room.Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but plastic and reconstructive surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis are trying to learn the basics of aesthetic beauty in various ethnic groups. When plastic surgeons operate, they don’t want to make African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and other groups look the same. Rather, they hope to preserve ethnicity while at the same time restoring or enhancing beauty. The Washington University team is one of only a handful worldwide that is scientifically studying ways to preserve ethnicity in plastic surgery procedures, and as more people from different ethnic backgrounds seek plastic surgery, defining aesthetic attractiveness in various ethnic groups is becoming more important.

A protein known as Pgp has pumped an imaging agent that glows away from a tumor on the lower right of this mouse.Oncologists dread the appearance of MDR1 P-glycoprotein (Pgp), a protein found on the surface of drug-resistant cancers that pumps away chemotherapy treatments. Now researchers have discovered Pgp also rids cells of a bioluminescent agent used in imaging research. According to David Piwnica-Worms, M.D., Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and pharmacology and of radiology and director of Washington University’s Molecular Imaging Center, the finding means scientists now have a direct, real-time method for assessing treatments designed to block drug resistance in animal models of cancer because if Pgp is present, the imaging agent is expelled from cells, it’s also likely that those cells will be resistant to chemotherapy. On the other hand, the discovery also means basic researchers, who make frequent use of the luminescent imaging agent (derived from a sea pansy or soft coral), have to make sure that what they are seeing isn’t being affected by interactions with Pgp.

Photo by Joe Angeles / WUSTL PhotoThe Truster hand-held “Emotion Reader.”Voice-stress analysis, an alternative to the polygraph as a method for lie detection, is already widely used in police and insurance fraud investigations. Now, however, it is being touted as a powerful and effective tool for an array of new applications — everything from screening potential terrorists in the nation’s airports to catching wayward spouses in messy marital disputes. Despite its booming popularity, recent federally sponsored studies have found little evidence that existing voice-stress technologies are capable of consistently detecting lies and deceptions. “You could have gotten better results by flipping a coin,” says Washington University in St. Louis psychologist Mitchell S. Sommers, lead investigator on a recent voice-stress study.

Photo courtesy of The OASIS InstituteVolunteering can have a positive effect on the overall well-being of older Americans.Looking to chase away the winter blues? Interested in staying active after retirement? Need a boost to your health? Try volunteering at your church or a neighborhood organization for a few hours a week — it could do you a world of good. Just two hours of volunteering a week can have a positive effect on the overall well-being of older Americans, according to a study from the George Warren Brown (GWB) School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. The researchers found that older adults who volunteered had better assessments than non-volunteers on three measures of well-being: daily functioning, self-rated health and self-rated depression.

Determining the right pricing strategy can make or break the overall profitability of a firm. One such strategy, dynamic pricing, long practiced in the airline and hotel industries, is showing promise and profitability in the world of retail. When applied to products sold over a short sales season—new toys, skiwear, and the like— dynamic pricing can boost profits for a firm, according to research recently conducted by two professors at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Coached by educators who were anxious to prove that colleges and universities were military assets, the War Department in the spring and summer of 1918 laid plans for the organization of the Student’s Army Training Corps. Able-bodied men from ages 18-21 with a high-school education could seek admission to any college or university on the […]

Scholars from around the world will come to the Hilltop Campus Feb. 12-14 for the symposium “Tennessee Williams: The Secret Year.”

Eminent physicist Charles Falco contends that the great master painters of earlier centuries used optical instruments nearly 200 years earlier than previously even thought possible and account for the remarkable transformation in the realistic portraits appearing as early as the 15th Century.

His book is titled Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia: An Anthropology of Public Reasoning.

A study that included investigators in the School of Medicine is the first to demonstrate an association between a particular gene and alcoholism. Click here for more medical articles