Newsroom Stories

The cold, hard fact is: Pfizer blazed a trail in creating a touted COVID-19 vaccine, but now it must help to equally pioneer an unprecedented way to distribute the drug across the United States and the globe, says a supply chain expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Research from the lab of Rajan Chakrabarty in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has found a close relationship between certain pollutants and the spread of COVID-19 through the United States.

Cancer cells can survive even after being hit with high doses of chemotherapy or radiation, but a School of Medicine team working to make treatment more effective is focusing on ways to tweak the inner machinery of cancer cells to make them more susceptible to dying.

On Nov. 7, Joe Biden was declared the winner in Pennsylvania, making him president-elect of the United States. Yet it had been clear since Americans went to the polls Nov. 3 that Biden would win the popular vote. The days of uncertainty and drama were entirely due to the arcane and archaic mechanics of the Electoral College, says Rachel Brown, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

After the contentious 2020 presidential election, Washington University in St. Louis faculty experts offer their predictions and perspectives on the legal battle ensuing, the election process, the transition of power and the future for both President-elect Joe Biden’s administration and President Donald Trump’s.

A fossil discovery in South Africa suggests that P. robustus evolved rapidly during a turbulent period of local climate change about 2 million years ago, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex. An international research team including anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis reported their discovery in Nature Ecology & Evolution on Nov. 9.

The economy and coronavirus pandemic were two of the top issues for voters in the 2020 election, according to exit poll surveys. Notably, 52% of voters said controlling the pandemic was more important, even if it hurts the economy. But what if we didn’t have to choose?

At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting Oct. 2, several faculty members were appointed or promoted with tenure or granted tenure, with most taking effect that day.

Washington University School of Medicine is one of four institutions to receive a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study how to improve emergency care for adults with dementia. For the project, experts in emergency medicine, geriatrics and dementia will identify and address gaps in emergency care.

Research from the lab of Kimberly Parker in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered the mechanism that keeps formulations of the herbicide dicamba from going airborne. And they consider why it sometimes fails.