Newsroom Stories

An unprecedented academic year coming to a close brings an unprecedented Commencement for graduating students this week. To allow for in-person ceremonies, the traditional universitywide ceremony in Brookings Quadrangle will be broken up into eight ceremonies over the next two days, May 20 and 21, on Francis Olympic Field.

Today’s consumers are more attuned to brands’ values and willing to pay a premium to support companies that share their values, according to new research from the Bauer Leadership Center at Washington University in St. Louis and Vrity.

Senior Class President Michelle Wang says her classmates share a deeper sense of empathy, one they earned the hard way.

Eating a Western diet impairs the gut’s immune system in ways that could increase risk of infection and inflammatory bowel disease, according to a study from the Washington University School of Medicine and Cleveland Clinic.

School of Medicine researchers have found that although the vast majority of people with alcohol use disorder see their doctors regularly, fewer than one in 10 ever get treatment to help curb their drinking.

A team led by researchers including Jianmin Cui, professor of biomedical engineering, discovered a compound that prevents and even reverses the underlying physiological change that can lead some drugs to cause heart problems.

Back when Henlay Foster first enrolled at Washington University, Ethan Shepley was chancellor, Olin Library didn’t exist and the campus had, at long last, racially integrated. That was 1954. Now, 67 years later, Foster will graduate with a degree in music from Arts & Sciences at age 84.

Over the past five weeks, Class Acts has celebrated the makers and the advocates, the researchers and the champions for health equity. Here, we meet three public servants who have worked to build a stronger St. Louis: David Blount, a policy expert at the Brown School, Deanna Davise, a defender of children at the School of Law, and Theresa Matheus, a middle school educator at University College.

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine shows that African American women with triple-negative breast cancer have higher mortality than white American women with this aggressive tumor. The investigators call for more research to understand the factors driving the disparities.

A new study with zebrafish shows that a deadly form of skin cancer — melanoma — alters the metabolism of healthy tissues elsewhere in the body. The research led by chemist Gary Patti suggests that these other tissues could potentially be targeted to help treat cancer.