Newsroom Stories

Images from throughout the Leading Together campaign.

Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University, a major multiyear fundraising initiative with an initial goal of $2.2 billion in funding toward university priorities, ended June 30 with a record-breaking $3.378 billion in gifts and commitments, announced Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. The campaign total includes an unprecedented $591 million for scholarships to enhance affordability and accessibility for outstanding students.

Washington University’s commitment to expanding opportunities for students from all socio-economic backgrounds has made a difference. Read the stories of a few stellar students.

Processes that were thought to take tens of thousands of years can happen in hours, according to new research. And that may change our understanding of the carbon cycle, and maybe the history of Earth’s climate.

An experimental drug reduces brain atrophy in people with progressive multiple sclerosis, raising hopes that it also can reduce disability. The School of Medicine is one of 28 clinical sites participating in the study.

Paul Tran, a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow in The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, is one of five young poets awarded a $25,800 prize from the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine.

Tiny protein structures called amyloids are key to understanding certain devastating age-related diseases, but they are so minuscule they can’t be seen using conventional microscopic methods. A team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new technique that uses temporary fluorescence, causing the amyloids to flash or “blink”, allowing researchers to better spot these problematic proteins.

Good stories feed us universal truths and instruct us on how to live more fully in this world. This fall, the Assembly Series is presenting many gifted storytellers. The series launches Sept. 12 with author, poet and alum Qiu Xiaolong.

The School of Law has launched a new immigration clinic, aimed at helping students learn how to handle immigration matters affecting low-and moderate-income people.

Often viewed as wild, naturally pristine and endangered by human encroachment, some of the African savannah’s most fertile and biologically diverse wildlife hotspots owe their vitality to heaps of dung deposited there over thousands of years by the livestock of wandering herders, suggests new research in the journal Nature.