Newsroom Stories

From analyzing vast DNA sequences to handling electronic medical records, the importance of big data in medicine has increased dramatically in recent years. To support the growing need to manage and harness big data, the School of Medicine is launching an Institute for Informatics and has named Philip R.O. Payne its first director.

As the world marvels at the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, it is important to put recent changes in historical perspective, says Washington University’s Elzbieta Sklodowska.

An engineering team at Washington University in St. Louis developed a cellular kill switch, a sensor that rewards hard working cells and eliminates their lazy counterparts. The high-tech engineering fix could help improve production of biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

Olin Business School’s Executive MBA cohort recently traveled to Washington, D.C., for a four-day immersion program focused on policy entrepreneurship, hosted by Brookings Executive Education.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry this week said that the United States has determined ISIS’ actions against Yazidis and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria constitute genocide. The allegations of genocide by the United States government reinforce similar findings made last year by United Nations bodies and provide a clear path for ISIS leaders to be tried in international and domestic courts for their crimes, said Leila Sadat, an expert on crimes against humanity in the School of Law.

Fireflies use oscillation to communicate on the same wavelength. An engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new waveform that can control chemical oscillation in the lab. This finding could lead to better understanding of oscillation as it pertains to heart pacemakers, the brain’s neural patterns and even jet lag.

Patients with a rare, genetic form of diabetes often are misdiagnosed as having type 2 diabetes because the two share symptoms. But new research at the School of Medicine suggests that treating such patients with therapies designed for type 2 diabetes is potentially harmful and guidelines need to change.

President Barack Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, could make Senate Republicans think twice about stonewalling the nomination process, especially as the presidential election nears, said Greg Magarian, constitutional law expert at the School of Law.

The American health care system must do a better job of systematically detecting and treating mental health problems within outpatient primary care clinics, especially those that serve vulnerable populations, finds a study led by Darrell Hudson, assistant professor at the Brown School.

Nichole Mercier has been appointed managing director of the Office of Technology Management, effective May 1, according to Dedric Carter, who recently was named vice chancellor for operations and technology transfer.