Newsroom Stories

Three antibiotics that, individually, are not effective against a drug-resistant staph infection can kill the deadly pathogen when combined as a trio, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They have killed the bug — methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) — in test tubes and laboratory mice, and believe the same strategy may work in people.

Bacteria aren’t the only non-human invaders to colonize the gut shortly after a baby’s birth. Viruses also set up house there, according to new research led by Lori Holtz, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Social problems linked to America’s growing disparities in income and wealth will be a major focus of the re-launched Department of Sociology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, including its first co-sponsored public lecture of the fall semester. ​

​The Washington University community is invited to create a time capsule for the cornerstone of the Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center, set to open late next summer. When it is opened in 2065, this time capsule hopefully will fare better than its predecessor – the recently recovered 1902 time capsule from Francis Gymnasium that sustained water damage.

Jessica Kuchta-Miller, JD, a certified organizational ombudsman practitioner with extensive experience in dispute resolution, mediation, conflict coaching and training, has been named to the new position of staff ombudsperson at Washington University in St. Louis, announced Henry S. Webber, executive vice chancellor for administration.

The fall lineup of the 18th annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series, sponsored by the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, kicks off with two lectures Sept. 16-17. The yearlong series brings to the university nationally and internationally prominent experts from law and related fields to address issues of access to justice. Melvin Oliver, PhD, opens the series at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16 Anheuser-Busch Hall’s Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

A national conference held at Washington University in St. Louis Sept. 24-27 will begin a conversation on finding a lasting solution to America’s incarceration problem. Organized by Carrie Pettus-Davis, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, the conference will discuss and evaluate proposals for sustainable and effective decarceration of America’s jails and prisons.

Positive mentions on Twitter about hookah smoking may promote the assumption that it is less harmful than smoking cigarettes even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that hookah smoking has many of the same harmful toxins and carries the same health risks, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis led by Melissa J. Krauss, seen here with a hookah pipe.

St. Louis College of Pharmacy and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are joining forces to find better, safer and more effective ways to use prescription medications to improve health. Researchers from the two institutions are collaborating to create the Center for Clinical Pharmacology. The center’s director will be Evan D. Kharasch, MD, PhD, the Russell D. and Mary B. Shelden Professor of Anesthesiology and professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at the School of Medicine.

​​St. Louis may seem a bit too far away from Mexico to have had a serious impact on the outcome of the Mexican Revolution, but the city actually played an important role in the events that shaped the nation, according to Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, PhD, associate professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.​