Newsroom Stories

For 20 summers now, students of all ages and from all walks of life have gathered on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis to write, read, write, read and write some more. The Summer Writers Institute, an intensive, two-week writing seminar that is part summer camp, part MFA-level instruction, is thriving after two decades.

As floodwaters surge along major rivers in the midwestern United States, a new study from Washington University in St. Louis suggests federal agencies are underestimating historic 100-year flood levels on these rivers by as much as five feet, a miscalculation that has serious implications for future flood risks, flood insurance, and business development in an expanding floodplain.

Benjamin D. Humphreys, MD, PhD, a highly regarded physician and  scientist at Harvard Medical School, has been named the director of the Renal Division in the Department of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine.

A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage is justified, say two constitutional law experts at Washington University in St. Louis.

​​Now in its second year, Washington University in St. Louis’ College Prep Program prepares talented, low-income high school students for college. This year’s cohort of 46 students represents 24 local high schools. Students made ethanol in a lab, composed stories in the university’s Writing Center and learned to kickbox​. 

The acidity of urine — as well as the presence of small molecules related to diet — may influence how well bacteria can grow in the urinary tract, a new study shows. The research, led by Jeffrey Henderson, MD, PhD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, may have implications for treating urinary tract infections, which are among the most common bacterial infections worldwide.

​President Barack Obama has named internationally recognized cancer expert Timothy Ley, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, to the National Cancer Advisory Board.

John DiPersio, MD, PhD, the Virginia E. and Sam J. Golman Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named to the American Cancer Society’s National Medical Advisory Group for Patient Lodging.

New Horizons will fly through the Pluto system on July 14 at an angle of 46 degrees to the plane of the dwarf planet’s orbit, then turn to use sunlight reflected from Charon, Pluto’s biggest moon, to image areas of Pluto now in continuous darkness. Your host for the WashU Pluto watching party will be Bill McKinnon, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, who will be commenting from mission headquarters at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

Scientists working to find treatments for a severe form of diabetes called Wolfram syndrome have identified a gatekeeper in cells that prevents harmful molecules from spilling into places where they don’t belong and triggering cell death. The researchers, at Washington University School of Medicine, also found that the gatekeeper may be a good treatment target for other disorders caused by cellular stress.