Newsroom Stories

A search committee has been named to identify candidates for the position of executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will chair the search committee. Larry J. Shapiro, MD, announced last week he will step down from the position but will remain at the helm until his replacement is named.

Samuel Achilefu, PhD, of the School of Medicine has won the St. Louis Award for 2014 for his work in creating cancer-visualizing glasses, which were used in surgeries for first time last year. He is the 87th person honored with the annual award since it was established in 1931.

The Karb Family Quartet — which consists of senior Jonathan Karb, his parents Margaret and Benjamin and younger brother Aaron — will launch the spring Danforth University Center Chamber Music Series Jan. 20 in Goldberg Formal Lounge.

It’s normal for a young child to have tantrums and be otherwise disruptive, but researchers have found that if such behavior is prolonged or especially intense, the child may have conduct disorder, a childhood psychiatric problem that could be a harbinger of antisocial behavior. The research was led by Joan L. Luby, MD (shown).

Norman R. Seay, a key figure in the struggle for desegregation in St. Louis, will receive the 2015 Rosa L. Parks Award at Washington University in St. Louis’ annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 19, in Graham Chapel. At the School of Medicine, St. Louis native Charles Stith will be the featured speaker at its commemoration at 4 p.m. Jan. 19 in the Eric P. Newman Education Center.

Washington University in St. Louis employees donated more than $778,000 to the 2014 United Way of Greater St. Louis workplace campaign, surpassing its goal by $68,000. The money will support 170 local agencies that address education, health, hunger, poverty, unemployment and other urgent issues.

Listening is a talent but also a skill. This spring, Andrew Raimist and Bob Hansman, both architecture faculty in Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, will lead “Community Building II: Ferguson,” a community studies class that explores the complex economic, political and racial landscape of north St. Louis.

Depression and behavioral changes may occur before memory declines in people who will go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research at the School of Medicine led by senior author Catherine M. Roe, PhD.

Math circles, which bring together professional mathematicians and young students, have been a part of mathematical culture in Russia since the 1930s and in Bulgaria for nearly a century. Washington University’s math circle, founded in 2002, gives kids a chance to meet a mathematician and to absorb his or her adventuresome and imaginative approach to solving problems.

More than 100 cancer patients have received an innovative form of radiation therapy at the S. Lee Kling Center for Proton Therapy in the center’s first year of operation. The treatments are provided at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.