Newsroom Stories

The government of India’s Department of Biotechnology, Indian corporate leaders and Washington University in St. Louis have invested $2.5 million to launch the Indo-U.S. Advanced Bioenergy Consortium for Second Generation Biofuels (IUABC). The goal of the center is to increase biomass yield in plants and algae, enabling downstream commercial development for cost-effective, efficient and environmentally sustainable production of advanced biofuels.

School of Medicine scientists have described a way to convert human skin cells directly into a specific type of brain cell affected by Huntington’s disease, an ultimately fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Unlike other techniques that turn one cell type into another, this new process does not pass through a stem cell phase, avoiding the production of multiple cell types.

Why do works of art move us so powerfully? Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, MD,will share his insight as the Arthur Holly Compton Lecturer for the Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, in Graham Chapel.

People at high risk for psychological distress respond positively to receiving results of personalized genetic testing, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. More than 60 percent of subjects in the genetic study wanted information about their test results, and 95 percent said they appreciated receiving the information, regardless of whether the results were good or bad news.

Social media marketing strategies present both challenges and opportunities for public health professionals. While misinformation can be spread, social media does provide an effective way of reaching large audiences. Situational analysis by researchers at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis of a recent social media campaign by the Chicago Department of Public Health suggests that public health organizations need to pay close attention to how they disseminate information, and also to the response the campaign gets.

Clarinetist Nicolas del Grazia and St. Louis Symphony violinist Jooyeon Kong will join Washington University in St. Louis pianist Seth Carlin for works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann, Sergey Prokofiev and Igor Stravinksky Oct. 26.

The topic of the 2014 Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lecture the evening of Oct. 23 will be black holes. The speaker is Ramesh Narayan, a Harvard astrophysicist who has studied the event horizon and the spin of these celestial enigmas. The talk, which starts at 7 p. m. in Whitaker Hall on the Danforth Campus, is free and open to the public.

Kelle H. Moley, MD, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors medical scientists in the United States can receive. Moley was honored for her professional achievement in the health sciences.

The business of sports, said Joseph S. Lacob (left), co-executive chairman and CEO of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, isn’t just fun and games. Future successful sports industry leaders must be innovative thinkers with a solid foundational business background, like the new minor in the business of sports at Olin Business School, a program he is helping launch with a $1 million gift.

The problems of racism in America have deep roots. That’s what literary critic and biographer Christoph Irmscher, PhD, will remind the Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series at 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27. Irmscher’s lecture,”Talking About Race in 19th-Century American Science: Louis Agassiz and His Contemporaries,” is the annual Thomas Hall Lecture in the History of Science. It is free and open to the public and will be held in Rebstock Hall, Room 210, on the university’s Danforth Campus.