Newsroom Stories

Doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are seeking African-Americans with asthma to participate in a new study evaluating treatment for this common breathing disorder.

Washington University in St. Louis alumnus W. E. Moerner, PhD, has been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Moerner shares the award, announced Oct. 8 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, with Eric Betzig, PhD, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Stefan W. Hell, PhD, of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, in Germany. The trio received the award for developing super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.​

​Ben Weiner, a 2003 Washington University in St. Louis alum, connects Nicaraguan coffee growers and roasters through his social enterprise Gold Mountain Coffee Growers. ​The result: a better cup of coffee, like the new Wash U Blend, and better pay for producers.

In the 2013 book, “Fires, Fuel & the Fate of 3 Billion: The State of the Energy Impoverished,” Brown School Professor Gautam N. Yadama, PhD, and critically acclaimed photographer Mark Katzman, presented the complex story of energy impoverishment — an issue that affects a staggering 3 billion people worldwide — by inserting the reader into the personal stories of struggle and survival throughout rural India. At 5 p.m. Monday, Oct. 13, in Anheuser-Busch Hall’s Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom, Yadama will present his work for the Assembly Series and the School of Law’s Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series.

Washington University researchers Melissa Krauss and Richard Grucza, PhD, led a team that analyzed data from all 50 states and found that higher cigarette taxes and policies prohibiting smoking in public places are associated with a decrease in alcohol consumption.

Pity the poor bassoon — large and awkward, often consigned to comic roles, its warm, mellow harmonics overshadowed by the thunder and lightening of piano and violin. But on Oct. 13, St. Louis Symphony bassoonist Andrew Gott and the WUSTL Symphony Orchestra will showcase the bassoon in all its expressive potential.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, in which thousands of volunteers helped register African-American voters in Mississippi, and of John Coltrane’s landmark album “A Love Supreme.” On Thursday, Oct. 9, Washington University will celebrate both anniversaries with a free Jazz at Holmes concert.

Drawing on ballet and contemporary dance, Arabesque captures the ancient, agrarian rhythms of life in rural Vietnam. On Oct. 24 and 25, the celebrated company, which is based in Ho Chi Minh City, will make its U.S. premiere as part of the Edison Ovations Series.

At its fall meeting Friday, Oct. 3, the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees heard special reports on Arts & Sciences and the university’s endowment and received a report from Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton that included updates on administrative appointments, admissions, athletics and construction.

Mike Hayes, executive director of Campus Life and director of Greek Life at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named to the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) Presidential Commission on Hazing Awareness and Prevention.