Newsroom Stories

Pharmaceutical companies have largely abandoned the business of discovering and developing antibiotics and our stock of these “miracle drugs” is beginning to shrink. Michael Kinch and his colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis are working to create new models for drug discovery that could replace the failed private enterprise model.

The U.S. Treasury Department has awarded a $1.08 million research contract to the Center for Social Development at the Brown School of Washington University in St. Louis. One of 11 contracts awarded nationally under the Financial Empowerment Innovation Fund, this award will fund research on “My Retirement Accounts.”

Architects from across the country converged on the Danforth Campus Oct. 6 and 7 to install “Sukkah City STL 2014: Between Absence and Presence.” The design competition challenged participants to reimagine the traditional Jewish Sukkah through the lens of contemporary art and architecture. On view through Oct. 12.

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.​

For nearly two years, clinicians, staff, patients and families have worked hand in hand with the Washington University Medical Center Campus Renewal design team to transform the future of health care on the Medical Campus.

​LaTanya Buck, director of Washington University’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion, recommends Jose Antonio Vargas’ film “Documented,” which explores what it means to be an American. It will be shown at 7 p.m.  Thursday, Oct. 9, at the Missouri History Museum.

​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.

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.