Newsroom Stories

A newly identified difference between female and male brains with multiple sclerosis (MS) may help explain why so many more women than men get the disease, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report.

A multi-institutional campaign to harness a newly recognized cellular defense against infection is being led by researchers at the School of Medicine. A $32 million grant from the National Institutes of Health is funding the collaborative, which could lead to drugs with unprecedented versatility in fighting different infections. Washington University’s Herbert W. Virgin IV, MD, PhD, is the principal investigator.

New research suggests that certain types of brain cells may be “picky eaters,” seeming to prefer one specific energy source over others. The finding has implications for understanding the cognitive decline seen in aging and degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.​

From Daedalus to da Vinci, from Kitty Hawk to Cape Canaveral, the dream of flight has powered some of the world’s most ambitious feats of design and engineering. On April 28, freshman architecture students from the Sam Fox School launched their own aeronautical experiments from the top of Art Hill in Forest Park.

A group of a two dozen corporate leaders, including Warren Buffet, is trying to influence American companies to increase the number of women in positions of senior leadership. The effort, called the 30% Club, is an expansion of an effort in Great Britain to increase female corporate board representation there to 30 percent by the end of 2015. But can it work in the United States? Maybe, with more defined objectives, says Olin Business School’s Michelle Duguid, PhD, an expert on women in the workplace.

An undergraduate success story: Jolijt Tamanaha spent her last weeks of junior year at Washington University in St. Louis making a deal to sell a startup she co-founded called Farmplicity — an online marketplace that matches restaurants with local farmers — founded in a course through Olin Business School called The Hatchery.

Richard J. Smith, PhD, dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, presented the school’s Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence to 17 teaching assistants for exemplary performance. Stacy Davis, a fifth-year PhD candidate in Spanish, was among those recognized during an April 24 ceremony.

The Brookings Institution and Washington University in St. Louis have announced a new fellowship program aimed at boosting senior-level government employee success. The new Brookings Executive Education Fellowship will help agencies and individuals develop the thinking and behaviors needed for fostering skilled government leadership, while doing so at a significantly reduced cost.

Three biomedical engineering seniors at WUSTL are gaining national attention for the robotic prosthetic arm they developed for a 13-year-old St. Louis girl. Built on a 3-D printer, the arm  is cheap, functional — and pink.

The Spector Prize, first awarded in 1974, recognizes academic excellence and outstanding undergraduate achievement in research. Students are nominated by their research mentors for outstanding research that has made substantial contributions to a field. This year, the prize has been awarded to Deborah Huang, who plans to graduate this month with a major in biochemistry and molecular biology and a minor in public health.