Newsroom Stories

Robyn I. Stone, PhD, noted researcher and leading international authority on aging and long-term care policy, will deliver the annual Friedman Lecture Thursday, May 8, in Brown Hall on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis. A panel discussion will follow. The event will take place from 8:30 a.m. to noon and is free and open to the public. For details and to register, visit here.

In the new health-care climate of the Affordable Care Act and efforts to expand Medicaid to accommodate more individuals and children, the need to closely examine ways to best use government funding is becoming increasingly evident. A new study from the Brown School examines racial and ethnic differences in Medicaid expenditures for children in the welfare system who use psychotropic drugs.

A new center at the School of Medicine will help scientists use the power of the immune system to fight infections and cancers. The Center for Human Immunology and Immunotherapy Programs is part of BioMed21, Washington University’s initiative to accelerate basic science discoveries into improved diagnosis and treatment for patients.

Robert W. Gereau IV, PhD, has been named the Dr. Seymour and Rose T. Brown Professor of Anesthesiology at the School of Medicine. He studies the molecular mechanisms involved in pain sensation, and his research includes optogenetics, which uses light signals to activate or deactivate nerve cells responsible for transmitting pain signals to the brain.

A recent interdisciplinary conference that led to the publication of a special issue of PNAS on domestication raised more questions than it answered. Washington University in St. Louis scientists Fiona Marshall and Ken Olsen, who participated in the conference and contributed to the special issue, discuss some of the key questions that have been raised about this pivotal event in human history.

Fiona Marshall, PhD, professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences, was one of seven faculty members to receive the Graduate Student Senate’s Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award during an April 9 ceremony in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge.

The annual Mr. Wash. U. event at Edison Theatre was held April 17. It supports City Faces, which provides art classes to children and young adults living in St. Louis public housing. The charity was founded by Bob Hansman, associate professor of architecture and urban design at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

It’s the stage that launched juniors fashion. On Sunday, May 4, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will present its 85th Annual Fashion Design Show in the 560 Music Center. The fully choreographed, Paris-style extravaganza will feature dozens of models wearing scores of outfits by 26 aspiring designers.

A review of recent research on the domestication of large herbivores for “The Modern View of Domestication,” a special feature of PNAS, suggests that neither intentional breeding nor genetic isolation were as significant as traditionally thought. 

Students at the School of Medicine will perform “Young Frankenstein” April 24-26 in Whelpley Auditorium at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, which abuts the Medical Campus. The performance is the school’s ninth annual completely student-run musical.