Newsroom Stories

National child welfare experts Jack Tweedie (left) and L. Carol Scott visited the Brown School Oct. 18 to headline a Policy Forum discussion on the legislative landscape at the state level regarding child well-being. The Policy Forum is the Brown School’s signature effort to actively explore issues in social and health policy, and this particular panel is part of an ongoing series throughout the year that will focus on children.

Veteran physician Cheri LeBlanc, MD, has been treating patients during one of life’s most critical periods — the college years. As the new director of student health and wellness, LeBlanc hopes to educate students in ways that will last a lifetime.

A new exhibit, “In Character: The Life and Legacy of Mary Wickes,” celebrates the legacy of character actress and Washington University in St. Louis alumna Mary Wickes. Events include a screening of Sister Act, one of Wickes’ later films, and a lecture with biographer Steve Taravella.

A team of Washington University in St. Louis engineers and physicians is combining areas of expertise to prevent hospitalized patients from deteriorating while in the hospital and from being readmitted soon after discharge.

Alan Templeton, PhD, professor emeritus of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, has an unusual screen saver on his office computer. If you ask him about it, he’ll tell you it is a frost flower, or ice flower. The “flowers” are fleeting natural creations that appear only once or twice in the fall and are seen only by those who rise early and know where to look.

Studying spinal fluid from people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, School of Medicine researchers have found that a gene variation that had not been considered risky actually can increase the chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease when it occurs in tandem with another gene variant known to elevate risk. Shown is an image of a brain with a buildup of amyloid deposits (highest amounts in yellow and red) that collect to form senile plaques in patients with Alzheimer’s.

Evolutionary biologist W.D. Hamilton predicted that organisms ought to evolve the ability to discriminate degrees of kinship so as to refine their ability to direct help to individuals with whom they shared the most genes. But two WUSTL biologists point out that there seem to be many cases where “a veil of ignorance” prevents organisms from gaining this kind of information, forcing them to consider a situation from the perspective of all members of their group instead of solely from their own perspective or that of their close kin.

In Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, the civil rights lawyer and professor offers surprising revelations about how our current prison system and drug policies are condeming a large population of African Americans to a life of second-class statush. Alexander will deliver a lecture on the subject at noon on Friday, November 1 for the Assembly Series and the Law School’s Public Interest Law and Policy Speakers Series.

Director John Waters calls Home Movie Day “an orgy of self-discovery, a chance for family memories to suddenly become show business.” Washington University Libraries hosts St. Louis’ Home Movie Day, one of 70 events worldwide, at the Central Library on Saturday, Oct. 26.

Roberto Civitelli, MD, the Sydney M. and Stella H. Schoenberg Professor of Medicine, has been elected president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR), the world’s leading scientific organization for bone health research.