Newsroom Stories

Richard Wilson, PhD, director of The Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine, was named the world’s most-cited researcher by Thomson Reuters’ ScienceWatch. The list of most influential researchers also included Elaine Mardis, PhD, Li Ding, PhD, and Robert Fulton, all of The Genome Institute.

Nitrous oxide — best known as laughing gas — is one of the world’s oldest and most widely used anesthetics. Despite its popularity, however, experts have questioned its impact on the risk of a heart attack during surgery or soon afterward. But those fears are unfounded, a new study indicates.

Joe Fox, associate dean for MBA Programs at Olin Business School, received the Sterling H. Schoen Achievement Award at The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management’s Orientation Program June 9 in New Orleans.

Mary-Dell Chilton, PhD, who did pioneering work on plant genetics while on the biology faculty at Washington University in St. Louis in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has been named a co-recipient of the 2013 World Food Prize, an honor often described as the “Nobel Prize of Biotechnology.”

Barbara A. Schaal, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences, has been appointed chair of an advisory group that will lead the National Academy of Sciences’ new Gulf of Mexico program, established as part of settlements with British Petroleum and Transocean Ltd. following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion. The advisory group will help create a strategic vision and guide the program’s development and implementation.

Consumers are more likely to pursue goals when they are ambitious yet flexible, according to a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.

The National Federation of Independent Business Young Entrepreneur Foundation awarded budding business owner Shea Gouldd its highest honor, naming her the 2013 Young Entrepreneur of the Year at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. As the winner of YEF’s top prize, Gouldd, who resides in Boynton Beach, Fla., will receive a $10,000 educational scholarship to attend WUSTL this fall, where she will study business at Olin Business School.

Researchers have identified a way to trigger reproduction in the laboratory of clusters of human cells that make insulin, potentially removing a significant obstacle to transplanting the cells as a treatment for patients with type 1 diabetes. Pictured in blue are the cells and in green, the insulin.

States that want to reduce rates of adult smoking may consider implementing stringent tobacco restrictions on teens. Washington University researchers discovered that states with more restrictive limits on teens purchasing tobacco also have lower adult smoking rates, especially among women.

In the Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics decision, the Supreme Court unanimously held that naturally occurring DNA sequences are “products of nature” and therefore cannot be patented. “The Court’s holding represents a significant shift form the status quo,” says Kevin Emerson Collins, JD, patent law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “It reverses both the lower court and twenty years of precedent at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.