Newsroom Stories

A long-term study of older adults led by Anne Fagan (right) has helped validate a new system for identifying and classifying older adults with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Many researchers think this stage of the disease, which can last a decade or more, is critical window for slowing or stopping Alzheimer’s treatments.

Researchers at the School of Medicine and Imperial College London are the first to identify the site where the widely used anesthetic drug propofol binds to receptors in the brain to sedate patients during surgery. Shown is a photoanalogue of propofol to identify where it binds to receptors. The small green circles show the site.

Holden Thorp, PhD, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Washington University in St. Louis, has appointed an eight-member committee to identify candidates for the position of dean of the School of Law. Daniel Keating, JD, the Tyrrell Williams Professor of Law, will serve as interim dean. At the law school, Keating has served twice as interim dean, as well as vice dean and associate dean.

​Washington University in St. Louis is launching a new pre-college program designed to help talented but underserved St. Louis high school students prepare for and complete a college education at a selective four-year college or university​. Pictured is Leah Merrifield, who will head the program.

Breast cancer that spreads to other organs is extremely difficult to treat. Doctors can buy patients time, but a cure remains elusive. Now, researchers at the School of Medicine have shown that human breast tumors transplanted into mice are excellent models of metastatic cancer and could be valuable tools in the search for better treatments. Shown are human breast cancer cells (red) growing amid mouse cells (green).

The Saint Louis Art Museum and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis have announced that the Los Angeles-based artist Won Ju Lim and the Brooklyn-based artist Mariam Ghani will serve as Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellows for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academics year, respectively.

Andrew Brimer and Abigail Cohen, May graduates from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis and co-founders of the med-tech startup Sparo Labs, have won the $150,000 CIMIT Student Technology Prize for Primary Care, bringing their total competition winnings to more than $275,000.

My Name Is Strong, a Clinton Global Initiative project, hosts an art exhibit Friday, Sept. 20 at Union Avenue Church. Some 45 works, including this piece(left) by Brown School student Kyle Brandt-Lubart, explore the issue of gender-based violence and celebrate the strength of its survivors.

More than 1,000 science researchers from around the world descended upon St. Louis during the second week of August for what Provost Holden Thorp, PhD, wittingly referred to as “Photo-palooza” for the gathering’s focus on photosynthesis research. Washington University’s International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) served as host to the 11th Workshop on Cyanobacteria and the Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) hosted the Light Harvesting Satellite Meeting 2013.

Philip Bayly, PhD, the Lilyan and E. Lisle Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and chair the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, has received a three-year, $429,222 grant from the National Science Foundation to study mehanical properties in the brain.