Newsroom Stories

Inner Horn is a small country. So small, in fact, that only one citizen at a time can fit inside. But when Inner Horn unexpectedly shrinks, it sparks a crisis in neighboring Outer Horn, which falls to a jingoistic dictator. Such is the premise of The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (2005), a wickedly funny and wildly original political allegory by George Saunders. On March 27 and 29, Saunders, the Visiting Hurst Professor of Creative Writing, will deliver a pair of events for The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences.

Fracture, fragmentation and juxtaposition. Over the course of the 20th century, such modernist techniques would become defining traits of both popular and avant-garde film, which in turn would profoundly influence the work of the contemporary British artist John Stezaker. Later this month, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present three classic films — all selected by Stezaker himself — as part of its Fringe Figure Film Series.

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received nearly $4.2 million from the Alzheimer’s Association to accelerate the launch of the first clinical trials to prevent Alzheimer’s disease before symptoms become apparent. John C. Morris, MD, the Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Professor of Neurology, heads the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network at the School of Medicine.

Yossi Aviv, PhD, was installed March 5 as the Dan Broida Professor of Operations & Manufacturing Management at Olin Business School. The professorship was established in 1984 by Roma Broida Wittcoff, an alumna and trustee emeritus of Washington University in St. Louis, in memory of her first husband, Daniel Broida, who died in 1981.

Patients and staff in several Barnes-Jewish Hospital resident clinics began moving into the 12-story Center for Outpatient Health at the corner of Forest Park and Euclid avenues March 12. Many of the clinics will be relocated by the end of March, with all moves complete by the end of spring.

As a young child, Josef Albers watched his handyman father paint houses. He grew up to become a famous artist, studying color and reducing images to their simplest shapes. On March 31, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host its spring Community Day, a free afternoon of all-ages activities. Events will include tours, performances, art-making and a reading from the children’s book An Eye for Color: The Story of Josef Albers.

Fourth-year students at Washington University School of Medicine, including Kevin Choong and Julietta Chang, learned March 16 where they will continue their medical training. This year, 121 students matched to internships or residencies nationwide and in Canada.

The pilot Danforth Campus Green Labs Initiative in Brauer Hall, held this past fall, resulted in a significant savings in carbon emissions and money, announced the Office of Sustainability. The program, modeled after a similar initiative at the School of Medicine, aims to spread energy awareness and conservation among the 850 labs on the Danforth Campus.

A new drug makes chemotherapy more effective in treating acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the white blood cells, according to John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at Washington University. Instead of attacking these cells directly, the drug helps drive them out of the bone marrow and into the bloodstream, where they are more vulnerable to chemotherapy.

The No. 21 softball team secured a second-place finish at the 2012 University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship Tournament with a split in the final two games March 17 in Altamonte Springs, Fla. Updates also included on baseball, men’s and women’s tennis, swimming and women’s golf.