Newsroom Stories

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, including Jimmy Lin, PhD, are reaching out to patient advocacy groups and offering to decode the DNA of 99 patients with rare diseases to help find the genetic alterations responsible for their illnesses. The patients’ DNA will be sequenced by the university’s Genomics and Pathology Services (GPS) at no cost to patients or advocacy groups.

Just in time for spring baseball, the Assembly Series at Washington University in St. Louis presents its version of a doubleheader: back-to-back lectures in one day by prominent speakers. On Tuesday, March 5, Science historian Susan Lindee, PhD, will speak at 4 p.m. in McDonnell Hall on the evolution of a treatment for cystic fibrosis, once a fatal disease of children. Best-selling author, law professor and “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua, JD, follows at 5 p.m. in Graham Chapel. Both lectures are free and open to the public.

CAUSE — the Committee for the Assessment of the Undergraduate Student Experience — is a new group established to more thoroughly and accurately measure the WUSTL undergraduate student experience.The committee, 15 members from throughtout the university community, will coordinate WUSTL assessment efforts, educate the campus community and keep an archive of existing and prior assessments.

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is organizing a Missouri-wide Heart Failure Clinical Research Network, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Cardiology Chief Douglas L. Mann, MD, says this clinical research consortium is one of only nine regional centers across the country investigating innovative treatments for heart failure.

p, , {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Cambria;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} Jeffrey G. Trzeciak, university librarian at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has been named university librarian at Washington University in St. Louis, effective July 1, 2012. Trzeciak replaces Shirley K. Baker, vice chancellor for scholarly resources and dean of University Libraries, who will retire after 23 years of service to WUSTL on June 30, 2012.

Oh, for a bit of wrought iron. Using tried-and-true triangular trusses, Lesley Olson (right), a junior in chemical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, helps high school girls compete to erect the tallest marshmallow and toothpick tower during Engineering Olympics Feb. 25, the final day of EnWeek. The week, intended to inspire current and future engineers, began Feb. 19 with a variety of activities intended to make increase awareness in engineering as a profession.

How is it that an insect can remake itself so completely that it appears to be a different creature altogether, not just once, but several times in its lifetime? Working with fruit flies, a team led by Ian and Dianne Duncan of Washington University in St. Louis found that genes whose expression is induced by pulses of steroid hormone are key to these transformations. A similar mechanism may underlie  puberty — the human analog of metamorphosis.

The prevailing model for planetary accretion assumes that the Solar System’s planets formed in an extremely hot, two-dimensional disk of gas and dust, post-dating the Sun. In the March issue of Planetary and Space Science, two scientists at Washington University in St. Louis propose a radically different model, in which collapse takes place in a cold, three-dimensional dust cloud.

Five student-athletes earned individual University Athletic Association titles to lead the Bears to a sweep of the men’s and women’s team conference championships Feb. 26 at the New Balance Track & Field Center in New York. Updates also included on men’s and women’s basketball season finales; swimming and diving; men’s tennis; and the opening series of the baseball season.

The current controversy over the Barack Obama administration’s birth control policy is not, contrary to some arguments, a matter of constitutional law, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. It is however, a matter of Constitutional principle, Magarian says.