Newsroom Stories

Poor Jerome. A talented young artist, he escapes high school with earnest dreams and Picasso posters only to founder on the rocks of a small East Coast art school. So begins Art School Confidential, the withering comedy by writer Dan Clowes and director Terry Zwigoff. On Friday, June 8, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present a free outdoor screening of Art School Confidential as part of its summer Friday Nights at the Kemper series.

A new study shows the same gene variations that make it difficult to stop smoking also increase the likelihood that heavy smokers will respond to nicotine-replacement therapy and drugs that thwart cravings. The finding suggests it may one day be possible to predict which patients are most likely to benefit from drug treatments for nicotine addiction.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has announced the largest release to date of comprehensive human cancer genome data for free access by the global scientific community.

Senior Erica Jackey led five individual All-Americans for the track & field teams at the NCAA Division III Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Championships May 24-26 in Claremont, Calif. Updates also included on men’s and women’s tennis, women’s crew and the Director’s Cup standings.

Gloria Steinem — a pioneering feminist, award-winning journalist and best-selling author — talks with students of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in Arts & Sciences May 17. Steinem, who was at WUSTL to receive an honorary doctor of humane letters at Commencement, took questions from students, offered advice and discussed her own life experiences.

Larry J. Shapiro, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, congratulates Kristen E. Ziara Harring, as he hands her her Doctor of Medicine degree at the School of Medicine Commencement Recognition Ceremony May 18 at the America’s Center. At the ceremony, 127 students received degrees.

Pediatric ophthalmologist R. Lawrence Tychsen, MD, has been named the John F. Hardesty, MD, Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

A study by Brooke Winner, MD (pictured), and Jeff Peipert, MD, to evaluate birth control methods has found dramatic differences in their effectiveness. Women who used birth control pills, the patch or vaginal ring were 20 times more likely to have an unintended pregnancy than those who used longer-acting forms such as an intrauterine device (IUD) or implant.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to develop a triple threat in the fight against cancer: a single virus equipped to find, image and kill cancer cells, all at once.

Though some people have luck with online job boards and company websites, it’s best to use a nontraditional approach in employment searches, says Mark W. Smith, JD, director of the Career Center at Washington University in St. Louis. Networking is the way most people learn about opportunities and it often gives them an upper hand.