Newsroom Stories

High levels of tau protein in fluid bathing the brain are linked to poor recovery after head trauma, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Fondazione IRCCS Ca Granda-Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan, Italy. The results were reported online Nov. 23 in the journal Brain.

Michael Sherraden’s book, Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy, broke new ground on social policy in 1991. Twenty years later, its impact still is being felt around the world. In Assets and the Poor, Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, writes that asset accumulation is structured and subsidized for many non-poor households, primarily via retirement accounts and home ownership. He argues that these opportunities should be available to all and proposes establishing individual savings accounts for the poor — also known as Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). Since Sherraden first proposed IDAs, they have been adopted in federal legislation and in more than 40 states.

The Civil Justice Clinic (CJC) at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law has received Legal Services of Eastern Missouri’s (LSEM) 2011 Ashley Award. LSEM selected the CJC because of the work that clinic faculty, students, and staff undertake in protecting the rights of children and families.

Scientists have uncovered a critical genetic mutation in some patients with myelodysplastic syndromes — a group of blood cancers that can progress to a fatal form of leukemia. The research team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis also found evidence that patients with the mutation are more likely to develop acute leukemia.

Ernst K. Zinner, research professor of physics and of earth and planetary sciences, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a three-year, $1,380,000 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to study presolar grains in a sample of the Murchison meteorite, a primitive meteorite that fell to Earth near the town of Murchison, Australia, in 1969. Presolar grains are literally tiny bits of stars — stardust — that were born and died billions of years ago, before the formation of the solar system. Some carry within them clues to the process of nucleosynthesis by which new elements are forged in the bellies of supernovae. 

Senior Dylan Richter (left) scored 25 points and senior Alex Toth added a career-best 19 points as the men’s basketball team posted a 77-68 victory over No. 17 Wheaton College Dec. 10 at the WU Field House.

Leila Nadya Sadat, JD, the Henry H. Oberschelp Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, recently received the 2011 Book of the Year Award from the American National Section of L’Association Internationale de Droit Pénal (AIDP) for Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity.

Jennifer K. Lodge, PhD, and Ernst Zinner, PhD, have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. Lodge and Zinner are among 539 new fellows who will be acknowledged in the Dec. 23 issue of Science magazine.The 2011 AAAS Fellows also will be honored at a Feb. 18, 2012, ceremony at the organization’s annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

Mahendra R. Gupta (right), PhD, the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management and dean of Olin Business School, chats with degree candidate Jamie Wolf of the Executive MBA (EMBA) St. Louis program Dec. 9 in McMillan Cafe prior to the EMBA graduation in Graham Chapel. The event marked the first time that all three of Olin’s EMBA programs graduated at the same time in the same place.

First-year medical students at Washington University School of Medicine have much to learn about the structure of the body and its cells. Soon, they will have new inspiration for that learning journey in the form of a series of detailed black-and-white electron micrographs of cells and their interiors created by John Heuser, MD, professor of cell biology and physiology.