Newsroom Stories

Seasonal flu vaccines will be offered to School of Medicine faculty and staff at no cost beginning Oct. 4. The School of Medicine strongly recommends that all employees, even those with no direct patient contact, get a vaccine.

Richard Meyer, associate professor of art history and fine arts at the University of Southern California and author of Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 7. The series continues through Nov. 9.

Donations collected by check boxes on state income tax forms, fees from license plates and revenue from state lottery tickets have raised millions for breast cancer research and prevention programs, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found.

This summer, 18-year-old Mogboluwaga Oginni shadowed physicians as they repaired shattered hips, twisted ankles and dislocated shoulders. He also learned about patient billing and the steps to cast broken legs.

Another academic year has begun at Washington University in St. Louis, but freshmen and new students have been going nonstop since arriving on campus Aug. 25. From the moment cars pulled up to the curb in the South 40, a WUSTL welcome was extended and it hasn’t let up.

For the second year in a row, Washington University in St. Louis has received the top rating in the LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index, published annually by Campus Pride. WUSTL was one of 33 schools, out of about 300 participants, to receive the five-star rating.

Jerome R. Cox Jr. (right), PhD, senior professor of computer science, describes the interactive display of the Laboratory Instrument Computer, known as LINC, to Brian Smith in the atrium of Brauer Hall. LINC, developed at MIT in 1962 then brought to WUSTL by Cox in 1964, transformed biomedical research by integrating computer science with medicine and allowing researchers to program data analysis on the fly.

A newly established fund to support innovative cancer research at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center has awarded its first two $900,000 grants to high-tech efforts to undermine cancer cells’ ability to resist treatment. The awards will help scientists use genetic data to find new ways to attack treatment-resistant breast cancer and precisely target treatments for various kinds of cancer cells based on their responses to radiation therapy.

The same trait that makes a rare immune cell invaluable in fighting some infections also can be exploited by other diseases to cause harm, two new studies show. By studying the basic functions of these cells, scientists are laying the groundwork to use them to fight infections. The cells also appear to be essential for some cancer vaccines, which enlist the power of the immune system to help fight tumors.

The violence against peaceful protesters in Libya and Syria drives home the need for an international convention for the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, says Leila Nadya Sadat, JD, international law expert and director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law. “The concerted efforts of the international community have helped to bring about a resolution of the Libyan situation, but the situation in Syria continues to deteriorate,” she says. “Reports of civilian roundups in Syria are reminiscent of Nazi roundups of the Jews during WWII. History shows that widespread human rights abuses lead to ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and even genocide.”