Newsroom Stories

A simple cut to the skin unleashes a complex cascade of chemistry to stem the flow of blood. Now, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have used evolutionary clues to reveal how a key clotting protein self-assembles. The finding sheds new light on common bleeding disorders.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law is offering a Washington, D.C., area intellectual property field placement opportunity for students pursuing a career focused on the preparation, filing and prosecution of patent applications. Students in the externship will work at the law firm of Oliff & Berridge in Alexandria, Va., for one semester. “Our students will be expected to perform as a first-year associate,” says David Deal, JD, director of WULAW’s Intellectual Property & Technology Law Program and co-director of the Intellectual Property and Nonprofit Organizations Legal Clinic at WULAW. This program is designed to immerse WULAW students in a law firm environment and facilitate the transition from law students to competent and productive practitioners.

Student Financial Services can help departments hire part-time student workers for the 2011-12 academic year. Departments hiring eligible federal work-study students pay only 50 percent of the student’s total earnings; the other 50 percent is covered with U.S. Department of Education funding. Work-study-eligible undergraduates worked in more than 170 university departments and offices during the 2010-11 academic year, and their work activities ranged from coordinating university-wide blood drives to serving as tutors.

Workers remove sections of roof on Umrath Hall July 7 and 8. Umrath Hall closed June 20 for a complete renovation of the interior of the building. Once the yearlong renovation is finished, the building will feature a new roof and interior walls, floors and ceiling finishes, along with new HVAC, fire protection and electrical systems.

A two-mile section of the Centennial Greenway, a planned 20-mile trail that crosses WUSTL’s Danforth Campus, is nearly complete. A dedication for the Melville/Delmar stretch of the greenway is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday, July 29, at the newly created pedestrian plaza just east of Fitz’s American Grill & Bottling Works on Delmar Boulevard.

Up to five PhD students from Taiwan per year will receive full-tuition and living stipend scholarships to attend Washington University because of a recent agreement signed between WUSTL and Taiwan’s Ministry of Education. Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Tony W.T. Lin, director general of the ministry’s Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations, signed a memorandum of understanding during a ceremony June 24 in Taipei City.

Falls and balance problems may be early indicators of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report July 17, 2011, at the Azheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Paris.

Community-engaged research will be the focus of a two-day conference at Washington University School of Medicine Sept. 26 and 27. The theme of the event is “Community engaged research: Exploring the unique community-academic relationship.”

The Italian government on July 14 passed an austerity package designed to balance the budget by 2014 and protect Italy from a debt crisis. Will it work? Most likely not, says an economist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Bariatric surgery is not only cost-effective for treating people who are severely obese, but also for those who are mildly obese, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings support making bariatric surgery available to all obese people, the researchers say.