Newsroom Stories

Health-care specialists, including Sarah J. Gehlert, PhD, at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, are working to improve breast cancer care for African-American women living in North St. Louis City, where death rates from breast cancer are disproportionately high.

Artists background for 2011-12 Edison Ovations Series.

Trisha Lollo has been named vice president of cancer services for the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.

Chancellor Emeritus William H. Danforth, MD, spoke about the contributions of Robert S. Brookings to Washington University, St. Louis and the United States during the June 23 dedication of the Brookings star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Brookings served as president of WUSTL’s Board of Trustees from 1895-1928. Brookings’ star is located on the corner of Delmar and Skinker boulevards, just outside WUSTL’s Corner Building.

Excess nutrients, such as fat and sugar, don’t just pack on the pounds but can push some cells in the body over the brink. Unable to tolerate this “toxic” environment, these cells commit suicide. Now, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered three unexpected players that help a cell overloaded with fat initiate its own demise.

A rare 1950s comic book, titled Negro Romance, that Gerald Early, PhD, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in Arts & Sciences and director of the Center for the Humanities, bought on Ebay is the focus of a mystery in an upcoming episode of PBS’ History Detectives. Early wants to know: Did black artists create this book? Who was the intended audience? Host Gwendolyn Wright gets the answers. The episode will air locally at 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 12, on Nine PBS. It will be repeated at 1 a.m. Thursday, July 14, and 4 p.m. Sunday, July 17. 

Tiffany L. Stanley, most recently a reporter-researcher at The New Republic magazine, has been named managing editor of a forthcoming online journal from the Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. R. Marie Griffith, PhD, the center’s new director and the John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, announced Stanley’s appointment, which was effective July 1, 2011.

Rising senior Liz Phillips of the women’s track & field team was named a Capital One First-Team Academic All-American June 23. She is the first WUSTL women’s track & field student athlete to garner academic All-America honors since Morgen Leonard-Fleckman received first-team accolades in 2008. Other WUSTL sports updates will be added throughout the month of July, 2011.

WUSTL’s University College in Arts & Sciences will host a reception titled “Food For Thought” for prospective students of the Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) program at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 4, at Jimmy’s on the Park in Clayton, Mo. The evening’s topic will be “Why Shakespeare Matters.” At the event, prospective students can meet faculty, staff and students from University College and learn about the MLA program.

What can Waffle House teach about disaster preparedness and risk management, especially in the wake of this spring’s devastating tornados? Plenty, says a supply chain expert at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis.