Newsroom Stories

Jerome R. Cox Jr., ScD, senior professor, and Jonathan S. Turner, PhD, the Barbara J. and Jerome R. Cox, Jr. Professor, both in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, will receive the 2011 Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship during the Faculty Achievement Awards ceremony at 6 p.m. Dec. 3 in Simon Hall Auditorium.

Law students have a new opportunity to learn firsthand about the practice of business associations and regulation in the nation’s largest city through Washington University in St. Louis School of Law’s New York City Regulatory & Business Externship. Offered for the first time this fall, the semester-long clinical experience includes a variety of legal externship opportunities, including those with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, New York City Department of Finance, Standard & Poor’s/McGraw Hill, Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Attorney General’s Office, Anheuser-Busch’s New York headquarters and the New York City Law Department. 

Legendary guitarist Ralph Towner is one of the finest improvisers in modern jazz and one of the few to specialize in acoustic guitar. At 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, Towner will present an evening of both standards and original music for Washington University’s Jazz at Holmes Series. In addition, on Oct. 26, Towner will take part in “The Music of Ralph Towner and The ECM Movement,” a symposium exploring both Towner’s work and the music of other artists associated with ECM Records.

Twelve current or former Washington University in St. Louis students have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships to study, conduct research and/or teach English abroad for the 2011-12 academic year. They are among 1,600 U.S. citizens who will spend a full academic year in a host country through the Fulbright Program.    

The Department of Energy has funded a three-university collaboration led by Washington University in St. Louis to approach the problem of algal fuels systematically.In a two-step project, the team will first attempt a comprehensive understanding of the metabolic machinery of selected cyanobacterial strains and then implement that understanding by assembling a novel bacterium with the machinery needed to produce fuel molecules. They will be bringing to bear on the problem of algal fuels the most sophisticated approaches contemporary biology now has to offer: systems biology and synthetic biology.

Washington University in St. Louis has received a five-year, $3 million grant to establish a new center to develop better ways to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes in high-risk patients, including American Indians and Alaska Natives, says Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, director of the new center. 

A new series, called the Danforth Dialogues, demonstrates how persons with profoundly different views can engage each other forcefully and respectfully. Sen. John C. Danforth moderated the first discussion between Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind. The series is co-sponsored by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics.

Take a walk on the second floor of North Brookings Hall past the Bridge Conference Room, and you’ll see a different take on a familiar face. A painting of Robert S. Brookings, president of WUSTL’s Board of Trustees from 1895-1928, arrived in September and now hangs on the west-facing wall. The new portrait was painted in 1905 by noted American Impressionist artist Richard E. Miller and replaced another painting of Brookings in the Bridge Conference Room.

Cultivars of popular ornamental woody plants that are being sold in the United States as non-invasive are probably anything but, according to an analysis by a Washington University in St. Louis botanical researcher published in the October issue of BioScience.

High-dose vitamin E supplements increase the risk of prostate cancer, results of a large clinical trial show. The study’s findings, published Oct. 12, 2011, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are based on an updated review of data from the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT).