Research Wire

Two Washington University in St. Louis anthropology researchers recently won grants from the Leakey Foundation.

Four years after Washington University researchers detected a possible link between risk for Alzheimer’s disease and the appearance of the eye’s retina, a $10.3 million grant from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is expanding the effort to understand that connection.

Jessica Wagenseil, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, plans to take a closer look at the mechanics on smooth muscle cells in the aortic wall with a four-year $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Results may help to identify new drug strategies.

Jake Funkhouser, a ngraduate student in the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences, received a $2,000 research grant from the Animal Behavior Society.

Ilaria Patania, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences, received a $25,000 research grant from The Leakey Foundation.

Proscovia Nabunya, at the Brown School; and Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, at the School of Medicine, have received a five-year $1.2 million research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to address depression among youth living with HIV in Uganda.

Patients with social needs had a higher number of hospitalizations, obesity, prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes, finds a new study from the Brown School on the social determinants of health.

Richard D. Vierstra, the George and Charmaine Mallinckrodt Professor of Biology, received a four-year $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue his project titled “Phytochromes: Structural Perspectives on Photoactivation and Signaling.”

Ning Zhang, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, plans to develop new defense tactics for blockchain with a four-year $360,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. 

A new imaging technology from the lab of Matthew Lew at the McKelvey School of Engineering uses reflection and refraction to more directly see molecules’ orientation and position.