Washington People: Chris Carpenter​​

Watching his grandparents struggle at the end of their long lives hasmotivated Chris Carpenter, MD, an associate professor of emergency medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, to work countless hours to improve emergency room care for older adults and to help create a new medical subspecialty — geriatric emergency medicine.

Deshields named psychosocial oncology society fellow​

Teresa Deshields, PhD, manager of Siteman Counseling Service at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, has been chosen as a 2015 fellow by the American Psychosocial Oncology Society.

Two-drug combo helps older adults with hard-to-treat depression ​

More than half of older adults with clinical depression don’t get better when treated with an antidepressant. But results from a multicenter clinical trial that included Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that adding a second drug — an antipsychotic medication — to the treatment regimen helps many of those patients.

$2.4 million instrument upgrade will let scientists see what is happening inside microbes​​

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded David Fike, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences, $2.4 million to adapt a powerful chemical microscope called the 7F-GEO SIMS for biological samples. The updated instrument’s ability to map the chemistry inside cells will boost research on microbes that are promising candidates for biofuel or bioenergy production.

WashU Expert: Boehner unable to pacify ‘no compromise’ Tea Party

While party politics have put House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in the hot seat in recent months, his hasty resignation from Congress this morning was unexpected, suggests Steven S. Smith, PhD, a nationally recognized expert on congressional politics at Washington University in St. Louis.

WashU Expert: Pope Francis’ push for social justice builds on core Catholic tradition – mercy

While Pope Francis’ whirlwind tour of the United States might seem like a politicized poke-in-the-eye to some conservative American Catholics, his itinerary and social justice talking points closely mirror core Catholic beliefs detailed in church scripture since Matthew wrote his gospel, suggests a historian of Christianity at Washington University in St. Louis.