Skandalaris Center announces winners of YouthBridge competition​

Five teams focused on serving children and youth recently won the 10th annual YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition (SEIC). Hosted by the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis in partnership with the YouthBridge Community Foundation, the competition also receives support from the Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis and the Daughters of Charity Foundation of St. Louis.

Brown School honors alumni

The Brown School held its 2015 Distinguished Alumni Awards event on April 14, honoring six alumni.

Biologist Dixit receives $1M NIH grant

Ram V. Dixit, PhD, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a four-year, $1.17 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “Mechanisms for the Function and Regulation of Katanin.”

Whiffenpoofs? Yes, Whiffenpoofs

Whiffenpoofs
On a frosty winter’s night in 1909, five members of the Yale Glee Club convened at Mory’s Temple Bar to escape the New Haven cold. Thus was born the world’s oldest and best-known collegiate a cappella group. On Monday, April 27, the Whiffenpoofs will descend on Washington University in St. Louis for a puckish evening of traditional and popular song.

Gene variant linked to smoking longer, getting lung cancer sooner

Smokers with a specific genetic variation are more likely to keep smoking longer than those who don’t have the gene variant. They’re also more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer at a younger age, according to new research from Laura Jean Bierut, MD (left), and Li-Shiun Chen, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Remembering Harold Blumenfeld

A portrait of Harold Blumenfeld
The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will honor professor emeritus Harold Blumenfeld, who died last fall at he age of 91, with a Memorial Concert in Graham Chapel April 19. The performance will feature Blumenfeld’s settings of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and Arthur Rimbaud as well as works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Paul Hindemith and Franz Schubert.

Study finds 1.2 percent of preschoolers on Medicaid use psychotropic drugs

A new study finds that that 1.2 percent of American preschool children on Medicaid are using psychotropic drugs, including antidepressants, mood stabilizers and medications for attention-deficit disorder. Using 2000-2003 Medicaid Analytic Extract data from 36 states, a group of researchers at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found preschoolers are receiving psychotropic medications despite limited evidence supporting safety or efficacy.

Researcher Burgers receives $2M NIH grant for DNA research

Peter M. Burgers, PhD, the Marvin A. Brennecke Professor of Biological Chemistry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received a four-year, $2.04 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “Enzymology of Replication of Yeast Chromosomal DNA.”