Life-threatening bacterial infections and brain tumors are just some of the serious health issues affecting children. Now, 12 Washington University School of Medicine research teams are preparing to ask – and answer – critical questions about these and other pediatric health problems with help from $3 million in new grants from the Children’s Discovery Institute, led by Mary Dinauer, MD, PhD.
Rebecca Dresser, JD, the Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law and professor of ethics at the School of Medicine, was diagnosed with head and neck cancer six years ago. For perspective, she reached out to other medical ethicists, who had either had cancer themselves, or had a spouse diagnosed with the disease. The group’s meetings became the basis for the book, Malignant: Medical Ethicists Confront Cancer.
Research by WUSTL anthropologist Crickette Sanz, PhD, and colleague David Morgan, PhD, has spurred the Republic of Congo to enlarge its Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park boundaries to include the Goualougo Triangle. The Goualougo Triangle is a remote, pristine forest that is home to at least 14 communities of “naïve” chimpanzees with little exposure to humans.
At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting Thursday and Friday, March 1 and 2, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton reported on a number of recent developments on the Medical and Danforth campuses. Trustees also heard special reports on innovations in medical research and clinical practice.
“Someone at Washington University in St. Louis just hit the lecture jackpot.” So quipped Blair Kamin, the Chicago Tribune’s influential architecture critic. On Monday, Feb. 27, just two days before his scheduled talk for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, architect Wang Shu became the first Chinese citizen to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, generally considered the profession’s highest honor.
The Campus Diversity Collaborative, which aims to increase awareness of diversity and inclusion issues at Washington University in St. Louis, is seeking new members among faculty and staff. Those who participate do not necessarily have diversity promotion as an official job duty, but share a passion for the issue and are able to impact the greater WUSTL community through their participation.
The annual African Film Festival at Washington University in St. Louis begins Friday, March 23. Over the course of three days, eight different films will showcase the African continent and its people. During a youth matinee, award-winning director, writer and animator Cilia Sawadogo will answer audience questions about her film.
Art may be subjective, but it is not entirely so. Aesthetic interest also can be understood in terms of a work’s power to engage cognitive and perceptual systems common to all human brains. This is the central premise of neuroaesthetics, an emerging field that draws on neuroscience, psychology and philosophy to explore questions relating to beauty, artistic expression and art history. It is also the premise behind Art and the Mind-Brain, now on view in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum’s Teaching Gallery.
Junior Carol Nnabuife (left) and freshman Eiftu
Haile, both in Arts & Sciences, dance during ‘A Taste of Africa,’ a
Feb. 27 kick-off event for Africa Week. The full week of activities also featured fashion and comedy shows, an in-depth roundtable discussion and a dance workshop.
Scientists at Washington University School of
Medicine in St. Louis, including Jimmy Lin, PhD, are reaching out to patient advocacy groups and
offering to decode the DNA of 99 patients with rare diseases to help
find the genetic alterations responsible for their illnesses. The patients’ DNA will be sequenced by the university’s Genomics and Pathology Services (GPS) at no cost to patients or advocacy groups.
