Mike McLaughlin has had a difficult life. The MBA student at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis was emotionally and physically abused as a child at the hands of his mother and stepfather — a tragedy in its own right but one in which he says helped prepare him for his next big challenge: through-hiking the Appalachian and Ozark trails back-to-back.
Ten thousand people with leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell and other life-threatening diseases need a bone marrow transplant to survive. Donors with diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds are especially needed, which is one reason why the student group WU Marrow Registry is conducting an on-campus registry drive at four locations on the Danforth Campus Wednesday, Feb. 29.
Disease-causing bacteria’s efforts to resist antibiotics may get help from their distant bacterial relatives that live in the soil, new research by Kevin Forsberg, a graduate student at Washington University School of Medicine suggests. The researchers found identical genes for antibiotic resistance in soil bacteria and in pathogens from clinics around the world.
The No. 24 men’s basketball team scored the last 11
points of the game and clinched the 2012 University Athletic Association
(UAA) championship with a 74-68 victory at New York University Feb. 19. Updates also included on women’s basketball, track and field, swimming and diving and women’s tennis.
Will stock in Facebook, which recently filed for
initial public offering (IPO), drop significantly following the end of
its IPO lock-up period later this year? It might if the company follows
recent trends, finds a new study by graduate students at Washington
University in St. Louis.
Randall Bateman, MD, had no intention of becoming a doctor when he enrolled as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis. As a faculty member at the School of Medicine since 2006, Bateman now focuses his research on Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers have found significant differences in brain development in infants as young as six months old who later develop autism, compared to babies who don’t develop the disorder. The new research, which relied on brain scans acquired at night while infants were naturally sleeping, suggests that autism doesn’t appear abruptly, but instead develops over time during infancy.
Many children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can benefit from medication for related disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “Unfortunately, there is very poor understanding of overall medication use for kids with autism,” says Paul T. Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. As a step toward improving the situation, Shattuck and colleagues studied psychotropic medication use compared across individuals with an ASD, ADHD and both an ASD with ADHD. “Observations from the present study reinforce the complexity of pharmacologic treatment of challenging behavior in kids with ASDs and ADHD. There needs to be a clearer guide for treating kids with both an ASD and ADHD,” he says.
The annual George Washington Week, sponsored by the sophomore honorary Lock & Chain, kicks off on President’s Day, Monday, Feb. 20. This year’s theme is “Who is WU?” Carriage rides, keynote speakers, community service and silent auctions all are being organized with a focus on diversity and heritage on the WUSTL campus and in the greater St. Louis area community.
Deanne Bell, an alumna of Washington University in St. Louis and host of popular science and technology-themed television shows, will share her love for a profession that she finds fun, creative, and critical to innovation, in an Assembly Series presentation at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24.
