Employee Appreciation Lunch to be held June 3

Washington University School of Medicine faculty and staff are invited to Hudlin Park for the School of Medicine’s Employee Appreciation Lunch June 3 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  This year’s event also will include information about the health aspects of walking.

Media advisory: WUSTL Commencement traffic

Traffic around Washington University in St. Louis will be very heavy the morning of Friday, May 20, due to the university’s annual Commencement ceremony. Some 15,000 people will attend the ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. Traffic backups should be anticipated on streets near the university, especially Forsyth, Big Bend, Forest Park Parkway and Skinker. Drivers who normally take those routes to work may want to consider an alternative on Friday morning or take Metro.

Natalie Sklobovskaya: Outstanding Graduate in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, College of Art

In the graphics art world, Natalie Sklobovskaya is that rare commodity — a triple threat. Sklobovskaya is not only a driven illustrator, but she also enjoys computer programing, writing and playing music, and creating websites. Those talents enable a nice collision of creativity that have allowed her to draw comics, animate them, score a soundtrack and upload them to a website she designed.She’ll graduate May 20 with a double major in communication design and computer science.

Zebrafish regrow fins using multiple cell types, not identical stem cells

What does it take to regenerate a limb? Biologists have long thought that organ regeneration in animals like zebrafish and salamanders involved stem cells that can generate any tissue in the body. But new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown that the individual cells in a regenerating limb retain their original identities and only give rise to more of their own kind.

‘You are our future’

Under Secretary of the Army Joseph W. Westphal, PhD, was on hand as 17 members of the Gateway Battalion, St. Louis’ Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) based at Washington University, were commissioned as new Army officers. The class of 17 cadets from area universities, including seven from WUSTL, received their two gold bars and took an oath of office during the 93rd annual Gateway Battalion Army ROTC Commissioning Ceremony, held May 13 at Tisch Commons in the Danforth University Center. 

Arts & Sciences senior receives London School of Economics scholarship

Chike Croslin, a graduating Arts & Sciences senior at Washington University in St. Louis, has received the Alumni and Friends of the London School of Economics Scholarship for 2011-12. The academic merit scholarship, given annually to an American citizen or permanent resident of the United States, covers full tuition fees for one year of graduate study at the London School of Economics. Croslin, a political science major with a minor in institutional social analysis, both in Arts & Sciences, will graduate from WUSTL May 20.

Media Advisory

Seethu Seetharaman, PhD, W. Patrick McGinnis Professor of Marketing at Olin Business School will speak May 17 in Kansas City about marketing in the digital age.

Researchers identify DNA region linked to depression

Researchers at Washington University and King’s College London have independently identified DNA on chromosome 3 that appears to be related to depression. The new studies identify a DNA region containing up to 90 genes. Both are published May 16 in the American Journal of Psychiatry