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Medicine & Health

Scientists have new help finding brain’s nooks and crannies

Brain myelin maps
Like explorers mapping a new planet, scientists probing the brain need every type of landmark they can get. Each mountain, river or forest helps scientists find their way through the intricacies of the human brain. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new technique that provides rapid access to brain landmarks formerly only available at autopsy.
Business & Entrepreneurship

Dresser appointed to NIH advisory committee

Rebecca Dresser, JD, the Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law and professor of ethics in medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, has been appointed to the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health. The committee serves a critical role in the oversight of federally funded research involving recombinant DNA.  

Danforth University Center birthday event Aug. 11

The Danforth University Center turns 3 years old this summer, and the DUC is hosting a birthday celebration at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 11, at Graham Memorial Chapel on the university’s Danforth Campus. The event is open to the public.
Science & Technology

Wireless network in hospital monitors vital signs

A clinical warning system undergoing a feasibility study at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis will include wireless sensors that take blood oxygenation and heart-rate readings from at-risk patients once or twice a minute. The data  and lab results in the electronic medical record will be continually scrutinized by a machine-learning algorithm looking for signs of clinical deterioration. If any such signs are found, the system will call a nurse on a cellphone, alerting the nurse to check on the patient.
Business & Entrepreneurship

Pet inheritance: the trouble with Trouble’s money

Estate planning with Fido in mind? Better be careful, says a trusts and estates expert at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. The issue has been in the news recently. British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who died in February 2010, left a sizeable sum of money to his beloved dogs; Trouble, the recently deceased dog of “The Queen of Mean,” Leona Helmsley, famously inherited $12 million. Beyond celebrities, a powerful pet inheritance constituency thrives. Between 12 percent and 27 percent of owners have provisions for their pets in their wills. But what happens to the inheritance when the pet passes?
Humanities & Society

Exhibit highlights biomedical travesties of the Holocaust

A traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum called “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” highlights how physicians, geneticists, anthropologists and others in the healing professions developed and participated in the Holocaust. The exhibit opens Monday, Aug. 8, at the Bernard Becker Medical Library at Washington University School of Medicine and will be on display until Sunday, Oct. 30.

WUSTL, staff win safety awards

Washington University, two administrators and a School of Medicine department have received safety awards from the Campus Safety Health and Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA) and the National Safety Council. WUSTL was recognized with CSHEMA’s 2011 Complete Safety Program Award of Merit for excellence in the university’s institutional safety and compliance programs.