The BJC Institute of Health at Washington University School of Medicine was dedicated in June, amid a celebration featuring U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, and artist Maya Lin.
A team of scientists at Washington University has discovered that an ion-channel mutation that causes epilepsy may do so by making part of the channel protein stiffer, so that the channel toggles open more easily. This is the first time that protein dynamics have been implicated in the functioning of an ion channel.
Through a $631,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Master Teacher Scholarship Program, WUSTL’s Phyllis Balcerzak guides a group of local educators who study teacher leadership. The Noyce fellows collaborate with Balcerzak and other WUSTL faculty monthly. They develop leadership projects through professional organizations and other local school districts. Teachers accepted to the program have master’s degrees and several years of experience. They also receive a stipend for the three-year program.
Scientists once thought the fertilization effect of rising carbon dioxide concentrations would offset factors such as higher temperatures or drier soils that would reduce crops yields. This view is turning out to be overly optimistic. A new study shows that soybeans switch into unproductive metabolic activity at higher carbon dioxide concentrations. The invasive cheatgrass, on the other hand, has no switch, or control, and continues to efficiently transport water and assimilate carbon. Crop plants might need to be equipped with similar traits to survive future arid high-carbon dioxide environments.
Internationally acclaimed photographer Joe Deal, who served as dean of Washington University’s School of Art from 1989-99, died in hospice Friday, June 18, in Providence, RI, following a long struggle with cancer. He was 62.
When it comes to executing items on tomorrow’s to-do list, it’s best to think it over, then “sleep on it,” say psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis. The researchers have shown that sleep enhances our ability to remember to do something in the future, a skill known as prospective memory.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius spoke in the Ellen S. Clark Hope Plaza June 16 prior to the dedication of the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University School of Medicine.
In conjunction with National HIV Testing Day, free, confidential HIV testing is available June 28-July 1, from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Infectious Diseases Clinic, 4570 Children’s Place. No appointment is necessary.
The Brookings Institution and Washington University’s Academic Venture Fund (AVF) is seeking proposals from fellows, faculty, staff, centers, institutes and programs.
