Scientists have shown that a specific virus can interact with a mutation in the host’s genes to trigger disease. The observation may help explain why many people with disease risk genes do not actually develop disease.
Friends and colleagues of Owen Sexton, PhD (right), professor emeritus of biology in Arts & Sciences and former director of Tyson Research Center, joined him June 17 at the facility to thank him for his mentorship and for advocating the purchase of the research center, WUSTL’s 2,000-acre field station in the Ozark foothills 20 miles outside of St. Louis.
Ralph G. Dacey Jr., MD, assisted by scrub technician Tinika Noldin, uses an endoscope to examine a pituitary tumor. On the monitor: a pituitary gland. Richard A. Chole, MD, PhD, was in his home workshop, and the sparks were flying. Chole is an ear, nose and throat specialist and surgeon. But on this day he […]
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.
