Apply now for LEAP challenge

Applications for the next cycle of the university’s LEAP Inventor Challenge are due by Monday, June 5. University faculty, postdoctoral, staff and graduate student teams are eligible.

Anne and John McDonnell receive Harris award

Anne and John McDonnell receive the 2017 Harris award
Philanthropists Anne and John McDonnell became the 18th couple awarded the annual Jane and Whitney Harris St. Louis Community Service Award, which honors a St. Louis husband-and-wife team who contributed in an outstanding manner to the civic and cultural well-being of the region.

Study urges aggressive treatment for sepsis

Tiffany M. Osborn, MD, professor of surgery and of emergency medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is a leading expert in sepsis. She co-authored a study published May 21 in The New England Journal of Medicine that stresses the need for an aggressive response to the condition.

A ring to bind them

Using genomics, a chemistry lab has worked out the biosynthetic machinery that makes a new class of antibiotic compounds called the beta-lactones. Like the beta-lactams, such as penicillin, they have an unstable four-member ring. The key to their antibiotic activity, it is also difficult to synthesize.

Death by volcano?

The discovery of anomalously high levels of mercury in rocks from the Ordivician geological period has led to a new interpretation of the ensuing mass extinction. A sequence of disturbances may have led to catastrophic cooling by reflective sulfate aerosols injected into the atmosphere by massive volcanism. The finding is important since aerosol cooling is under consideration as a way to temper global warming.

Campus Kitchen seeks summer volunteers

The Campus Kitchen at Washington University seeks volunteers during the summer to help prepare meals for the hungry. Cooking shifts are 6-8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays from June 6 through Aug. 10 at the First Congregational Church on Wydown Boulevard.