Arts & Sciences

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoKevin Moeller’s group is pioneering new methods for building libraries of small molecules on addressable electrode arrays.A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis is making molecules the new-fashioned way — selectively harnessing thousands of minuscule electrodes on a tiny computer chip that do chemical reactions and yield molecules that bind to receptor sites. Kevin Moeller, Ph.D., Washington University professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, is doing this so that the electrodes on the chip can be used to monitor the biological behavior of up to 12,000 molecules at the same time.

Photosynthesis transforms light, carbon dioxide and water into chemical energy in plants and some bacteria.When it comes to studying energy transfer in photosynthesis, it’s good to think “outside the bun.” That’s what Robert Blankenship, Ph.D., professor of biology and chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, did when he contributed a protein that he calls the taco shell protein to a study performed by his collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley. The protein enabled the surprising discovery of a quantum effect in photosynthesis.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoPratim Biswas and his group have developed a method to make a variety of oxide semiconductors that, when put into water promote chemical reactions that split water into hydrogen and oxygen.Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a unique photocatalytic cell that splits water to produce hydrogen and oxygen in water using sunlight and the power of a nanostructured catalyst. The group is developing novel methodologies for synthesis of nanostructured films with superior opto-electronic properties.

Nancy and Kenneth Kranzberg, passionate supporters of artistic, educational and cultural organizations throughout the St. Louis region, received the eighth annual Jane and Whitney Harris Saint Louis Community Service Award at a ceremony at the Harbison House on Feb. 20. Their prize, a $50,000 cash gift, will be distributed to six non-profit organizations of their choice. The award is the gift of the late Jane Freund Harris and Whitney Harris. In 1999 they established the award, to be given to a husband and wife who are dedicated to improving the St. Louis community.

From the helicopter assault in Apocalypse Now to Elmer Fudd singing “kill da wabbit” in What’s Opera, Doc?, “Ride of the Valkyries” by Richard Wagner (1813-83) is one of the most recognized motifs in Western music. The Washington University Opera will perform “Ride of the Valkyries” from Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (1870) as part of its “Evening at the Opera” concert at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, May 4 and 5,

The International Symposium on Energy and Environment, sponsored by the McDonnell International Scholars Academy, will bring prominent international university presidents to campus May 4-7, marking the first such gathering in the United States.

The Washington University Concert Choir and the Washington University Symphony Orchestra will present the 2007 Chancellor’s Concert at 3 p.m. April 29 in the University’s E. Desmond Lee Auditorium at 560 Trinity Ave.

“A Temple of Texts” by William H. Gass, Ph.D., the David May Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is the 2007 winner of the $30,000 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in Memory of Newton Arvin. The Capote Award, the largest annual cash prize for literary criticism in the English language, is administered for the Truman Capote Estate by the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.

WUSTL engineers have developed a unique photocatlytic cell that splits water to produce hydrogen and oxygen in water using sunlight and the power of a nanostructured catalyst. The technique will be demonstrated at a poster session May 6, 2007, at the International Symposium on Energy and Environment, held at the University.

Sir Michael Atiyah, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century, will be at Washington University on Friday, May 11, to deliver a talk on “Beauty and Truth in Mathematics.” The lecture, appropriate for a general audience, will be held at 5 p.m. in Crow Hall Room 201, and is free and open to the public.