McKelvey School of Engineering

Himadri Pakrasi, PhD, director of WUSTL’s International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES), has become the inaugural holder of the Myron and Sonya Glassberg/Albert and Blanche Greensfelder Distinguished University Professor.

For 100 years, the dogma has been that amino-acid sequences determine protein folding and that the folded structure determines the protein’s function. But as a Washington University in St. Louis engineer explains in the  Sept. 20 issue of Science, a large class of proteins doesn’t adhere to the structure-function paradigm. Called intrinsically disordered proteins, these proteins fail fold either in whole or in part and yet they are functional.

Washington University undergraduate students with great solutions to problems can win $25,000 to take their innovative ideas from concept to their own business. The School of Engineering & Applied Science has launched the Discovery Competition with the goal to promote new and innovative discoveries to solve challenges or needs.

This summer, WUSTL students participating in the International Experience in Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering went to Brazil to study its booming biofuel industry. Applications now are being accepted for next year’s trip to Australia. The topics to be studied are coal, coal-seam gas, wastewater treatment, biofuels and the geothermal industry.

Two new interdisciplinary exective education courses bring together experts from across the Danforth Campus to explore emerging concepts that will impact the future of industries, economies and the environment. The two-day and three-day seminars will take place near the end of October.

Lihong Wang, PhD, the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering has received an National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award to explore novel imaging techniques using light that promise significant improvements in biomedical imaging and light therapy.

Researchers from the new interdisciplinary Center for Biological Systems Engineering at Washington University will host its inaugural symposium, sponsored by Lockheed Martin, from 8 a.m.-3:45 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7, in Whitaker Hall, Room 100. Rohit V. Pappu, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering, directs the new center. Lockheed Martin is sponsoring the symposium.

Scientists have combined two existing forms of medical imaging — photoacoustic and ultrasound — to generate high-contrast, high-resolution images that could help doctors spot tumors more quickly.

The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) has announced the six winners of the 2012 University Research Strategic Alliance (URSA) grants. The grants offer a one-year, $25,000 award to full-time faculty members at WUSTL who begin a new collaboration with investigators from different disciplines. Researchers who receive the seed funding will work together in a new area of research or plan to approach a problem in a different way.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced that a team of engineers at WUSTL will receive $2 million to design a battery management system for lithium-ion batteries that will guarantee their longevity, safety and performance. These technologies could revolutionize the way Americans store and use energy in electric vehicles, the electrical grid and beyond.