McKelvey School of Engineering

The standard experimental setup for measuring the cellular uptake of nanoparticles is to place cells in a well on a culture plate and cover them with culture medium containing nanoparticles. The assumption underlying these experiments is that the particles remain well-dispersed. But when a Washington University scientist turned cell cultures upside down, he discovered that this assumption doesn’t always hold. Some experiments preparing for the clinical use of nanoparticles may therefore need to be redone.

Rodolphe L. (Rudy) Motard, DSc, professor of chemical engineering and chairman of the chemical engineering department from 1978-1991, died April 23, 2011, in South St. Louis County surrounded by his family. He was 85.

Srinivasan Sridharan, PhD, professor of civil engineering since 1980, died April 24, 2011. He was 69.

Graduate students from across Washington University gathered April 4 for the Graduate Professional Council’s (GPC) Bridging GAPS Awards Ceremony in Danforth University Center. The annual ceremony, organized by the GPC, is a recognition and celebration of the important role that graduate student leadership plays in enhancing interdisciplinary endeavors and the graduate student community.

WUSTL will celebrate Earth Day Friday, April 22, and many sustainability-themed events are planned for the week of April 18-23 throughout the Danforth and Medical campuses, including an owl walk, bike ride, Low-Carbon Cook-Off and Green Cup awards ceremony.

The Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering and the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis have announced a new dual-degree program that combines a master’s degree in engineering and a master’s of business administration. Students can earn an M.Eng and MBA degree in two-and-a-half years with a focus on energy, the environment and corporate sustainability.

The School of Engineering & Applied Science’s Alumni Achievement Awards dinner was held Feb. 23. A reception for the five recipients was held in Brauer Hall, followed by dinner in Whitaker Hall. Three alumni received Alumni Achievement Awards, one was given the Young Alumni Award and one was honored with the Dean’s Award.

A research group at Washington University in St. Louis has received more than $2 million to test a biomimetic material that promises to improve the success rate of the more than 75,000 rotator cuff (shoulder tendon) repairs performed each year in the United States. The natural attachment of tendon to bone relies on a transition zone where the material properties of bone shade into those of tendon. The biodegradable patch would provide an environment where stem cells could recreate this transition after surgery, making repairs less prone to failure.

Daniel Moran, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering and neurobiology in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, is developing brain-computer interfaces based on grids of electrodes that lie beneath the skull but outside the dura mater, the protective membrane that covers the brain. His next project is to slip a thin 32-electrode grid he designed with a colleague under a macaque’s skill and to train the monkey to control — strictly by thinking about it — a computational model of a macaque arm.

Pioneering game developer Ernest Adams, who had a hand in developing the Madden NFL Football line and Dungeon Keeper, will be on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis for an Assembly Series presentation at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.