McKelvey School of Engineering

Photo by Joe AngelesJohn Woock was named both an NCAA College Football National Scholar-Athlete and an ESPN The Magazine First-Team Academic All-American.

The School of Engineering & Applied Science is a sponsor of the world’s premier software engineering annual forum May 15-21.

Carinne Blank has a method she uses to date ancient life forms that could be helpful for specimens from Mars.A geologist from Washington University in St. Louis is developing new techniques to render a more coherent story of how primitive life arose and diverged on Earth – with implications for Mars.

Mars Exploration Rover mission scientists remind us that the amazing success of the rovers *Spirit* and *Opportunity* is a harbinger for the day when humans inhabit the Red Planet.The major drawback to a human mission to Mars is preparing for the one to two years of radiation and microgravity exposure that astronauts must endure. While that is a large hurdle, enabling technologies are emerging that should be able to make this goal a reality over the next couple of decades, and America should go for it. That’s the theme of a report from NASA’s 2002 Astrobiology Academy appearing soon as a paper in Acta Astronautica.

St. Louis is the site for the world’s premier software engineering annual conference from May 15-21 at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. The 27th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2005) features the latest research in software engineering, displays, exhibits, seminars, co-located conferences, and social gatherings that bring the world’s elite together in an unprecedented hub of activity in information technology (IT) in the Gateway City. Gruia-Catalin Roman, Ph.D., Harold B. and Adelaide G. Welge Professor of Computer Science and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, is the general chair for ICSE 2005 and was highly influential in bringing the conference to St. Louis,

They were able to match the genetic sequence of the bacterium Mycobacterium avium to the same bacterium found in the lungs of ill lifeguards.

Photo by Kevin LowderEngineering student council members constructed birdhouses that will be sold at Thurtene Carnival; proceeds go to WashU Build.

Photo by Rose BrowerChemical engineering’s John Gleaves had an April Fool’s joke — an office full of balloons — played on him by his graduate students.

Combinatorial chemistry provides researchers a vast library from which to choose.A researcher studying drug design for nerve damage therapies has gotten her answer to questions by following some old advice: she used the library. It’s not the kind of library her mother or teacher suggested, but a combinatorial chemistry library of many different protein sequences that some day might help her and her colleagues develop a successful timed drug delivery system.

A WUSTL researcher has identified a bacterium as the pathogen living on bubbles in hot water environments.A team of researchers, led by an environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis, has applied a molecular approach to identify the biological particles in aerosol responsible for making employees of a Colorado hospital therapeutic pool ill. They found: when the bubble bursts, the bacteria disperse, and lifeguards get pneumonia-like symptoms.