McKelvey School of Engineering

Rendering of the new CORTEX buildingEfforts to develop a significant biotechnology industry in St. Louis got a major boost with the groundbreaking for a new laboratory and office building that will provide space for growing companies. The new building at 4300 Forest Park Avenue in midtown St. Louis is being developed by CORTEX, the Center of Research, Technology & Entrepreneurial Exchange.

Pratim Biswas has found a method for removing MTBE, which been detected at low levels in municipal water sources around the nation.

“Experimental failure is a basic element of university life, and from the university perspective a failed spacecraft is not necessarily a failed mission,” Michael Swartwout said.

Ever since Dora E. Angelaki, Ph.D., left the small Greek island of Crete to attend college, she’s pursued her dream of becoming an academic with what her colleagues agree is one of her most distinguishing features: energy. “Dora is a scientific dynamo, and her boundless energy and enthusiasm are infectious for students and faculty alike,” […]

Photo by David KilperSenior chemical engineering major Bia Henriques discusses her research with Robyn Bartosch at a recent poster session at the Knight Center.

David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoFailure at a university is a word with bad connotations, unless you are involved in building experimental satellites that the U.S. Air Force and NASA find interesting. An aerospace engineer at Washington University in St. Louis who works with students building experimental spacecraft says student-built spacecraft, which he calls “university-class,” have a strong advantage over aerospace industry-built spacecraft: the freedom to fail.

A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis has found surprisingly tough enzymes in a bacterium that “just says no to acid.” Acid resistance is a valued trait for both pills and human pathogens. The bacterium Acetobacter aceti makes unusually acid-resistant enzymes in spades, which could make the organism a source for new enzyme products and new directions in protein chemistry.

Washington University in St. Louis has licensed a system developed by Washington University engineers that is meant to detect counterfeit credit cards by reading a unique magnetic “fingerprint” on the stripes of credit cards and other objects that carry magnetic information. The system — called Magneprint — was invented by Ronald Indeck, Ph.D., Das Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering at Washington University.

It detects counterfeit credit cards by reading a unique magnetic “fingerprint” on the stripes of the cards and other objects that carry information.

SternThe eyes may well be the window to the soul, but they also are indicators of the mind’s condition. People who have watched the presidential and vice-presidential debates earlier this month and preparing for the final debate on Oct. 13 could gather clues to the candidates’ state of mind by watching the candidates’ eyes. According to John Stern, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, and pioneer of blinking research, there is solid evidence that people blink frequently at points in time when they momentarily stop taking in and processing information.