McKelvey School of Engineering

Photo by David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoThoroughman (background) and Taylor tracked the moves that people make.Practice makes perfect when people learn behaviors, from baseball pitching to chess playing to public speaking. Biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have now identified how people use individual experiences to improve performance.

Photo by David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoScott (left) and Elbert looking for sticky proteins.Biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have found a new role for the blood protein serum amyloid P in the body’s response to medical materials, which may help to explain a variety of problems associated with heart-lung bypass, hemodialysis and the use of artificial vascular grafts. Donald Elbert, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of biomedical engineering, used advanced protein separations and mass spectrometry to track the proteins on the surfaces of various polymers used in medical devices. The analysis techniques, collectively called ‘proteomics,’ are most often used to study protein expression in cells.

The engineering dean has been “a tireless advocate for the University as a whole and worked very effectively,” Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton says.

ByrnesChristopher I. Byrnes, Ph.D., dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science and the Edward H. and Florence G. Skinner Professor in Systems Science and Mathematics, has announced his intention to retire as dean after 15 years in the position, effective June 30, 2006, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

Opened to external users in June, the Open Network Laboratory has already registered users from 14 different institutions.

A router in the new Open Network Laboratory, funded by NSF.A novel networking service has been made available to the research community by computer scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, enabling researchers and students remote, free use of the latest networking technology. Ultimately, the new Open Network Laboratory (ONL )can lead to innovations that can expand the capability of the Internet and other networking environments, said its director, Jonathan S. Turner, Ph.D., Henry Edwin Sever Professor of Engineering, and professor of computer science and engineering at WUSTL.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoFegley and Schaefer examine a meteorite.Using primitive meteorites called chondrites as their models, earth and planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have performed outgassing calculations and shown that the early Earth’s atmosphere was a reducing one, chock full of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor. In making this discovery Bruce Fegley, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and Laura Schaefer, laboratory assistant, reinvigorate one of the most famous and controversial theories on the origins of life, the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment, which yielded organic compounds necessary to evolve organisms.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

How exactly does the human brain react to a fall or an automobile accident? Researchers at Washington University are working to answer that question through a new computer model based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Learn more in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article.