McKelvey School of Engineering

Michael R. Brent and Tamara L. Doering examine data from the *C. neoformans* microarray.A team of collaborators, including two researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, has sequenced the genomes of two strains of the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans (C. neoformans), one which is virulent, the other harmless. This work provides researchers with clues on how the fungus does its dirty work and a host of genes to study for a better understanding of fungal pathogens in general. Estimates are that about 15 percent of people with HIV will suffer at least one life-threatening infection of C. neoformans. In Africa, that could be as much as 40 percent of HIV sufferers.

*Arabidopsis thaliana*A team headed by Craig Pikaard, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has discovered a fourth kind of RNA polymerase found only in plants and speculated to have been a plant feature for more than 200 million years.

The published work was done by postdoctoral researcher Thomas J. Hund and Yoram Rudy, the Fred Saigh Distinguished Professor of Engineering.

He is “a pre-eminent scholar and has produced seminal research that has made great leaps in his field of research,” Dean Christopher Byrnes says.

Photo by Joe AngelesResearch opportunities for undergrads like David Corley (left) will be facilitated by the University’s new Office of Undergraduate Research.Under Director Henry Biggs, it will help place students in research positions, promote their findings and award scholarships.

JostR. Gilbert Jost, M.D., the Elizabeth Mallinckrodt Professor and head of Radiology at the School of Medicine, has been named chairman of the board of directors of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The society is an organization of more than 37,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists and related scientists.

He and his research team are developing an information-theoretic foundation for the design and analysis of imaging systems.

David Kilper/WUSTL PhotoProfessor Yoram Rudy (center), with Ph.D. student Yong Wang (left) and post-doctroal fellow Leonid Livshitz (right), with their ECGI system on a mannequin, comment on the cardiac data.Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have developed the first mathematical model of a canine cardiac cell that incorporates a vital calcium regulatory pathway with implications for life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, or irregular heartbeats. Thomas J. Hund, Ph.D., post-doctoral researcher in Pathology ( in Dr. Jeffrey Saffitz laboratory) at the Washington University School of Medicine, and Yoram Rudy, The Fred Saigh Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Washington University, have incorporated the Calcium/Calmodulin-dependent Protein Kinase II (CaMKII) regulatory pathway into their model, improving the understanding of the relationship between calcium handling in cardiac cells and the cell’s electrical activity.

Yoram Rudy joined the University this fall as professor of biomedical engineering with joint appointments in the School of Medicine.

Yoram Rudy, Ph.D., professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has been installed as the inaugural Fred Saigh Distinguished Professor of Engineering. The professorship is the gift of the Saigh Foundation.