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University News
Exterior is nearly complete on the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University:
The exterior of the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University is almost a wrap. The building is enclosed in 24,000 square-feet of insulated metal panels, 20,800 square-feet of brick, 99,000 square-feet of limestone panels, and 75,000 square-feet of glass. The focus now continues inward as crews prepare the building for a December 2009 opening.
NIH grants $19 million to Medical School:
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Washington University School of Medicine scientists four grants totaling $19 million to explore the trillions of microbes that inhabit the human body and to determine how they contribute to good health and disease. The grants are part of the Human Microbiome Project, an ongoing, ambitious effort to catalog the bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other microorganisms that naturally coexist in or on the body.
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum announces 2009-10 schedule:
In an unstable world chance events can seem to threaten our claims to self-determination. Yet, in the early 20th century avant-garde artists embraced chance as a primary compositional principle. This fall the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Chance Aesthetics, a major loan exhibition examining the use of chance in modern art. The exhibition is the first of four major shows slated for the 2009-10 academic year.
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Research
Extremely high energy:
An international collaboration of 390 scientists reports the discovery of an outburst of very-high-energy (VHE) gamma radiation from the giant radio galaxy Messier 87 (M 87), accompanied by a strong rise of the radio flux measured from the direct vicinity of its supermassive black hole. The combined results give first experimental evidence that particles are accelerated to extremely high energies of tera electron Volt (one electron Volt is the energy an electron or proton gains when it is accelerated by a voltage of one Volt) in the immediate vicinity of a supermassive black hole and then emit the observed gamma rays. The gamma rays have energies a trillion times higher than the energy of visible light.
Economic racial divide in the U.S. — Are we over race?:
"With President Obama now approaching [now actually] six months in office, some have suggested that we have gone beyond race as a major dividing line in society. Yet nothing could be further from the truth," says Mark R. Rank, Ph.D., professor of social work at Washington University. "One of the fundamental fault lines in American society continues to be the ongoing racial disparities in economic well-being." Using 30 years of data, Rank examined three key factors in attaining economic well-being: owning a home and building equity, attaining affluence and avoiding poverty, and possessing enough assets to survive economic turmoil or a "rainy day fund." "The results indicate that within each area the economic racial divide across the American life course is immense," Rank says.
Scoliosis study aims to determine bracing's effectiveness:
Washington University School of Medicine is participating in a national trial to determine whether back braces for adolescents with scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, are effective in preventing the condition from progressing and, if so, which patients most benefit. The medical center is one of 25 sites across the United States and Canada participating in the trial, called the Bracing in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis Trial, one of the first clinical trials in pediatric orthopedics funded by the National Institutes of Health.
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| Features
Apollo 11 moon rocks still crucial 40 years later, say WUSTL researchers:
A lunar geochemist at Washington University says that there are still many answers to be gleaned from the moon rocks collected by the Apollo 11 astronauts on their historic moonwalk 40 years ago. And he credits another Washington University professor for the fact that the astronauts even collected the moon rocks in the first place. Randy L. Korotev, Ph.D., a research professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, has studied lunar samples and their chemical compositions since he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin and "was in the right place at the right time" in 1969 to be a part of a team to study some of the first lunar samples.
This summer's Alberti Program began with a solar-design challenge:
Forget about going swimming: For the 37 Alberti Program students, this summer is all about going solar. As part of the Alberti Decathlon, which kicked off the summer session of the Sam Fox School program for fourth- through ninth-grade students, each student created a design for a solar-powered house. Students worked on their designs independently in the morning, and in the afternoon, they participated in 10 group contest—in essence design charrettes that presented real-life problems for them to incorporate into their designs.
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Heard on Campus
“The goal before us is education for a greater destiny. Our nation is setting a pattern for the world. Here at our nation’s heart the pattern selected by Washington University can thus shape the growth of man. With the cordial support of the Corporation and friends of the University, the loyal cooperation of the faculty, and the earnest effort of the students, this University will take an ever greater part in building our community and our world.”
—Arthur Holly Compton, Nobel Laureate and ninth Chancellor of the University, in his inaugural address, “Education for a Greater Destiny,” February 22, 1946 |
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Students pursuing international public interest work:
Approximately two dozen Washington University Law students are interning overseas with legal aid agencies, public interest law offices, and international organizations this summer. Since the inception in 2002 of the Africa Public Interest Law & Conflict Resolution Initiative, more than 70 law students have spent their summers providing legal services to low-income individuals and grass-roots organizations in South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya. The initiative is designed to foster study, research, and professional experiences in Africa.
Kudos
Megan Ference, doctoral student in anthropology in Arts & Sciences, and Beverly Levine, doctoral student in history in Arts & Sciences, received Fulbright-Hays grants to conduct dissertation research abroad in the 2009-2010 academic year.
Thomas B. Ferguson, M.D., professor emeritus of cardiothoracic surgery, received the American Association for Thoracic Surgery's Lifetime Achievement Award at the organization's annual meeting in May. He was recognized by his colleagues for his contributions to the specialty and to the worldwide community of cardiothoracic surgery.
Alan Glass, M.D., assistant vice chancellor and director of the Habif Health and Wellness Center, has been named president-elect of the American College Health Association.
Kenneth M. Murphy, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology and immunology, and Andrey S. Shaw, M.D., the Emil R. Unanue Professor of Immunobiology in Pathology and Immunology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, have been elected to the Association of American Physicians.
Deborah J. Novack, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and immunology and of medicine, and Thaddeus S. Stappenbeck, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and immunology and of developmental biology, have been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, an honor society for physician-scientists.
Bradley L. Schlaggar, M.D., Ph.D., the A. Ernest and Jane G. Stein Associate Professor of Neurology and associate professor of pediatrics, of radiology, and of neurobiology, received the American Academy of Neurology 2009 Norman Geschwind Prize in Behavioral Neurology for his research to better understand the development of the network structure of the brain in patients with Tourette syndrome. The prize is awarded to an individual for outstanding research in the field of behavioral neurology.
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About @Washington University in St. Louis
This newsletter is prepared by Special Development Communications Projects staff in Alumni and Development Programs. It is intended to provide a brief summary of what is happening at the University. Alumni, parents, and friends of the University for whom we have valid e-mail addresses automatically receive @Washington University in St. Louis.
Copyright 2009, Washington University in St. Louis
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(314) 935-5000
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