“Composing a Life,” a lively, interactive panel discussion for graduate and undergraduate women students, will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 30 in Holmes Lounge. The panel features five women of diverse ages, career choices and interests who will discuss their stories and post-graduation choices.

Sponsored by the Women’s Society of Washington University, the panel discussion will be followed by dinner and an opportunity for the students to visit with the speakers individually.

The event is free but registration is required. To register, or for more information, including the list of panelists, visit the Women’s Society website.

Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart will present Lindsey K. Steinberg, a senior majoring in chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, with a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) during a public ceremony at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, in Brookings Hall, Room 300.

Schweickart

Immediately following the presentation, Schweickart will share his experience orbiting the Earth as lunar module pilot of Apollo 9 in a talk titled “The Challenge of Space.”

His talk, which is free and open to the public, is  sponsored by the Office of the Provost.

“Lindsey has demonstrated quality leadership in chemistry at Washington University,” Schweickart says. “She embodies the top characteristics of an Astronaut Scholar: intelligent, perseverant and driven to lead the path toward the advancement of scientific knowledge and technology. I’m proud to have the opportunity to present this award to such a worthy recipient at Washington University.”

The Astronaut Scholarship is the largest monetary award given in the United States to STEM undergraduate college students based solely on merit.

Nearly $3.5 million has been awarded since the ASF was established in 1984 by the six surviving members of America’s original Mercury astronauts. Since 1986, Washington University students have received $203,000 through the ASF.

About Schweickart

NASA selected Schweickart in October 1963 as one of 14 in the third group of astronauts. He was lunar module pilot on the 10-day Apollo 9 mission, which was the first to test the moon landing vehicle in space. 

After reaching Earth orbit, Commander James McDivitt and Schweickart tested the still-attached vehicle for two days before separating it from the Command Module and flying it 113 miles away. Executing a series of maneuvers, they returned successfully to the mother ship, manned by David Scott. 

During the mission, Schweickart took a 46-minute space walk to test the portable life support backpack that astronauts would use later on the moon. 

Schweickart later moved to NASA Headquarters in Washington as director of user affairs in the Office of Applications, responsible for transferring NASA technology to the outside world. 

He then held several technology-related positions with the California state government, including assistant to the governor for science and technology and, in 1979, as chairman of the California Energy Commission. He is president of Aloha Networks Inc. of San Francisco. 

Schweickart was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997 and is an active member of the ASF.

Audio available

“Barbara, our family, and I believe it is important to take a public position in supporting the science that holds great hope for many individuals and their families,” says Andy Taylor, chair of the Leading Together campaign and chief executive officer of Enterprise Holdings, the St. Louis-based company that operates the Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands. “Our investment in this campaign reflects our confidence in the leadership of Dr. Charles Zorumski, head of the Department of Psychiatry, as well as our appreciation of adjunct professor Dr. Luis Giuffra, who deepened our understanding of the great need for this effort.”

Barbara and Andrew Taylor

“Washington University has long had a strong Department of Psychiatry, with an outstanding record of research, education and patient care,” says Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. “The wonderful gift provided by the Taylor family will provide resources to advance innovative approaches to addressing psychiatric illnesses. Such illnesses affect the lives of many people, their families and their friends. We are very grateful for the transformative gift the Taylors have provided, which will bring enormous benefit to many.”

“This gift honors the historical leadership of Washington University in the field of biological psychiatry and launches the department into the future,” says Larry J. Shapiro, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. “The School of Medicine was among the first to define mental illness as a disease and not a character flaw, and to study it the same way we investigate cancer or heart disease. The beneficiaries of this gift ultimately will be the generations of patients who will lead more productive lives as a result of what we learn.”

The Taylor Family Institute
Scientists at the Taylor Family Institute for Innovative Psychiatric Research initially will focus their attention on neurosteroids, chemicals in the brain that are involved in regulating cognition, emotion and motivation. Changes in neurosteroid levels can be associated with mood disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, alcoholism, sleep disorders, chronic pain, epilepsy, and neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The institute also will help to drive laboratory and clinical research at Washington University focused on new treatment development in psychiatry, and will involve collaborations among several departments, including psychiatry, anesthesiology, developmental biology, radiology and neurology.

The core faculty members in the institute have been conducting research on natural and synthetic neurosteroid molecules for several years, investigating those substances as potential anesthetic agents as well as possible treatments for psychiatric illnesses. Investigators involved in the institute have expertise in chemical synthesis, molecular biochemistry, ion channel biology, cellular and synaptic neurobiology and behavioral testing in animal models of illness.

Current evidence suggests that the production of neurosteroids in the brain is affected by stress and by particular disorders such as depression. Institute scientists believe that replacing or enhancing these depleted steroids may be effective in alleviating altered stress responses in order to help the brain function more normally.

Zorumski

“The Taylors’ gift will do incredible things for the field of psychiatry,” he says. “Resources of this magnitude will allow us to pursue the development of new therapies to benefit patients who struggle with psychiatric illnesses. We believe this support will help us to capitalize on existing scientific and clinical expertise at Washington University to develop innovative and more effective treatments.”

The Taylor family’s donation also will be used to set up endowments that will continue to fund cutting-edge brain research for years to come. Modern neuroscience and genetics are providing new insights into brain mechanisms underlying psychiatric illness. Advances have been made in the understanding of changes in brain circuitry that contribute to multiple illnesses, but despite that progress, there have been few advances in bringing new and more effective treatments to market.

The last types of psychiatric drugs developed were selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), for treating depression, and new-generation antipsychotic medications for illnesses such as schizophrenia. Although those drugs tend to have improved side effects compared to older medications, they target the same systems in the brain as the psychiatric drugs that were available in the 1950s and 1960s. Research at the institute will attempt to identify new targets for therapy.

Up to 30 percent of adults in the United States suffer from a psychiatric illness at some point in their lives, and those illnesses account for more than 40 percent of all disabilities. Although heart and lung disease, stroke and cancer are obvious causes of death, it is less appreciated that those end-stage illnesses often are related to alcoholism, nicotine dependence, drug abuse and other psychiatric problems.

Deaths from motor vehicle accidents and violence often are associated with psychiatric illnesses, particularly alcohol abuse. And suicide, which takes the lives of more than 30,000 people each year in the United States, almost always involves major psychiatric illnesses such as depression and substance abuse.

Leading scientists have selected the first drugs to be evaluated in a worldwide clinical study to determine whether they can prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

The pioneering trial, expected to start by early 2013, initially will test three promising drugs, each designed to target Alzheimer’s in different ways.

In people with inherited mutations that cause early-onset Alzheimer’s, the study will seek to identify whether the drugs can improve Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers and effectively prevent the loss of cognitive function.

“This trial is the result of a groundbreaking collaboration between academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies and patient advocacy groups, with key support from regulatory groups,” says principal investigator Randall Bateman, MD, the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Professor in Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “We are excited that this diverse portfolio of drugs and approaches will accelerate the discovery of an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s.”

The trial will be conducted by the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network Trials Unit (DIAN TU) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The trials unit is supported by the DIAN, an NIH-funded collaboration of world-leading Alzheimer’s research centers; the Alzheimer’s Association; and the DIAN Pharma Consortium, composed of 10 pharmaceutical companies that have been advising DIAN researchers on the planning of the trial.

Alzheimer’s researchers have selected the investigational drugs from more than a dozen nominations submitted by the DIAN Pharma Consortium. Each drug has a unique approach to counter the toxic effects of amyloid beta, the main ingredient of brain plaques found in Alzheimer’s patients. Each also has passed earlier clinical trials that evaluated safety and effectiveness of the drugs and whether they engaged their targets in patients.

The investigational drugs are:

*Gantenerumab, an antibody made by Roche that binds to all forms of aggregated amyloid beta and helps remove them from the brain. Gantenerumab is currently in an international phase III trial known as SCarlet RoAD, started in 2010, that will test the drug’s ability to stop Alzheimer’s prior to dementia.

*Solanezumab, a monoclonal antibody in phase III clinical trials. Discovered and developed by Eli Lilly and Company, it binds to soluble forms of amyloid beta after they are produced, allowing amyloid beta to be cleared before it clumps together to form plaques.

Also selected for potential inclusion in the trial is a beta-secretase (BACE) inhibitor, a small molecule in Phase II clinical trials that was also discovered and developed by Lilly. BACE is theorized to work by reducing the amount of amyloid beta proteins produced, slowing the accumulation of plaques.

Roche and Lilly have agreed to make the treatments available at no cost to the investigators. The two companies also will provide supporting grants for each drug to help make the trial possible. The new trial also is supported by a $4.2 million grant from the Alzheimer’s Association. The researchers have applied for support through the National Institutes of Health; the National Institute on Aging is currently reviewing the grant application.

“Trying to prevent Alzheimer’s symptoms from ever occurring is a new strategy,” says John C. Morris, MD, principal investigator of DIAN and the Harvey A. and Doris Friedman Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine. “We are most appreciative of the support this approach has received.”

The trial will involve 160 people who have inherited mutations that mean they are almost certain to develop Alzheimer’s at a young age, typically in their 30s, 40s or 50s. The trial also will monitor the health of 80 DIAN participants who did not inherit the Alzheimer’s mutations.

“This is a very exciting moment in Alzheimer’s disease research, and it gives me renewed hope for a future without Alzheimer’s,” says DIAN participant Brent Whitney. “I hope my grandchildren someday learn of this condition in history books, like I learned about polio.”

Participants with inherited forms of Alzheimer’s will be randomly assigned to receive one of three investigational drugs (75 percent chance) or a placebo (25 percent chance). Those without mutations also will receive a placebo.

“Normally in clinical trials there is a 50/50 chance of receiving the active drug or a placebo, but the efficient design of testing three drugs will allow us to significantly boost the number of participants who receive active treatments,” Bateman says.

All of the experimental group’s subjects will be within 10 to 15 years of the anticipated age when symptoms of cognitive decline and dementia are expected to appear. Earlier DIAN studies have shown that at this point in their lives, people who have Alzheimer’s mutations are likely to have biological indicators that show the disease is beginning in the brain, including evidence of brain plaques and changes in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid.

Scientists will monitor these indicators of early Alzheimer’s to see whether the new treatments slow or stop the disease process. The first part of the trial is planned to last for two years. It will be expanded and extended if one or more of the drugs are effective in slowing or stopping indicators of presymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease.

“Roche is honored that gantenerumab was selected by DIAN to be a part of this groundbreaking Alzheimer’s disease study,” says Luca Santarelli, head of Roche Neurosciences. “This clinical test supports Roche’s commitment to provide earlier treatment options to those at risk for this devastating disease.”

“We are pleased that Lilly was chosen to contribute solanezumab, and potentially our beta-secretase inhibitor, for use in this pioneering Alzheimer’s disease study,” said Jan Lundberg, PhD, executive vice president, science and technology, and president, Lilly Research Laboratories. “We look forward to collaborating with the DIAN TU investigators, along with the other public and private partners, to better understand if early treatment with these investigational medicines can influence this terrible disease.”

DIAN trial sites include the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Washington University, and other centers in North America, Europe, Australia and elsewhere in the world. 

For patients, family members, doctors and researchers interested in the DIAN trial, the DIAN Trials Unit has launched an expanded registry. For more information or to register for potential participation in the trial, go to http://www.DIANXR.org or call 1-800-747-2979.

Brian K. Kobilka, MD, a former medical resident at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, is the co-winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Kobilka, currently professor and chair of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, was a medical resident here from 1981 to 1984.

“We’re very proud that one of our former trainees has received such a great honor,” says Larry J. Shapiro, MD, executive vice chancellor and dean of Washington University School of Medicine. “The important work for which Dr. Kobilka is being recognized has the potential to aid the development of drugs for diseases such as cancer, diabetes and depression. On behalf of Washington University, I offer our heartfelt congratulations.”

Kobilka

During his training in St. Louis, Kobilka was a resident along with Clay F. Semenkovich, MD, now the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine, professor of cell biology and physiology and director of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Lipid Research at the School of Medicine.

I am very happy for Brian,” Semenkovich says. “In addition to being incredibly smart, he is very humble, charming and kind. He’s also kept in touch with many of us at Washington University over the years, and we couldn’t be happier that he’s receiving such a prestigious award.”

Kobilka shares the Nobel Prize with Robert Lefkowitz, MD, professor of biochemistry and of medicine at Duke University. The two were selected for what the Nobel Prize committee described as “groundbreaking research” into the “fine-tuned system of interactions between billions of cells” in the human body.

They were honored for helping to explain the inner workings of G-protein-coupled receptors, which allow cells in the body to respond to chemical messages. Targeting those receptors has the potential to improve treatments for problems in the central nervous system, the heart, inflammatory conditions and metabolic disorders.

Jennifer R. Smith, PhD, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is one of eight U.S. citizens selected to go abroad in 2013 as an Eisenhower USA Fellow.

Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of Eisenhower Fellowships, announced the eight winners, who were selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants.

“This is a unique opportunity for a group of outstanding leaders to broaden themselves personally and professionally,” Powell says.

Smith

“I will be looking at how higher education can be used to foster innovation, with an eye also toward how multicultural abroad/exchange experiences can be used to ‘prime’ students to think outside the box,” Smith says.

“This is a tremendous honor for both Jen and our university and I am not surprised to hear that she has been selected for this role,” says Gary S. Wihl, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities.

“Jen is exactly the kind of dynamic leader who can engage with the complex issues of globalization and who has the vision and energy to put transformative ideas into practice.”

Smith says she hopes to bring back from India a “suite of educational initiatives” for potential implementation at Washington University, as well as in India.

“These could be specific ideas for classroom techniques, adapted from some of the non-traditional educational initiatives already in place in India to serve populations other than the usual bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree candidates,” says Smith, who is also an associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and of environmental studies. She became dean of the College of Arts & Sciences July 1.

“Alterntatively, we may be able to sketch out the framework of an innovative curriculum, that represents a hybridized technical/liberal arts education,” Smith says.

“My intention would be that those involved in discussing these initiatives would remain collaborative partners as we tested our ideas on multiple campuses, and that we would additionally implement a joint effort to assess the effectiveness of our results.

“We would also, hopefully, have laid the institutional groundwork for new kinds of abroad and exchange experiences, those targeted specifically at awakening the innovative potential of students at the college and graduate level,” Smith says.

“These experiences would not only help develop new generations of innovators, but also cultivate enhanced relationships between the St. Louis region and India that could facilitate the economic growth of both places,” she says.

Smith adds that the ties established between Washington University and various institutions and individuals in India, both directly through the McDonnell International Scholars Academy and individual WUSTL faculty whose research activities involve collaborations in India, give her a solid foundation of initial contacts in the region.

In recognizing the eight fellowship awardees, Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and chairman of the Executive Committee of Eisenhower Fellowships, said, “We live in a globalized world. An Eisenhower Fellowship will allow these outstanding men and women to bring new insights from world experts back to their communities and to form a network of lasting relationships that will make them global leaders in their fields.”

Eisenhower Fellowships is a private, non-profit and non-partisan organization seeking to foster international understanding and leadership through the exchange of information, ideas and perspectives among leaders throughout the world.

Established in 1953 as a birthday tribute to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the organization has sponsored more than 2,000 fellows from 108 countries.

Daniel Isom, St. Louis Metropolitan police chief, is among the eight selected to participate in the 2013 Eisenhower USA Fellows program.

Isom, who will travel to Germany for his fellowship, recently announced that he is retiring from the police department at the end of the year and joining the University of Missouri-St. Louis faculty.

For more information on the fellowship program, visit: www.efworld.org.

Andrew Yoo, PhD, Robert W. Gereau IV, PhD, and Michael R. Bruchas, PhD, have been awarded grants from the National Institutes of Health Common Fund to pursue innovative ideas that have the potential to transform human health.

Andrew Yoo, PhD, assistant professor of developmental biology, received a $2.3 million NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Robert W. Gereau IV, PhD, professor of anesthesiology, and Michael R. Bruchas, PhD, assistant professor of anesthesiology, will share a $3.9 million NIH Director’s Transformative Research Project award with John A. Rogers, PhD, professor of materials science and engineering, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Yoo studies the genetic pathways at the root of one of biology’s most enduring mysteries: What determines a cell’s fate in the body? In the laboratory, Yoo has shown he can manipulate these pathways to convert one cell type into another. Recently, for example, he transformed human skin cells into brain cells called neurons.

Now, Yoo is going one step further to convert human skin cells into specific types of neurons in the brain. His research suggests it may one day be possible to regrow healthy neurons in patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s or Huntington’s disease.

“So far, our discoveries have been made in petri dishes,” Yoo says. “With this new funding, we can evaluate how well the neurons we have grown can function in animal models. Ultimately, we hope our studies will be a big leap forward in the field of regenerative medicine to help treat neurodegenerative disorders.”

Meanwhile, Gereau, Bruchas and Rogers will be working to develop tiny, light-emitting devices that could allow them to map the molecular and cellular properties of neural circuits. With this knowledge, scientists can better understand how those circuits transmit pain after nerve injury. Visualizing how the circuits connect and transmit pain signals could allow them to develop and test potential new treatments.

“The technique we will be studying could allow us to track pain signals as they are transmitted,” says Gereau, who is chief of basic research at Washington University’s Pain Center. “Our project aims to develop very small light-emitting devices that are capable of permanent integration with the central and peripheral nervous systems so that we might use these tools to study and treat neurological diseases.”

In all, the NIH has awarded approximately $155 million for 81 projects to encourage creative thinkers to pursue exciting and innovative ideas about biomedical and behavioral research. The Transformative Research awards program, established in 2009, was designed to promote interdisciplinary approaches to complex biomedical problems.

“The Common Fund High Risk-High Reward program provides opportunities for innovative investigators in any area of health research to take risks when the potential impact in biomedical and behavioral science is high,” says NIH Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD.

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service invites WUSTL faculty to apply for grants to support their community-based teaching and learning (CBTL), also known as experiential education, engaged research and, most commonly, service learning.

A pedagogy used across the university, CBTL’s distinguishing features include applied learning activities in service to an organization or community, faculty direction and oversight and relevant course content and assignments.

To support CBTL course development and implementation, the institute awards up to five faculty grants of $2,500 each.

Now in its sixth year, the annual grants program supports faculty innovation in CBTL. Those awarded grants join a larger cohort of faculty scholars. The Gephardt Institute convenes this group regularly to support ongoing professional development and collaboration.

Applications are due by 5 p.m. Nov. 26, 2012. For more information, visit: http://gephardtinstitute.wustl.edu/facultygrants

Attending a CBTL Applicant Workshop is a prerequisite for submitting a grant proposal. Workshops are being offered from 4 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 17, and Thursday, Nov. 1, both in Eads Hall, Room 217.

To RSVP for a session, email gephardtinstitute@wustl.edu. For additional information about the grants program, or to schedule a meeting in lieu of attending a workshop, contact Nicole Durel at (314) 935-4672 or ndurel@wustl.edu.

Interdisciplinary faculty collaboration is fast becoming a hallmark of Washington University in St. Louis. To help support interdisciplinary teaching, the Office of the Provost announces the second round of the Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant Program.

“The global challenges facing the next generation are not constrained by disciplinary lines and will require innovative ways of thinking about social problems and trends,” says Marion G. Crain, JD, the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law and vice provost at WUSTL.

“Cross-disciplinary teaching and learning is critical to preparing our students to meet those challenges. The Office of the Provost created this program with an eye toward encouraging collaboration across school and departmental lines, both to enhance interdisciplinary learning opportunities for students and to enrich faculty teaching and foster research partnerships across disciplinary boundaries.

“The goal of these courses is to model intellectual discourse across disciplines in ways that are synergistic rather than polarized.”

The application deadline for the teaching grants is Dec. 1. To assist prospective applicants in putting together proposals, the provost will hold a workshop from 3:30-5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, in Danforth University Center, Room 234, facilitated by faculty who were successful in the previous round.

Up to four courses will be funded beginning in academic year 2013-14, renewable for a second year. The program will fund up to $40,000 per interdisciplinary course, to be split between the two participating schools or departments.

Last year, the provost supported four courses through the Cross-School Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant Program. This year, the committee also will consider interdisciplinary proposals that cross department lines in addition to those that cross school lines.

Successful proposals will involve a new teaching collaboration between at least two faculty from different disciplines who are affiliated with different schools at WUSTL or with different departments within a single school; preference will be given to cross-school collaborations. Novel or innovative disciplinary combinations likely to yield fresh insights for students and faculty alike are strongly preferred.

A persuasive case must be made that the intellectual frameworks characteristic of the disciplines represented are fundamentally distinct from one another and yet simultaneously synergistic.

Proposals must be fully elaborated, visualizing the course from the perspective of the student experience and reflecting careful thought and planning on topics such as how faculty will manage course scheduling conflicts across schools or departments, grading obligations, and experiential learning, if any, incorporated in the course.

A committee of faculty and administrators with representation from all WUSTL schools will review proposals and make recommendations to the provost for eventual funding.

The Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant courses from 2012-2013 are:

• Adolescent Health — Katie Plax, MD, associate professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine, and Juan Pena, PhD, then assistant professor at the Brown School

• Economic Realities of the American Dream — Steven Fazzari, PhD, professor of economics in Arts & Sciences and associate director of WUSTL’s Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, and Mark R. Rank, PhD, the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare in the Brown School

• Interrogating Health, Race, and Inequalities — Shanti A. Parikh, PhD, associate professor of anthropology and of African and African-American studies, both in Arts & Sciences, and Vetta Sanders-Thompson, PhD, associate professor at the Brown School

• Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Geriatric Care — Brian Carpenter, PhD, associate professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences; Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, the Ralph & Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work in the Brown School; and Susan Stark, PhD, assistant professor of occupational therapy in the School of Medicine

The complete grant request for proposal is available at http://provost.wustl.edu/cross-school-interdisciplinary-teaching-grant-rfp.

Past successful grant proposals are available on the Office of the Provost’s website, http://provost.wustl.edu/policies-reports-resources.

RSVP for the Oct. 23 proposal workshop to Crain at mgcrain@wulaw.wustl.edu.

Four Arts & Sciences faculty members at Washington University in St. Louis will explore the “politics, issues and theatrics” of this year’s presidential election during a 6 p.m. panel discussion
 Thursday, Oct. 18, in the Laboratory Sciences Building, Room 300.

The event, which is part of the Arts & Sciences Connections Series (formerly Century Club Lecture Series), is free and open to the Washington University community. Alumni and Development for Arts & Sciences sponsors the lecture series.

A
 5:30 p.m. reception in Lab Sciences’ Rettner Gallery will precede the discussion, titled “Decision 2012.” 



Wayne Fields, PhD, a nationally known expert on rhetoric and American political argument, will serve as moderator.

His book Union of Words: A History of Presidential Eloquence (1996) examines the use of rhetoric in presidential speeches, from declarations of candidacy to nomination acceptances, inaugural addresses, state-of-the-union speeches, declarations of war, executive farewells and other special addresses.

The national media frequently call on Fields to interpret political speeches. He is the Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English, American Literature and American Culture Studies.

The panelists are:

• Steven Fazzari, PhD, professor of economics and associate director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy;

• David T. Konig, PhD, professor of history and of law; and

• William J. Whitaker, senior lecturer in drama in the Performing Arts Department.

Fazzari’s research explores two main areas: the financial determinants of investment and R&D spending by U.S. firms and the foundations of Keynesian macroeconomics.

His research and commentary on the economy and public policy issues have been highlighted in the national and international media.

Among other current research projects, Fazzari is co-editing a book that investigates the sources and responses to the U.S. “Great Recession” that began in late 2007.

With a joint appointment in the Department of History and the School of Law, Konig’s research interests concern the role of law in shaping the history of the American people.

With an interest in the way people have used the law to secure their rights and protect their liberties, Konig has written about racial equality (and inequality), property rights, and the troubled relationship of rights and the possession of firearms.

He is writing a biography of Thomas Jefferson, titled Nature’s Advocate: Thomas Jefferson and the Discovery of American Law. 


 


Whitaker is an expert in debate technique, stage presence and platform performance. He has led lectures analyzing the performances of presidential and vice presidential debates held at Washington University.

Whitaker developed a popular course called “Public Speaking: Embodied Communication,” which combines traditional public speaking training with performance techniques of theater and dance.

He has been a director and actor with many professional theatres, including City Players, The Washington Stage Guild, The Folger Theatre and New Playwright’s Theatre.

Space is limited and reservations are required. To RSVP, visit http://alumni.artsci.wustl.edu/rsvp-arts-sciences-connections-series.

For more information on the event, call Whitney Hollis at (314) 935-5368 or email
 whitney.hollis@wustl.edu.

A molecule involved in asthma and allergies now has been shown to make mice resistant to skin cancer, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The molecule, called TSLP (thymic stromal lymphopoietin), is produced by damaged skin and activates the immune system. Chronic low levels of TSLP are suspected in making the immune system oversensitive to what should be a harmless environment, leading to the skin rashes and overproduction of mucus common in allergies and asthma.

“But at extremely high levels, TSLP appears to train the immune system to recognize skin cancer cells, and target those cells for elimination,” says Raphael Kopan, PhD, the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Professor of Developmental Biology. “These experiments demonstrate that there is a way for a natural molecule to help immune cells recognize and reject tumors, at least in the skin.”

The study appears online Oct 15 in Cancer Cell.

Kopan

The disparity may be explained by the amount of TSLP that is produced. The mice that were resistant to skin tumor growth had blood levels of TSLP that were 1,000-fold higher than normal. And levels in the skin — where it is made — may be even higher.

“This is an example of where hyper-vigilance of the immune system may end up paying dividends,” Kopan says. “Not only does it respond aggressively to an innocuous allergen, but it begins to monitor, survey and destroy cells that are mutant.”

The results are supported by another study in the same issue of Cancer Cell also showing TSLP prevents skin cancer in mice.

For Kopan’s group, the new research is the culmination of work that began more than six years ago. He and then graduate student Shadmehr Demehri, MD, PhD, wanted to investigate the defects found in mice born without a certain signaling protein in the skin. The protein, called Notch, is vital in properly forming many of the body’s tissues, including skin.

Kopan calls it wonderful detective work, beginning with linking TSLP produced in the Notch-deficient skin with asthma. That study was published in PLoS Biology in 2009. And though they couldn’t explain it at the time, they saw that many of these animals appeared to be immune to skin cancer.

“We were just trying to understand what was going on with our mice,” Kopan says. “We did not set out to find a way to stimulate the immune system to eradicate tumors. But it’s often the unexpected observations that lead to practical outcomes.”

Since the mice expressed elevated levels of TSLP for genetic reasons related to abnormal Notch signaling, Kopan, Demehri and their colleagues asked whether TSLP would likewise protect normal mice from skin cancer. They tested a drug called Calcipotriol that dermatologists prescribe to treat psoriasis. Calcipotriol is considered a vitamin D “mimic” and is known to cause the skin to produce TSLP.

The researchers found that applying Calcipotriol to the skin of normal, healthy mice protected them from developing skin tumors when exposed to cancer-causing agents. In addition, they saw that existing skin tumors in otherwise normal mice shrank when Calcipotriol was applied.

Demehri

Kopan stresses that more work must be done to fully understand the role of TSLP in skin cancer. In particular, these short-term studies were limited to the skin of mice and could not completely explain why Calcipotriol protected the healthy mice from skin cancer.

“In the Calcipotriol experiments, we have not fully separated whether the drug’s beneficial effects are due to the production of TSLP, or the fact that the drug mimics vitamin D,” Kopan says.

According to Kopan, future studies also will investigate whether TSLP might have similar effects on other types of cancer.

Di Piazza M, Nowell C, Koch U, Durham A-D, Radtke F. Loss of cutaneous TSLP dependent immune responses skews the balance of inflammation from tumor-protective to tumor-promoting. Cancer Cell. Online Oct. 15, 2012.

Demehri S, Morimoto M, Holtzman MJ, Kopan R. Skin-derived TSLP triggers progression from epidermal-barrier defects to asthma. PLoS Biology. May 19, 2009.

The work was supported by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM55479-16), the American Asthma Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (2 U19 AI070489-09 and P30 CA091842).

Students are invited to submit proposals for grant money from the Women’s Society of Washington University (WSWU) to support projects or activities that benefit the university community.

Each fall semester, WSWU awards grants that range from $300 to $2,000. The goal is to advance students’ educational and cultural experiences as well as to encourage service projects.

The deadline for submission of project proposals is Wednesday, Oct. 31.

The WSWU Funding Committee, which awards the grants, is particularly interested in proposals that enhance and enrich the artistic, cultural and educational experience of the campus; reflect and respect the diversity of the WUSTL community; encourage and support community service and leadership opportunities among students; and offer the potential for significant numbers of people to participate.

Among the 16 student-run projects  that received WSWU grants totalling $20,000 in 2011-12 are the African Film Festival, to increase awareness of contemporary issues in Africa; Give Thanks Give Back, the annual holiday gift drive for 100 neediest cases; and Making Music Matters at City Schools, an after-school music enrichment program at two St. Louis City schools.

C. Mayhew & R. Simmon (NASA/GSFC), NOAA/NGDC, DMSP

One of the iconic images of our time is the Earth at night, as seen here in a composite made by Dept. of Defense meteorological sateillites. The lavish light display that takes place every night is the signature of a technologically advanced but energy spendthrift species that is altering the planet in many ways. At the forefront of research on energy, the environment and sustainability is WUSTL's International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES), which will celebrate the first I-CARES day Oct. 19.

This free event will begin with a reception at 11 a.m. in the Whitaker Hall atrium. Students, staff, faculty and the broader community are invited to share in I-CARES day and its celebration of the programs and partners I-CARES supports.

I-CARES was formed in 2007 to encourage and coordinate collaborative research in the areas of renewable energy, the environment, and sustainability — including biofuels, solar energy and carbon dioxide mitigation.

The purpose of the day is to throw the spotlight on research at Washington University addressing these urgent problems that will shape the future of everyone now living. “It is our hope that our community will come away with a better understanding of the work taking place under the umbrella of I-CARES,” says Dr. Himadri Pakrasi, the Myron and Sonya Glassberg/Albert and Blanche Greensfelder Distinguished University Professor and director of I-CARES.

“We are excited to host presentations from both Peter Raven and T.R. Kidder during I-CARES day. Their talks will provide insight into the effects that human activities are having on our planetary ecosystems today and have had in thedistant past.”

Raven

Kidder

Kidder is a third-generation archeologist whose research examines the effects of prehistoric global climate change on human settlements large river valleys, including the Mississippi river in the U.S. and the Yellow river in China. Kidder is an active participant in the I-CARES Topics for Conversation Climate Change group and also a recipient of an I-CARES research award in 2012.

For more information on this event contact Kate Woerheide, Communications and Outreach Coordinator at I-CARES, 314-935-8093 or woerheidek@wustl.edu

2012 Washington University in St. Louis graduate Elizabeth Phillips was named the 2012 NCAA Woman of the Year during a ceremony Sunday in Indianapolis. Phillips is the third NCAA Division III student-athlete to win the award, joining Ashley Jo Rowatt of Kenyon College (2003) and Laura Barito of Stevens Institute of Technology (2011). 

Stephen Nowland/NCAA Photos

2012 alumna Elizabeth Phillips was named the 2012 NCAA Woman of the Year at a ceremony Oct. 14 in Indianapolis.

Three women from each NCAA division were chosen as finalists. The nine finalists are among the 30 Woman of the Year honorees who were recognized during the Oct. 14 event. The pool of 30 emerged from a group of nearly 430 nominees, and includes 10 honorees from each NCAA division. 

Phillips, who graduated in May with a degree in biomedical engineering and a 4.0 GPA, completed her career as one of the most decorated student-athletes in school history. She became the first three-time NCAA Elite 88/89 Award winner in any NCAA division. 

In 2012, Phillips was named the Capital One Academic All-America of the Year Division III award winner for women’s track and field/cross country, making her the first track and field/cross country Academic All-America of the Year winner in Washington University history. 

She also earned first-team Academic All-America honors in 2011 and 2012. A seven-time indoor and outdoor track and field All-American, Phillips ranks in the top three in Washington University history in five different indoor and outdoor events, including holding the outdoor 1,500 school record. 

She was the team captain and finished 40th individually to help WUSTL capture its first NCAA Division III National Championship in women’s cross country in 2011. 

During her final track & field season, Phillips earned All-America honors with a third-place finish in the mile and as a member of the national runner-up distance medley relay team at the 2012 NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships. She then capped her stellar career by finishing sixth in the 1,500 to earn All-America honors at the 2012 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships. 

As a community leader, Phillips dedicated numerous hours to volunteer activities, serving as a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, a coach for Girls on the Run, and secretary and vice president for the Society of Women Engineers. 

Phillips was the third NCAA Woman of the Year finalist in Washington University school history, joining Julia Burdick (1992) and Amy Sullivan (1994).