Information obtained from a new application of photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is worth its weight in gold to breast cancer patients. The work of WUSTL biomedical engineering researchers Lihong Wang and Younan Xia, supported by the NIH, can minimize invasive surgical lymph node biopsy procedures to determine if breast cancer has metastasized and reduce the patient's exposure to radioactivity.

References:

1. Jan. 13, 2009 — Novel Technique Changes Lymph Node Biopsy, Reduces Radiaiton Exposure in the ScienceDaily.com

Richard Wilson, director of WUSTL's Genome Sequencing Center, comments on the successful mapping of the corn genome.

References:

1. Feb. 26, 2008 — Group says it has mapped corn genome in the Associated Press

and 76 others.

About 10 to 20 percent of the video gaming population is disabled, but they get little attention from the Nintendos, Sonys and Microsofts of the world. Now, academia is trying to show gamemakers that with a little thought and ingenuity, their titles can be played -- and purchased by -- gamers they have never courted before.
A U. Illinois instructor is organizing a game design seminar to build a socially oriented video game for players with quadriplegia. She hopes such hands-on design work will encourage gamemakers to keep the disabled in mind while creating their titles -- and show them how.
Perhaps the ultimate game controller operates on brain waves. A teenager being studied for epilepsy last fall at WUSTL was able to play "Space Invaders" using his thoughts.
Those findings could lead one day to artificial limbs that respond to human thought.

References:

1. April 10, 2007 — Disabled gamers want more than 'fluffy' choices in the Chicago Tribune

A U.S. boy has become the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game using only the signals from his brain to make movements.
WUSTL researchers led by neurological surgery professor Eric Leuthardt and biomedical engineering professor Daniel Moran say the boy's achievement might lead to creation of biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, enabling the movement of a prosthesis by just thinking about it.

References:

1. Oct. 11, 2006 — Teenager moves video icons by imagination in the United Press International

and 2 others.

Article on the outlook for bioscience hotspots focuses on St. Louis.
For years this fading industrial center has poured a fortune into the genetic engineering of plants, ignoring critics of the controversial technology and enduring a long stretch with little to show for its investment.
Now, finally, St. Louis is starting to see a payoff, putting some welcome distance between itself and the many other cities trying to hit it big in biotech.
Comments from John Biggs, Roger Beachy, Peter Raven, and WUSTL chancellor Mark Wrighton.

References:

1. May 1, 2005 — St. Louis waits for Bio-Belt to bloom in the Chicago Tribune

and 12 others.

New coverage on this topic -- Researchers and volunteers around the world are taking early steps toward a complex but straightforward technological goal: to use electrical signals from the brain as instructions to computers and other machines, allowing paralyzed people to communicate, move around and control their environment literally without moving a muscle.
Most dramatically, that could help "locked-in" patients - those who've lost all muscle movement because of conditions like Lou Gehrig's disease or brainstem strokes.
Article mentions research at WUSTL, where surgeons placed tiny electrodes on the surface of the brains of four people recently, they achieved accuracies of 74 percent to 100 percent with just three to 24 minutes of training.

References:

1. April 4, 2005 — Computers Obeying Brain Signals in the Associated Press Online
2. March 17, 2005 — Brain Power: Mind Control of External Devices in the LiveScience.com (New York)

and 25 others.

Using thought alone and with electrodes placed on the surface of the brain, four volunteers were able to control a simple video game, U.S. researchers report. Simply by thinking the word "move," the volunteers played the game.
"We are using pure imagination. These people are not moving their limbs," said Eric Leuthardt, a neurosurgeon at the School of Medicine who worked on the study. Writing in the Journal of Neural Engineering, Leuthardt and Daniel Moran, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the School of Medicine, said the patients learned in minutes how to control a computer cursor.

References:

1. June 16, 2004 — Patients play by power of thought in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

and 20 others.