WUSTL continues leadership role in cutting-edge research

Washington University in St. Louis is among the world's leading research institutions. Our more than 2,900 faculty and a significant portion of our more than 13,000 full and part-time graduate and undergraduate students actively engage in important research activities, including science and other scholarly and creative endeavors. During fiscal year 2004-5, we received more than $533 million in total research support for such areas as:

• Conducting biomedical research;

• Developing new therapies for disease;

• Expanding investigation of human and animal genomes;

• Protecting the environment;

• Solving pressing social problems;

• Advancing computer and networking communications technologies; and

• Expanding knowledge about everything from the surface of Mars to the origins of man.

Research at Washington University has led to the transfer of technology to the public through patents, license and option agreements, and industry-sponsored research agreements. Income from licensing activities for fiscal year 2004-05 totaled over $9.8 million, and over 2000 new license agreements were executed during the year. Also during this fiscal year, the University filed 97 new applications for domestic and international patents. With leverage provided by the investment and development efforts of the private sector, these activities serve as a major vehicle for bringing the results of the University's research programs to the public.

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.

Red jungle fowl The first detailed analysis of the chicken genome has identified a chicken counterpart to an important human immune system protein, revised scientists' assessment of the chicken's sense of smell, and suggested that the chicken, long used to study gene activity in the earliest stages of life, may provide a good model for studying changes in DNA linked to aging and death.

A modification to an "ace" gene prediction program now enables scientists to predict the very beginnings of gene transcription start sites, thereby defining the first exon of the gene. The modification to the gene prediction software TWINSCAN is called N-SCAN. Michael Brent, Ph.D. professor of computer science and engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, together with Samuel S. Gross, then an undergraduate at Washington University, and Randall H. Brown, Ph.D., a research scientist, report their results in the May 2005 issue of Genome Research.

Clint's DNA was used to sequence the chimp genome. Comparing the human genome to the chimpanzee genome has allowed scientists to identify changes in the human genetic code that were so advantageous that they rapidly became the norm throughout humanity. The areas of human DNA where these changes occurred are currently the subject of follow-up investigations to identify the potentially vital contributions they now make to human health and development.

Some species still prey on humans to this day. Early man was more wary than war-like, more intelligent, agile, and cooperative than aggressive, predator or killer, and he co-evolved as the prey of many species. Moreover, in the old days, woman wore the pants in the family and men were basically expendable, not the brightest bulbs on the tree when it came to tools, and functioning best as sentinels wary of predators in edge environments between the forest and savannah. Those are the primary themes of a new book, "Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators and Human Evolution", co-authored by Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences.

A fossil of a diminutive human nicknamed "the Hobbit" likely represents a previously unrecognized species of early humans, according to the results of a detailed comparison of the fossil's brain case with those of humans, apes and other human ancestors.

Deanna Barch (right), co-author of a memory study that used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (shown in the background) to monitor the brain activity of people with schizophrenia. When encouraged to use memorization strategies commonly employed by healthy individuals, people with schizophrenia can be helped to remember information just as well as their healthy counterparts, a process that in itself seems to spur a normalization of memory-related activities in the brains of people with schizophrenia, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Magnified nanoparticles Specially designed nanoparticles can reveal tiny cancerous tumors that are invisible to ordinary means of detection, according to a study by researchers at the School of Medicine. Researchers demonstrated that very small human melanoma tumors growing in mice — indiscernible from the surrounding tissue by direct MRI scan — could be "lit up" and easily located. Because the nanoparticles can be engineered to carry a variety of substances, they also may be able to deliver cancer-fighting drugs to malignant tumors.

Male Bahamas mosquitofish (left) chasing a female (right). A biologist at Washington University in St. Louis has shown that for some fish species, females prefer males with larger sexual organs, and actually choose them for mating. That does not exclude males with an average-sized sex organ, called a gonopodium. These fish out-compete the larger-endowed males in a predator-laden environment because they have a faster burst speed than the males with larger genitalia, thus avoiding predators and staying in the mating game.

May '05 cover Where fat comes from determines whether the body can metabolize it effectively. Researchers at the School of Medicine have found that the "old" fat stored in the body's peripheral tissues — that is, around the belly, thighs or bottom — can't be burned efficiently unless "new" fat is eaten in the diet or made in the liver.

Angenent and He's microbial fuel cell may be scaled up for industrial use. An environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has created a device similar to a hydrogen fuel cell that uses bacteria to treat wastewater and create electricity. Lars Angenent, Ph.D., assistant professor of Chemical Engineering, and a member of the University's Environmental Engineering Science Program, has devised a microbial fuel cell which he calls an upflow microbial fuel cell (UMFC) that is fed continually and, unlike most microbial fuel cells, works with chambers atop each other rather than beside each other.