Research Wire

Rice University bioengineers and colleagues at Washington University and Duke University identified a protein nanostructure that plays a role in the cellular structure of certain microorganisms, paving the way toward more efficient biotechnological and biomedical applications.

Washington University researcher Hong Chen and her team developed a quality assurance protocol to ensure their guided focused ultrasound device and treatment functions safely and consistently.

Research led by geochemist Rita Parai in Arts & Sciences offers a glimpse of Earth’s history by tracking infinitesimal levels of noble gases in volcanic rocks. The new study is published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Matthew Bersi, at the McKelvey School of Engineering, will use pioneering optics-based mechanical testing and imaging techniques to study the aorta with a five-year $575,000 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.

Janine Bijsterbosch, an assistant professor of radiology at the School of Medicine, is part of a team of five co-principal investigators studying how symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress — together known as anxious misery — affect functional brain networks. The team received a $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.

A $300,000 award from NASA’s Early Career Investigator Program in Earth Science will allow Roger Michaelides, in Arts & Sciences, to track interactions between permafrost and wildfires in a warming Arctic, work that could shed new light on climate change.

The National Science Foundation has given a CAREER award to Nathaniel Huebsch, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

Two innovative pilot projects led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have received funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to address critical challenges in the fields of neurodegeneration and neuroscience.

In a first for the field, biomedical engineers at the McKelvey School of Engineering determined the pH profiles of certain key types of cellular condensates.

Researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering received a three-year $570,746 grant from the National Science Foundation to support their work to understand the fundamental mechanisms that underpin interactions between nerve cells, or neurons, and nanoparticles, which can be used to both sense and stimulate neurons.