Vol. 22 No. 26 April 2, 1998
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| Creating order from chaos was the task for Robert L. Pierce, Ph.D., associate professor of social work, and colleagues at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work as they settled into their new Goldfarb Hall quarters this spring. The building adjoins the school's Brown Hall. |
Moving in: Social work school revels in new building
Construction workers are putting finishing touches on the George Warren Brown School of Social Work's newly constructed Alvin Goldfarb Hall, but the school's faculty, staff and students already are settling into freshly painted offices and classrooms in the red granite structure adjoining Brown Hall.
"The construction of Goldfarb Hall has been a source of great excitement for all of us," said School of Social Work Dean Shanti K. Khinduka, Ph.D. "Now that the building is there and people have moved in, we can focus renewed attention on the school's educational and intellectual priorities."
Noting that the school now has four named chairs for endowed professorships, a substantial number of scholarships for the master's and doctoral programs and three strong research and education centers, Khinduka described the building as just one component of the school's Project 21 campaign to strengthen its pre-eminent position among the nation's top schools of social work.
Hilltop campus tackles transportation issues
With finite space on the Hilltop Campus and St. Louis facing air-quality sanctions from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the University is taking positive steps to encourage fewer vehicles on campus.
"The issue is to reduce parking demand," said Mark Siedband, the University's new transportation management coordinator, who is charged with developing and implementing program initiatives on parking. "We're committed to this."
Through education, financial incentives and commuting options, the University seeks to reduce single-occupancy vehicle use on the Hilltop. The plan would be similar to the popular Transportation Management Association program on the Medical Campus, which has attracted more than 500 participants since its inception in 1996. Proposals under consideration for the Hilltop include car- and vanpools, parking off campus and use of mass transit.
Car and van pool participants could be offered incentives, such as reduced parking rates, prize drawings and prime parking spaces on campus. A ride home would be guaranteed for any employee who had to leave work early or stay late.
The University is considering an agreement with the City of St. Louis to allow University employees to park in a lot at The Muny in Forest Park. Parking there would be free, and the University would provide shuttle service to and from campus. Security measures would be provided in the lot, as would emergency transportation from campus to car for anyone needing to leave work unexpectedly. Other off-site parking locations also are being considered.
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| Freshman Julie Nebel found inspiration for sketching in Brookings Quadrangle during last week's balmy weather. |
New strategies to prevent bone loss could emerge from discovery
When Mae West pronounced that too much of a good thing sometimes is a good thing, she probably didn't have the versatile molecule nitric oxide in mind.
The molecule is found throughout the biomedical world, playing a vital, though often baffling, role in everything from blood pressure to bone loss to rheumatoid arthritis to male erection.
Now, biologists at Washington University have confirmed the legendary West's observation by showing that a high concentration of nitric oxide in large bone cells called osteoclasts may serve to prevent osteoclasts from eating too much bone away, thus preventing bone loss associated with diseases such as osteoporosis.
Nitric oxide (NO) is not to be confused with nitrous oxide, or laughing gas. NO was Science magazine's "Molecule of the Year" in 1992, a biochemical poster boy for ambiguous behavior. Like a character in an old Western, at times it wears the good guy's white hat, only to switch and don the villain's black hat. For instance, human cells produce one form of nitric oxide as a weapon against invading bacteria, but very high concentrations of the molecule can make NO a killer of the very cells that produce it.
Philip Osdoby, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts and Sciences, and a team including his wife, Patricia Collin-Osdoby, Ph.D., research associate professor of biology, added an antibody they had isolated and developed to osteoclast cells, believing that the antibody would hone in on a target molecule -- an antigen -- it recognizes in the osteoclasts. The antibody binds to the antigen, interfering with its function. In testing the antigen/antibody reaction, the biologists found that introducing the antibody into the osteoclasts halted the process of bone resorption -- the work of osteoclasts to gnaw away bone when the cells are too active or numerous. This leads to pits in the bone matrix and weakening of bone.