MilestoneWU geneticists attend celebration at White House
By David LinzeeSchool of Medicine researchers went to the White House June 26 to help announce the assembly of a working draft of the human genome. Robert H. Waterston, M.D., Ph.D.; Richard K. Wilson, Ph.D.; and Mundeep Sekhon joined scientists from across the nation in celebrating this milestone in the massive effort to decipher the genome --3 billion DNA letters that make the blueprint for the human body. The Genome Sequencing Center at the medical school has contributed approximately one-fourth of the DNA sequence generated by the Human Genome Project, an international public consortium. |
 Scientists from labs all over the country gathered in Washington to celebrate completion of the human genome's workingdraft. Standing on the White House steps are (from left) James Watson, Ph.D. (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), Eric Lander, Ph.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Richard Gibbs, Ph.D. (Baylor College of Medicine), and Washington University's Robert H. Waterston, M.D., Ph.D., the James S. McDonnell Professor, head of genetics and director of the the Genome Sequencing Center, and Richard K. Wilson, Ph.D., associate professor of genetics and center co-director. |
New Skills: Minority Youth in Construction Program is a hitBy Christine FarmerOne might think that finding teen-agers willing to give up six weeks of their summer vacation to learn about careers in construction would be challenging, but there were more than a few takers when the University launched the new Minority Youth in Construction Program currently under way. About 75 African-American teens, who will be entering high school in the fall, applied to enroll in the six-week program, and 33 were accepted. They are not only committed to this summer's session, but will return to the University for the next three summers to complete the program. |
Dating water: New method will aid pollution studiesWhether it's the birthday of a movie star or the "sell-by" date on a bottle of beer, American culture is obsessed with age. Yet few give a second thought to the age of water, the mainstay of life. One of those few is Robert E. Criss, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, who has developed a new, nonradioactive method to date water. The method involves a sophisticated formula that relies heavily on the ratio between oxygen-16, which comprises 99.8 percent of all oxygen in water, and oxygen-18, a stable isotope of oxygen. This formula gives a distinctive "fingerprint" for the water. Using the formula, Criss is able to get an average age of water from any system he samples. |
Risa Zwerling to bring rare gifts to role as WU's first ladyRisa Zwerling has a gift for connecting with people. She has spent her life shaping these fundamental links with others --with girlhood friends in Queens, N.Y., with suffering patients in a New York City rehabilitation hospital, with disadvantaged toddlers at St. Louis' Our Little Haven, where she's a volunteer. In her professional life, as managing director of account support for Magellan Behavioral Health, she helps employers and their employees connect with needed services --everything from mental health programs to dependent care and stress counseling following disasters. "Risa is a magnet for people," said Gail Campbell, a long-time friend and former co-worker. "She has a passion for life, to understand and know people, to really listen. She is absolutely genuine. She has a wealth of friends, and her friendships last forever. "In 1995, Zwerling made a connection of a different order. She wrote Mark S. Wrighton, then provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the newly announced chancellor-elect at Washington University. A transplant to St. Louis herself 17 years before, she suggested that he might like to know someone outside the University community here and to get to know people in the neighborhood. |  Risa Zwerling and Chancellor Wrighton will be married July 28. |
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