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Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found that genes that confer the power to destroy tetracycline antibiotics are widespread in bacteria. But the researchers have also created a chemical compound that shields tetracyclines from destruction, restoring the antibiotics lethality. The findings indicate an emerging threat to one of the most widely used classes of antibiotics — but also a promising way to protect against that threat.

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As a plant grows, it moves cellular material through transporter (motor) proteins along a highway system of microtubule tracks, moving cargo from its version of manufacturing sites to the cell wall construction zone. The Dixit lab found motor proteins necessary for track stability.

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Suppression of the spread of COVID-19 is an attainable goal, and it can be done through strategies that ease social distancing guidelines, suggests a new model developed by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the Brookings Institution.

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New research from the Race and Opportunity Lab in the Brown School’s Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis sheds light on youths’ reactions to social media videos showing violence in their communities. “Exposure to police violence may be more impactful for individuals who perceive police as a threat to their personal safety,” the lead author said.

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Researchers who have parsed minimum-wage increases over the past half-decade find a mixed bag of immediate results in states that push wages higher, but the pandemic-roiled economy changes all that, they say.

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When President Donald Trump made unsubstantiated claims on Twitter May 26 about mail-in voting, it fact-checked him — inserting beneath his tweets a hyperlink to more information on the subject.President Trump then accused Twitter of “totally silenc[ing] conservatives [sic] voices” and threatened that “[w]e will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.

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The childhood obesity rate in the United States may increase by 2.4% if school closures continue into December, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Having schools closed nationwide, children in the U.S. have missed their opportunity to participate in physical education classes and other school-based physical activities, such as recess and after-school sports programs.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received two grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) totaling more than $5 million to study two types of parasitic worm infection that cause devastating illness in millions of people worldwide. One project will focus on onchocerciasis, commonly known as river blindness. The second project will target fascioliasis, commonly found in cattle-farming operations.

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Until recently, researchers have not inspected the interplay between three common chemicals found in drinking water. Research from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has found they all affect each other and a closer look is needed.

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Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are helming a global study of an estimated 30,000 health-care workers to establish whether the antimalaria drug chloroquine might prevent or reduce the severity of COVID-19 infections in such workers.

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As areas of the country begin to relax and do away with stay-at-home orders, things will not snap back to normal for all employees and organizations. This may seem obvious, but it has huge ramifications for what employers can and should expect from employees during this time, according to an expert at Washington University in St.

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If history is any indication, the economic fallout and increased political demands caused by the coronavirus could pressure government leaders into building a new safety net for lower income groups, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

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A new study in mice at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests gene therapy one day may help build muscle and relieve pain in overweight patients with osteoarthritis.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that flies sleep more when they can't fly, possibly because sleeping helps them adapt to a challenging new situation.

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A study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that stroke evaluations fell by nearly 40% during a period of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that many stroke patients are not seeking potentially life-saving medical treatment.

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People with the genetic condition neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) are prone to developing tumors on nervous system tissue. A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that the development and growth of such tumors are driven by nearby noncancerous neurons and immune cells. The findings point to potential new therapeutic targets for people with NF1.

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The global pandemic has severely impacted every American, but maybe none more than older people. COVID-19 has placed a high-intensity spotlight on the deleterious effects of deep-seated ageism, sexism and racism on older Americans, suggests a new paper from the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging at Washington University in St.

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A good grip can mean the difference between life and death for lizards in a hurricane -- and as a result, populations hit more frequently by hurricanes have larger toepads. A new study from Washington University in St. Louis is the first to demonstrate evolutionary response to hurricanes on a wide geographic scale.

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Mathematician Steven G. Krantz in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis is using a mathematical tool called wavelets to combat underreporting in the COVID-19 pandemic. His latest model predicts the number of near-term hospitalizations for older adults with one or a combination of underlying conditions: hypertension, cardiovascular disease and lung disease.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have used induced pluripotent stem cells produced from the skin of a patient with a rare, genetic form of insulin-dependent diabetes, transformed the stem cells into insulin-producing cells, used the CRISPR gene-editing tool to correct a defect that caused a form of diabetes, and implanted the cells into mice to reverse diabetes in the animals.

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Relocated in small groups to experimental islands, lizards rapidly and repeatedly developed new chemical signals for communicating with each other. Free from the risk of predators and intent to attract potential mates, male lizards produce a novel chemical calling card, according to research from Washington University in St. Louis.

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Researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis received funding for a new COVID-19 test that is based on brand new technology that won't require brand new tools, making it easy for clinicians to use.

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Because of the worldwide havoc caused by coronavirus, supply chains have become a crucial new focus of the global economy. Along with health care providers, workers in logistics and transportation have emerged among the people essential to sustaining life through the pandemic.As a result, a Washington University in St. Louis expert foresees permanent changes ahead to guard against massive stresses on supply chains and better ensure their workers’ safety.

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A $2 trillion, bipartisan relief package — the largest in U.S. history — was signed into law March 27 to address the economic downfall fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Will it help?Research examining how households use similar payouts, like the tax refund, can help shed light on what households might do next, says an expert on asset building at the Brown School at Washington University in St.

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Child abuse and neglect hotlines around the country are reporting declines in calls over the past few weeks. While normally this would be welcome news, it does not bode well during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, says an expert on child abuse and neglect at Washington University in St. Louis.“Normally, a decrease in calls about alleged child abuse and neglect or maltreatment would be a welcome start to child abuse prevention month, but the context of current declines is worrisome,” said Melissa Jonson-Reid, the Ralph and Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work Research at the Brown School.

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Animal milk was essential to east African herders at least 5,000 years ago, according to a new study. The research is important for understanding the history of milk drinking worldwide.

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Researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering spent two weeks in India cooking with local residents. They found that soot wasn't the only worrisome byproduct of traditional cookstoves; organic carbons are causing problems, too.

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Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is launching a clinical trial for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. The trial will investigate the effectiveness of different combinations of the antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin in treating ill patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

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A research team led by a Washington University in St. Louis biologist was awarded $1.2 million for a CRISPR-based gene editing study of Anolis lizards.Jonathan Losos, the William H. Danforth Distinguished Professor and professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, was awarded the three-year grant from the Human Frontier Science Program Organization, based in Strasbourg, France.

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McKelvey Engineering staff are pitching in to create personal protective equipment for health care workers in the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis studied the gut microbiomes of wild apes in the Republic of Congo, of captive apes in zoos in the U.S., and of people from around the world and discovered that lifestyle is more important than geography or even species in determining the makeup of the gut microbiome.

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As the coronavirus continues to spread across the nation, a number of false conclusions and rumors have spread with it. Three epidemiologists in public health at Washington University in St. Louis separate truth from myth.The following information is from Alexis Duncan and Kim Johnson, associate professors, and Christine Ekenga, an assistant professor, all in the Brown School.

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The $2 trillion plan to prop up a pandemic-reeling United States, amid the news that there were 3.3 million unemployment claims lodged in the previous week, is expected to pass the House on March 27.Is it a Band-Aid or sufficient to heal what ails America’s economy?“We do not have this (COVID-19 outbreak) under control, and until we do, even $2 trillion may not be a big enough bailout,” said Anne Marie Knott, the Robert and Barbara Frick Professor of Business at Washington University in St.

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Many countries reacted slowly and inadequately to the spread of COVID-19. Some critics have said this is due to initial reports of the disease, which indicated that it mainly affected older populations. Some, including the Texas lieutenant governor on Fox News, have even suggested that older Americans should be willing to sacrifice their health or lives for the good of the economy and the good of others.

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A new global study reveals the extent to which high-yielding rice varieties favored in the decades since the “Green Revolution” have a propensity to go feral, turning a staple food crop into a weedy scourge.Weedy rice is a de-domesticated form of rice that infests paddies worldwide and aggressively outcompetes cultivated varieties.

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As the coronavirus spreads across the United States, larger cities, like New York and Seattle, are dealing with increasing numbers of infections and deaths daily.However, less populated rural areas are not immune from the disease, say two public health experts at Washington University in St. Louis and controlling it in rural America presents a unique set of challenges.

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In the first week since COVID-19 was designated a pandemic, requests for food pantries skyrocketed across the United States. Requests for home-delivered meals more than tripled in the same time period, said a Brown School researcher who tracks calls to 2-1-1 help lines across the U.S.Matthew Kreuter, the Kahn Family Professor of Public Health at Washington University in St.

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We must consider this coronavirus crisis as a wake-up call to prioritize equity and challenge ourselves to consider how to better serve historically underserved communities, says a public health expert at Washington University in St. Louis.“In the middle of a pandemic, it is easy to overlook health equity,” said Darrell Hudson, associate professor at the Brown School.

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As the St. Louis region and the state of Missouri confront the coronavirus challenge, it has posed a number of serious issues for health policy analysts and health economists.“This is the most unprecedented challenge to the health system I have seen in my career,” said Tim McBride, the Bernard Becker Professor at Washington University in St.

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A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that the age of certain immune cells used in immunotherapy plays a role in how effective it is. These cells — natural killer (NK) cells — appear to be more effective the earlier they are in development, opening the door to the possibility of an immunotherapy that would not utilize cells from the patient or a matched donor. Instead, they could be developed from existing supplies of what are called human pluripotent stem cells.

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People around the world are isolating themselves to help slow the spread of COVID-19. But there is another way those confined to their homes — but connected online — can join the fight against the novel coronavirus. Led by computational biophysicist Greg Bowman, PhD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the project is called Folding@home. It relies on the collective power of volunteers’ home computers to perform the complex calculations required to simulate protein dynamics.

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A noblewoman from Imperial China enjoyed playing polo on donkeys so much she had her steeds buried with her so she could keep doing it in the afterlife, archaeologists found. This discovery by a team that includes Fiona Marshall, the James W. and Jean L. Davis Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is published March 17 in the journal Antiquity. The research provides the first physical evidence of donkey polo in Imperial China, which previously was only known from historical texts. It also sheds light on the role for donkeys in the lives of high status women in that period.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., have found — in newborn mice — that a component of breast milk may help protect premature babies from developing life-threatening sepsis.

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Genetically modified Bt cotton is the most widely planted cotton crop in India by acreage, and it is hugely controversial. Supporters long touted increased yields and reduced pesticides to justify its pickup. But that argument does not hold up under the first long-term study of Bt cotton impacts in India. The analysis is co-authored by a Washington University in St. Louis anthropologist in the journal Nature Plants.

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Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a new imaging agent that could let doctors identify not only multiple types of tumors but the surrounding normal cells that the cancer takes over and uses as a shield to protect itself from attempts to destroy it.

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Faced with a gritty landscape of metal fences, concrete walls and asphalt pavement, city lizards in Puerto Rico rapidly and repeatedly evolved better tolerance for heat than their forest counterparts, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of California, Los Angeles.Studies that delve into how animals adapt in urban environments are still relatively rare.

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Many farmers struggle with an enemy that looks like a friend. Agricultural weeds that are close relatives of crops present a particular challenge to farmers because their physical similarities to the desirable species make them difficult to detect and eradicate. Along the way, the imitators compete with crops for water, nutrients and space — often depressing crop yields.