Ken Olsen

A sampling of weedy rice strains from an Arkansas rice field.

The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once asked whether the living world would be different "if the tape were played twice." If there were a duplicate Earth evolving quietly beside ours, would we observe the emergence of creatures like ourselves and of plants and animals familiar to us, or would the cast of characters be entirely different?

It's an intriguing question.

So far replicate Earths are in short supply, but cases of parallel evolution (the same trait evolving independently in related lineages) allow scientists to ask some of the same questions.

One beautiful case of parallel evolution is the double domestication of rice in Africa as well as Asia, which was followed by its double "de-domestication," or reversion to a wild form, all within the roughly 10,000 years since hunter-gatherers became settled farmers.

With the help of modern genetic technology and the resources of the International Rice GeneBank, which contains more than 112,000 different types of rice, evolutionary biologist Kenneth Olsen, PhD, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been able to look back in time and ask whether the same mutations underlay the emergence of the same traits in both cultivated and weedy rice.

His latest findings, which take a close look at the genetics of hull color, appear in the July 17, 2013, online issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

The answers are interesting in their own right but also have practical importance because modern agriculture is radically changing the selection pressures acting on rice, the most important food crop for most of the world’s populations.

In response to these pressures, weedy forms that evolved from the crop forms are taking on traits more like those of wild ancestors. “They’re very aggressive competitors,” Olsen says, “and they’ve become a huge problem both here in the U.S. and all over the world.”

“In some parts of the world farmers have given up trying to grow rice and just market the weedy stuff that’s infested the fields as a health food,” he says. You sometimes see red rice from the Camargue, the delta region in southern France, in stores, he says. “Red rice is full of antioxidants, which tend also to be plant defense chemicals,” Olsen says, “but it is basically a weed.”

Ken Olsen

Rice fields in Arkansas. In the U.S., rice originally domesticated in Asia is grown in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, east Texas and California.

Double domestication
Worldwide, most of the cultivated rice is Asian rice, Oryza sativa which was bred from its wild progenitor Oryza rufipogon in southern Asia within the past 10,000 years.

Whether the familiar indica and japonica subspecies of Asian rice also represent independent domestications is controversial. Most of the rice grown in the U.S. is japonica rice, Olsen says, which is genetically pretty different from indica rice, the rice grown in a lot of the tropics.

In any event there was a second unambiguous domestication event about 3,500 years ago when African cultivated rice (O. glaberrima) was bred from the African wild species O. barthii in the Niger River delta.

Scientists are now in a position to examine the genetic basis of both the Asian and African domestications, Olsen says. In a way it’s like being able to go back to check DNA fingerprints at the scene of a crime committed well before DNA testing first became available.

When a plant is domesticated, it acquires a suite of traits called the domestication syndrome that made it easier to grow as a crop. In rice, the syndrome includes loss of shattering (the seeds don’t break off the central grain stalk before harvest), increase in seed size, and loss of dormancy (the seeds all germinate at once and can be harvested at once).

Do the same genetic mutations underlie the emergence of these traits in both the Asian and African domestication events, or did domestication result from different mutations in the same genes, or even from mutations in different genes?

Genevieve Hay

Olsen and postdoctoral research fellow Cindy Vigueira sample weedy rice in the WUSTL greenhouse for DNA extraction and analyses.

In a series of articles in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology and other journals, Olsen, postdoctoral researcher Cindy Vigueira, and their colleagues have shown that different mutations of the same genes underlie the loss of shattering, and the straw-colored hulls and white grains of both Asian and African cultivated rice.

So both Asian and African cultivated rice “broke” at roughly the same places under selection pressure from early farmers.

Double de-domestication
Like domestication, de-domestication, or  evolution from the crop species of unpalatable weedy species that have many wild-like traits, also seems to have happened twice. One weedy strain resembles an Asian rice variety grown only in a small part of the Indian subcontient and the other strain resembles a rice grown in the tropics.

Because the weedy forms are closely related to rice varieties that were never grown in the U.S., they probably arrived as contaminants in grain stocks from Asia instead of evolving directly from the tropical japonica crops grown here.

The question, Olsen says, is whether crops reverted to wild forms by reversing the genetic changes that resulted in their domestication or through mutations that circumvented domestication in other ways.

At the genetic level the history of the weedy forms turns out to be messier than that of the crop forms.

For example, the weeds carry the crop form of the loss-of-shattering gene, which means that they branched off from the crops sometime after people selected for loss of shattering. The weedy forms shatter, but they’ve re-evolved this ability by some other, as yet unknown, pathway, he says.

Ken Olsen

Black-hulled weedy rice. Automated farming practices have made it much easier for weedy rice to escape notice and once it becomes established in a field, it can drive down the yield by 80 percent.

Weeds stealing crop genes
The most important part of this story, Olsen says, is that the genetic histories of the crops and the weeds are closely intertwined. This means the weedy forms can draw on both ancestral genes and crop genes as they respond to the selection pressures of modern agriculture.

Even though both weedy strains arose in Asia, he says, weedy rice became a problem in southeast Asia only in the last few decades. The reason is that rice seedlings were traditionally grown in paddies and then transplanted to the fields by hand. As they worked in the fields, farmers would recognize and pull weeds growing there.

But on industrialized farms, rice is sprouted directly in the field, so there’s no opportunity to remove weeds. Because the seedlings of both weedy and cultivated rice look alike, farmers often don’t realize they have a problem until the field is really infested.

Weedy infestations can drop the yield by as much as 80 percent, Olsen says. If a field is heavily infested, the farmer’s only recourse may be to abandon it.

In the U.S. weedy rice is increasingly combatted by growing herbicide resistant crop strains, Olsen says. In recent years more than a third of U.S. rice fields have been planted with herbicide-resistant rice.

But that places huge pressure on the weeds to acquire herbicide resistance by hook or by crook.

The mechanism of herbicide resistance that is bred into the crop is pretty simple, Olsen says. It’s basically a single amino-acid change in a particular gene, although newer varieties are getting a bit fancier and multiple genes may be involved. So it would be pretty easy for random mutations to confer resistance on the weeds.

The other possibility is that resistance genes will migrate from the crop to the weeds. Because both cultivated rice and weedy rice tend to self-fertilize, there hasn’t been a lot of gene flow going on in rice in general, Olsen says.

But the crop and the weeds — which are, after all, the same species – could easily hybridize now that selective pressure is favoring gene flow.

“We’re already seeing more and more hybridization occurring,” Olsen says. “It's going to change the overall composition of the weeds in U.S. rice fields and presumably elsewhere in the world as well.”

Ken Olsen

A field in front of a Riceland Foods storage facility in Stittgart, Arkansas, is infested with weedy rice, which stands taller than the other rice plants.  Riceland, an agricultural marketing cooperative, is the world's largest miller and marketer of rice.

David Kilper

D. André d'Avignon, left, director of the nuclear magnetic resonance facility at Washington University in St. Louis, works with Xia Ge, a postdoctoral research associate in chemistry, in Arts & Sciences.

Washington University in St. Louis chemist D. André d’Avignon, who manages the university’s high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) facility, has been named the winner of the 2013 Saint Louis Award.

Monsanto Co. sponsors the Saint Louis Award, and the American Chemical Society's St. Louis section administers it. The award is presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the profession of chemistry and demonstrated the potential to further the advancement of the chemical profession. 

The NMR facility is housed in the Department of Chemistry, in Arts & Sciences.

For more details about d'Avignon, his work and the award, visit here to read the American Chemical Society's release.

University College, the adult, evening and continuing education division in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has developed three new degree programs, including a master of science in statistics  — the only one offered in the St. Louis area.

The other two new degree programs are a bachelor of science in communications and a bachelor of science in journalism. University College will offer the three degree programs this fall semester, which begins Aug. 27.

The master of science in statistics prepares students for an information-rich, data-driven workforce that requires both general and specialized skills in statistical analysis.

The bachelor of science in communications focuses on theories and applications of communications — organizational, interpersonal, cultural, political and social — while the bachelor of science in journalism provides an academic and experiential foundation to help launch a career in print, broadcast and Web-based journalism and other news media fields.

For more information on the bachelor of science in communications, visit here.

For more information on the bachelor of science in journalism, visit here.

For more information on the master of science in statistics, visit here.

Doors for Preview Night open at 6 p.m.; a light dinner will be served. RSVP at (314) 935-6700 or online.

Among the topics to be covered during the hour-long program are tuition, transferring college credits, financial aid, academic advising and class schedules.

About University College

Originally founded in 1853 to serve the diverse educational needs of the St. Louis area, Washington University continues to grow and thrive more than 150 years later. The first educational step of the fledgling university, on Oct. 22, 1854, was to establish an evening program.

Washington University Extension, addressing the needs of local teachers, was begun in 1908, and, after much expansion and diversification, became University College in 1931.

Then and since, people of all ages attend Washington University through University College, earning associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees, or certificates, or taking courses for personal enrichment.

St. Louis is known for its plant science, but few of us know what is going on in the labs we drive by on the way to work. Now is our chance to find out.

The International Society of Photosynthesis Research, meeting this August in St. Louis, is offering an afternoon of talks and demonstrations about the original “green” chemistry invented by bacteria and plants and its relevance to our energy future.

Intended for teachers, students and the public, “Photosynthesis in Our Lives” will take place from 3-5 p.m. Aug. 11 in the Park View room at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at The Arch.

Learn about the latest research, see algae balls turn water purple and watch leaves mysteriously float and sink. The event is free, but reservations are encouraged. RSVP to: http://parc.wustl.edu/outreachRSVP by Aug. 7.

What are scientists working on and why?
Robert Blankenship, PhD, the Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and moderator of “Photosynthesis in Our Lives,” said he handpicked three internationally renowned scientists who are particularly engaging speakers to deliver 15-minute talks about photosynthesis and its relevance to the global energy crisis.

First up is Richard Cogdell of the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom, who will speak about how plants (and some bacteria) grab the energy in sunlight. By way of introduction, here is Cogdell being interviewed for MicrobeWorld, the Youtube channel of the American Society for Microbiology.

http://youtu.be/jJWU4rt-iYM

Richard Cogdell explains why he finds photosynthesis interesting. The complete interview can be found at MicrobeWorld: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLW0RWxAH60. Used with permission.

Next up is Gary Brudvig of Yale University, who will explain how a plant splits water molecules, producing oxygen. As he will explain, oxygen is a waste product — for the purposes of photosynthesis, at any rate — which the plants dump into the atmosphere. Humans and animals rely on the oxygen produced by plants.

The last speaker, Richard Sayre of Los Alamos National Laboratory, will jump to the ultimate goal of studying photosynthesis, which is to engineer alternative energy sources that can compete economically with fossil fuels. Sayre, who is chief technology officer for Phycal Inc., an algal biofuels company in which the Department of Energy has invested $50 million, will discuss the challenges of this critically important endeavor.

What’s happening in leading St. Louis labs?
Following the talks, the audience will be introduced to two local Energy Frontier Research centers, research centers focused on photosynthesis that were established by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science in August 2009. These are the Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) at Washington University and the Center for Advanced Biofuel Systems (CABS) at the Donald Danforth Plant Center.

Demonstrations and experiments
Then comes the fun part. A video will introduce experiments PARC has designed to engage students in photosynthetic research, four of which will be set up around the room. 

Faith BEMISS/DEMOCRAT

Tucker Robnett, foreground, 6 of Laddonia, learns how to make algae beads from microalgae with the help of Terry Woodford-Thomas, the director of science education at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis.

One demonstration, for example, will show how balls of algae change the color of a buffer as they photosynthesize. When carbon dioxide is dissolved in the water, it forms carbonic acid, turning the solution red. When photosynthesis is in high gear and carbon dioxide is being withdrawn from the water to make carbohydrate, the solution changes from red to magenta to deep purple.

A second experiment uses leaves rather than a buffer solution as an indicator. Disks punched out of leaves normally float but when the air spaces between cells are loaded with carbon dioxide (by adding sodium bicarbonate to the water), the leaf becomes heavy enough to sink. Then as the leaves begin to photosynthesize, oxygen is released into the interiors, causing them to become more buoyant and to rise.

DAN ALLEN

Here, high school teachers use a spectroradiometer to see the amount of light of each color given off by different sources, such as fluorescent, incandescent and LED bulbs and, by putting the radiometer beneath a plant leaf, determine which colors the leaf absorbs.

Like many of his fellow scientists, Blankenship, the director of PARC at Washington University, thinks that children will need to be prepared to continue to solve the energy crisis, one of the top global issues today and in the future. “This guiding principle,” he said, “makes us committed to offering comprehensive energy education programs for children, teachers and the public.”

Joan Strassmann

In 2011, Nature announced that scientists had discovered a single-celled organism that is a primitive farmer. The organism, a social amoeba called Dictyostelium discoideum, picks up edible bacteria, carries them to new locations and harvests them like crops.

D. discoideum enjoyed a brief spell in the media spotlight, billed as the world’s smallest farmer.

Now a collaboration of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard University has taken a closer look at one lineage, or clone, of a D. discoideum farmer.

This farmer carries not one but two strains of bacteria. One strain is the “seed corn” for a crop of edible bacteria, and the other strain is a weapon that produces defensive chemicals.

The edible bacteria, the scientists found, evolved from the toxic one. The two strains differ by many mutations but a single key mutation, which hit an important controller in the genome of the nonfood strain, alters expression of 10 percent of its genome. This alteration increases the expression of some genes and decreases the expression of others.

A mutation that affects this much of a genome could be lethal, but in this case it had the surprising effect of making the bacterium edible by changing its chemical profile.

The discovery is reported in the July 29 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The first farmer

The first farmers were found by Debra Brock, then a graduate student in the laboratory run by David Queller and Joan Strassmann at Rice University in Houston, Texas. (All three scientists have since moved to Washington University in St. Louis, where Queller and Strassmann are professors of biology and Brock is a research scientist.)

Joan Strassmann

Research scientist Debra Brock collecting soil samples that might contain wild D. discoideum clones at the biological field station in Mountain Lake, Va.

Brock, who had worked for years with the standard axenic (pure, or uncontaminated) lab clone, noticed something strange about the D. discoideum in the Queller/Strassmann lab, which had been collected from the wild.

When she looked at wild D. discoideum clones under a microscope, she saw bacteria in the sori of some clones. Oddly it was always the same clones that carried bacteria. The bacteria caught her attention because she had never seen anything like this in the lab clone.

“As I tell the students, it’s all about the details,” Brock says.

A fancy farmer
Whenever she found a D. discoideum clone carrying bacteria, Brock tried to isolate the bacteria. This was a bit hit or miss, she explains, because many organisms that live in the soil cannot be grown in the lab.

Eventually she found a champion D. discoideum: a farmer clone from which she was able to isolate two strains of bacteria. At least the strains looked different when they were cultured in a dish.

Debra Brock

Colony morphology when bacteria carried by one D. discoideum farmer clone were cultured. Brock noticed some of the bacterial colonies had fuzzy borders and others had smooth ones.

She sent the two bacteria out to be identified genetically and both came back as Pseudomonas fluorescens: the same species, even though they were morphologically so different.

“It was a bit of a puzzle,” Brock said. On top of that one of the two morphs was edible and the other was not, and the edible one was the first edible strain she had isolated that wasn’t a lab feedstock.

“So, I now had two bacteria that seemed the same and one was a food and the other wasn’t,” Brock said. “That was really odd.".

Toting guns and butter
When the farmer paper appeared in Nature, Jon Clardy of the Harvard Medical School in Boston noticed a passing reference to the D. discoideum farmer with two hitchhikers in the supplement section of the paper. Clardy, who studies the chemistry of mutualism, contacted the Queller/Strassmann lab to suggest the two labs collaborate to unravel the interactions among the newly discovered threesome.

Brock sent the bacteria to Harvard, where Pierre Stallforth, a postdoctoral associate in the Clardy lab, grew them in liquid media. He sent extracts from the media back to Brock, who tested them on D. discoideum to see if they were active.

“Ultimately Pierre figured out that the nonfood strain was producing two chemicals: chromene and pyrrolnitrin. And excitingly, chromene is a new compound,” Strassmann said.

"We determined chromene increases spore production in the farmer strain and suppresses spore formation in the nonfarmer strain," she explained. "We saw the same increases in the farmer and decreases in the non-farmer with pyrrolnitrin. A known antibiotic and antifungal, pyrrolnitrin probably also suppresses other organisms in the soil that might compete with the farmer strain."

Assays showed that it was not merely the absence of chromene and pyrrolnitrin that made the food bacterium edible. Something else is going on as well.

Why become butter?
Stallforth next sequenced the entire genome of the two bacterial strains to look for mutations that might explain the differences between them.

The genes responsible for producing pyrrolnitrin were intact in both strains. So he looked at the genes for a two-part global activator that regulates the pyrrolnitrin pathway, among many other genes.

Sure enough, there was a mutation in one of the controller genes of the food bacterium that turned it off and broke the controller. As shown by others in a previous study, breaking the controller changed the expression of 10 percent of the bacteria’s genome.

“That’s pretty cool, but then you still don’t really know for sure if that mutation is the one that matters,”  Strassmann said.

To check, Stallforth artificially broke the controller — and only the controller — in the nonedible P. fluorescens bacterium. The knockout strain he created had the same chemical profile as the food bacterium and it, too, was edible.

Had a similar mutation in the evolutionary past created the edible strain? To answer that question, the scientists constructed a family tree of P. fluorescens clones in the Strassmann/Queller lab by comparing 20 genes.

“It turns out that of all the bacteria strains we’ve ever isolated, the two we collected from the D. discoideum farmer clone Brock discovered are the most closely related, Queller said.

“The tree also tells us that edibility is a derived trait. These guys used to be inedible and became edible. That’s just a weird thing to evolve: to be able to be eaten,” Queller said.

It makes sense only because it benefits kin, more of whom will be carried to new locations by the well-fed farmer D. discoideum clone, the scientists said.

It’s altruism, ultimately. Altruism in miniature.

Joan Strassmann

WUSTL sophomore Kevin Hays works to solve a Rubik's Cube in record time.

Hays solved the “6x6” Rubik’s Cube in 1 minute, 40 seconds — 9 seconds faster than his previous record. The 6x6 cube has 36 squares per side; that’s a total of 216 squares Hays twisted and turned into perfect alignment. Most of us grew up trying (and failing) to solve the standard 3x3 cube, which has nine squares per side.

Recognized as one of the globe’s best solvers, Hays said he has memorized some 80 algorithms to master the 6x6 cube. He started playing as a high school freshman and, at one point, trained three hours a day. These days, he only practices before big competitions.

“It’s not as much math as you might think,” Hays said. “It’s more pattern recognition and muscle memory execution. You need the kind of mind that can see something and then immediately associate it with what you have to do.”

Hays said he never expected to break the world record.

“In competition, I’m pretty nervous,” Hays said. “To get 1:40 was nuts. It will be a long time before I get a time that good again.”

Hays came close to breaking the world record two years ago, but then the cube literally fell apart in his hands.

Hays also won first place in  the 5x5, 6x6 and 7x7 events at the World Rubik's Cube Championship 2013, which took place in July in Las Vegas.

Hays, 19, of Renton, Wash., is studying math, in Arts & Sciences, and computer science.

And he’s not the only Rubik’s Cube master on campus. As a teenager, Provost Holden Thorp, PhD, competed against fellow champions on the television show That’s Incredible. He won the first round, solving the standard 3x3 cube in 48 seconds. Impressive … for the 1980s. Today, the best competitors can solve the cube in less than 10 seconds.

“What Kevin has done is an extraordinary challenge," Thorp said. "To be able to solve it at all is a herculean effort, and to do be able to do it in 1:40 is almost otherworldly."

Thorp himself still plays the Rubik’s Cube.

“I haven’t had a chance to unpack mine yet, but I usually keep one in my office,” Thorp said. “If you just need to clear the decks in your brain, spending two minutes putting the cube together is a great way to go to a place where you’re not thinking about anything else but that.”

So would Thorp accept a Rubik’s Cube throwdown against Hays?

“So long as he does the 6x6 and I still get to do the 3x3,” Thorp said.

This is an example of a virtual classroom, through which students in Semester Online courses will participate in discussions and activities, attend lectures and collaborate with peers while guided by renowned professors.

In the Semester Online course “Environmental and Energy Policies,” Washington University in St. Louis political science Professor Bill Lowry not only tells students how politicians impact the earth, he shows them. 

In addition to watching a weekly live lecture with Lowry, in Arts & Sciences, students will view in-depth interviews with the park managers who operate two of the nation’s greatest treasures: Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks.

“Professors are bringing in outside voices and trying new things,” said Ian Van Tuyl, Semester Online’s chief content officer. “When we work with a professor to design their course, we ask them for their wish list of things they wish they could do. We’ve been able to make a lot of that happen.”

“Environmental and Energy Policies” is one of the 11 online courses offered this fall to WUSTL students through Semester Online, a consortium of top peer universities. Other options include “Shakespeare and Film,” from Notre Dame; “Drugs and Behavior,” from Emory University; “Leading and Managing: An Introduction to Organizational Behavior,” from University of North Carolina; and “How to Rule the World,” from Boston College.

Washington University students have until Aug. 26 to register for the courses. Each section is limited to 20 students. Courses include a live, 80-minute weekly class plus pre-produced online content such as guest interviews, panel discussions and dramatizations. But students do more than watch the asynchronous material — they engage in it.

“A professor can show an interview and pose questions to the online student and that student has to respond,” said Van Tuyl. “It makes the live class much richer. And the professor will know who has worked their way through the materials. We like to joke that there is no back row on the Internet.”

Washington University announced last fall its participation in Semester Online, a consortium of leading schools. Other members include Boston College, Brandeis University, Emory University, Northwestern University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Notre Dame.

The goal is to improve upon campus courses that are already great, said Van Tuyl. For instance, “Vietnam: America’s War at Home and Abroad” features a panel discussion with Vietnam vets; “Leading and Managing” includes dramatizations of business-place scenarios; and “Baseball and American Culture” showcases interviews with former big leaguers.

WUSTL Associate Provost Shelley Milligan said the Semester Online experience will match the give-and-take of the best seminars. When students log on for a Semester Online class, they each will see the faces of their fellow students arranged in a grid.

“Think of it like the opening of The Brady Bunch," said Milligan. “It’s a very different way of taking these courses, all of which will have a discussion component. You may not have that in a lecture class with 200 to 300 people.”

Milligan believes Semester Online courses will be as rigorous, if not more so, than their campus counterparts.

“For students who think this is a blow-off way to take a course, they might be surprised,” said Milligan. “You will really have to keep up.”

Milligan said the university will measure outcomes and survey students about their experience. The School of Law introduced an online LLM last spring through 2U, a Semester Online partner and a leader in creating online academic experiences for top colleges and universities.

“We’ll definitely put the Semester Online courses through the same evaluation we have for on-campus courses,” said Milligan. “But beyond that, are there ways to test how and what students learn? And are there lessons we can learn from this manner of instruction that could positively influence other courses? We’ll study those questions, too.”

Milligan said the addition of online learning does not diminish Washington University’s identity as a residential college. It merely means more options for its diverse student body.

“Taking ‘The Rise of Christianity’ from a leading professor at Notre Dame – that’s a pretty neat experience for someone at Washington University,” said Milligan. “This is an interesting experiment, and I think it’s advantageous to be on the cutting edge of something new.”

In the spring, Washington University will offer three additional courses: “Introduction to Psychology,” taught by Brian Carpenter, PhD, an associate professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences; “Critical Earth Issues,” with Michael Wysession, PhD, an associate professor of earth and planetary sciences, also in Arts & Sciences; and “Introduction to Computer Science,” by Ron Cytron, PhD, professor of computer science.

Students who are interested in registering for Semester Online classes should remember:

• Semester Online classes are free, although there is a penalty for dropping after Semester Online’s drop date, Sept. 6.

• Start with your academic adviser. Not all courses will result in major credit.

• The classes are open to sophomores, juniors and seniors. First-year students are not eligible.

• Students may take one course per semester.

• Register at semesteronline.org.

Levin lab

In a rapidly dividing chain of bacterial cells (top), constriction rings that will pinch the cells in two appear in red. The red doughnut to the bottom right of the image is a constriction ring seen head on rather than from the side. In the middle, an image of the constriction rings (red) has been overlaid on one of the cell walls (green), The bottom image shows the constriction rings (red) and the bacterial DNA (blue). Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are learning exactly how the bacteria control the assembly of the constriction rings and thus the timing of cell division.

In 1958 a group of scientists working in Denmark made the striking observation that bacterial cells are about twice as large when they are cultured on a rich nutrient source than when they are cultured on a meager one. When they are shifted from a nutrient-poor environment to a nutrient-rich one, they bulk up until they have achieved a size more appropriate to their new growth conditions.

It has taken 60 years to figure out how the bacteria are able to sample their surroundings and alter their cell cycles so that they grow to a size suited to the environment.

In 2007 Petra Levin, PhD, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, reported in Cell that a soil bacterium named Bacillis subtilis has a protein that senses how much food is available and, when food is plentiful, temporarily blocks the assembly of a constriction ring that pinches a cell in two to create two daughter cells.

Now Norbert Hill, a graduate student in her group, reports in the July 25 online edition of PLoS Genetics that Escherichia coli uses a similar protein to help ensure cell size is coordinated with nutrient conditions.

Delaying division even just a little bit leads to an increase in daughter cell size. Once stabilized at the new size, cells take advantage of abundant nutrient sources to increase and multiply, doubling their population at regular intervals until the food is exhausted.

Because both the B. subtilis and E. coli proteins interact with essential components of the division machinery, understanding how they function will help in the discovery of antibiotics that block cell division permanently. A group in Cambridge, England, is already working to crystallize the E. coli protein docked on one of the essential components of the constriction ring.

If they are successful they may be able to see exactly how the protein interferes with the ring’s assembly. An antibiotic could then be designed that would use the same mechanism to prevent division entirely, killing the bacteria.

Why do bacteria get bigger on a good food source?
Bacteria increase and multiply by a process called binary fission. Each cell grows and then the divides in the middle to produce two daughter cells. What could be simpler?

But the closer you look, the less simple it becomes. For binary fission to work the cell must make a copy of its circular chromosome, unlink and separate the two chromosomes to create a gap between them, assemble a constriction ring in the middle of the cell and coordinate the growth of new cell membrane as the ring cinches tight and pinches the mother cell in two. To complicate matters, bacteria don’t necessarily do these steps one by one but can instead work on several steps simultaneously.

Most of the time the goal is to produce daughters the same size as the mother cell. But when food is plentiful, bacteria start making more copies of their DNA (as many as 12) in anticipation of divisions to come, and they can’t easily cram all the extra DNA into standard-sized cells. So they grow bigger to accommodate the extra genetic material and remain large as long as the food lasts.

The inventory of partly copied chromosomes fuels rapid population growth, because a cell doesn’t start from scratch when it needs another copy of its chromosome. Under optimum conditions, E. coli, for example, divides once every 17 minutes. If they are allowed to grow unhindered this means that in 24 hours 1 bacterium becomes about 5 x 10²¹ bacteria (that is 5 with 21 zeros after it.)

How do bacteria know the pickings are rich?
In B. subtilis and E. coli the signal is a modified sugar called UDP-glucose. Presumably, the richer the growth medium, the higher the level of this sugar inside the cell.

Norbert Hill (“Bisco”), the first author of the PlosGenetics paper, in the lab. He worked out the signaling pathway in E. coli that connects nutrient levels to cell division, largely by studying mutant strains of E. coli with broken pathways.

In both bacteria UDP-glucose binds to a protein and the sugar-protein complex then interferes with the assembly of the constriction ring. In the case of B. subtilis the protein is called UgtP and in the case of E. coli it is OpgH.

“It’s interesting,” Hill said, “that both organisms, which are more different from one another than we are from bakers’ yeast, are using the same system to coordinate changing size in response to nutrient availability.”

UgtP and OpgH are bifunctional proteins that are “moonlighting” as elements of the cell-division control systems. In both cases their day jobs are to help build the cell envelope. “We think they are communicating not only how much glucose there is in the cell, but also how fast the cell is growing,” Levin said. “The sensor says not only is food abundant, but we’re also growing really fast, so we should be bigger.”

Both proteins delay division by interfering with FtsZ, the first protein to move to the division site, where it assembles into a scaffold and recruits other proteins to form a constriction ring.

“Very little is known about the assembly of the ring,” Hill said. “There are a dozen essential division proteins and we don’t know what half of them do. Nor do we understand how the ring develops enough force to constrict.”

“We do know FtsZ exists in two states,” Hill added. “One is a small monomer and the other is many monomers linked together to form a multi-unit polymer. We think the polymers bind laterally to form a scaffold and then, with the help of other proteins, make a meshwork that goes around the cell.

UgtP and OpgH both interfere with the ability of FtsZ to form the longer polymers necessary for assembly of the constriction ring.

When nutrient levels are low, UgtP and OpgH are sequestered away from the division machinery. FtsZ is then free to assemble into the scaffold supporting the constriction ring so the cell can divide. Because division proceeds unimpeded, cells are smaller when they divide.

What about other bacteria?
This control system helps to explain the 60-year-old observation that bacterial cells get bigger when they are shifted to a nutrient-rich medium.

Comparing the mechanisms that govern cell division in E. coli and B. subtilis reveals conserved aspects of cell size control, including the use of UDP-glucose, a molecule common to all domains of life, as a proxy for nutrient availability, and the use of moonlighting proteins to couple growth-rate-dependent phenomena to the central metabolism.

But much more is known about these model organisms, which many labs study, than the average bacterium. Nobody is sure how many species of bacteria there are—somewhere between 10 million and a billion at a guess—and they don’t all divide the way B. subtilis and E. coli do.

The whimsically named giant bacterium Epulopiscium fiselsoni (“Fishelson’s guest at a fish’s banquet”) that lives in the guts of sturgeonfish, has the gene for FtsZ but doesn’t divide by binary fission. And then there are bacteria like the pathogen Chlamydia traachomatis that don’t have a gene for anything like FtsZ. "We don’t know how these bacteria divide, much less maintain an appropriate cell size," Levin said.

Moynier

Frédéric Moynier, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has been named the recipient of the 2013 Hisashi Kuno award given by the American Geophysical Union.

The award is given annually to recognize the scientific accomplishments of junior scientists who make outstanding contributions to the fields of volcanology, geochemistry and petrology. The intent is to award and highlight excellence in research performed during the seven years after the PhD.

Moynier was cited for his "prolific and creative studies on the use of non-traditional isotopes in geochemistry and cosmochemistry.” 

Some recent applications of these new analytical methods include the first chemical evidence that the Moon was created by a giant impact, the characterization of the chemical composition of the Earth, the characterization of asteroid 4-Vesta’s core, and the discovery of niches that might have supported early forms of life on Earth.

More recently, Moynier has started collaborate with colleagues at the School of Medicine to apply these methods to problems such as the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease

Moynier, who was raised in Provence, France, holds a doctoral degree from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon.

The award is named in honor of Hisashi Kuno (1910-1969), a professor of petrology at the University of Tokyo who recognized the importance of the fine-grained groundmass minerals in volcanic rocks as indicators of their genetic relationships and demonstrated the presence of two distinct volcanic series in the Japan Arc under extremely difficult conditions during and after the Second World War. With the assistance of the electron microprobe this method of determining genetic relationships has since flourished.

The award will be bestowed on Moynier at the reception for the Volcanology, Geochemistry and Petrology section of the American Geophysical Union at the AGU’s fall meeting. Moynier will also deliver a Kuno’s lecture at the European Geophysical Meeting in Vienna in 2014.

You plan on shopping for groceries later and you tell yourself that you have to remember to take the grocery bags with you when you leave the house. Lo and behold, you reach the check-out counter and you realize you’ve forgotten the bags.

Remembering to remember – whether it’s grocery bags, appointments, or taking medications – is essential to our everyday lives. 

New research from Washington University in St. Louis sheds light on the brain mechanisms that underlie a type of memory, known as prospective memory, revealing two distinct processes that support our ability to remember to remember.

McDaniel

“These findings suggest that people could make use of several different strategies to accomplish prospective memory tasks,” says study lead author Mark McDaniel, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University. 

The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

To investigate how prospective memory is processed in the brain, psychological scientist McDaniel and colleagues had participants lie in an fMRI scanner and asked them to press one of two buttons to indicate whether a word that popped up on a screen was a member of a designated category. 

In addition to this ongoing activity, participants were asked to try to remember to press a third button whenever a special target popped up. The task was designed to tap into participants’ prospective memory, or their ability to remember to take certain actions in response to specific future events.

When McDaniel and colleagues analyzed the fMRI data, they observed that two distinct brain activation patterns emerged when participants made the correct button press for a special target.

When the special target was not relevant to the ongoing activity – for example, a syllable like “tor” – participants seemed to rely on top-down brain processes supported by the prefrontal cortex. In order to answer correctly when the special syllable flashed up on the screen, the participants had to sustain their attention and monitor for the special syllable throughout the entire task. In the grocery bag scenario, this would be like remembering to bring the grocery bags by constantly reminding yourself that you can’t forget them.

When the special target was integral to the ongoing activity—a whole word, like “table,” participants recruited a different set of brain regions, and they didn’t show sustained activation in these regions. The findings suggest that remembering what to do when the special target was a whole word didn’t require the same type of top-down monitoring. Instead, the target word seemed to act as an environmental cue that prompted participants to make the appropriate response – like reminding yourself to bring the grocery bags by leaving them near the front door.

Co-authors on this research include Pamela LaMontagne, Michael Scullin, Todd Braver of Washington University in St. Louis; and Stefanie Beck of Technische Universität Dresden.

This research was funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translation Sciences, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and the German Science Foundation.

###

For more information about this study, please contact: Mark McDaniel at mmcdanie@artsci.wustl.edu.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Dissociable Neural Routes to Successful Prospective Memory" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.

The Edison Ovations Series will welcome music legend Judy Collins to the 560 Music Center Oct. 12. Download hires image.

“I was expected to be the flower-child folksinger who might soar but would come softly to my feet in golden fields.”

And so, perhaps, she has. In a career stretching more than five decades, Collins has been a piano prodigy, an antiwar activist and a chart-topping, Grammy Award-winning pop icon. Now, at 74, she continues to record and perform around the world, her crystalline soprano undimmed by time, tragedy or her own inner demons.

On Oct. 12, the Edison Ovations Series at Washington University in St. Louis will welcome Collins for a special, one-night-only performance in the 560 Music Center.

Proceeds will benefit the Edison Education Endowment, which subsidizes workshops, performances and transportation for local K-12 students.

Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Raised in Colorado, Collins moved to New York in the early days of the Greenwich Village folk scene, busking in clubs and releasing her first album, A Main of Constant Sorrow (1961) at age 22. Her pristine interpretations of traditional songs, as well as works by Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton and others, helped define the folk movement.

Collins was instrumental in bringing public attention to Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman and other emerging singer/songwriters. Her version of Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” reached number eight on the Billboard charts in 1967, while her cover of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” charted in 1975 and again in 1977.

To date, she has released more than 30 albums, most recently Paradise (2010) and Bohemian (2011).

In addition, Collins has authored six remarkably candid memoirs (and one novel) that together capture her own life and times as well as the mix of innocence and fury that propelled a generation.

“Many young people were marching against the war, and music captured our conflicting feelings of disenchantment and romantic idealism,” she writes in Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. (The title is a pun on the classic Crosby, Stills & Nash hit “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” which Stephen Still wrote about her.)

And yet it also was a time of “undeniable destructiveness as the war raged and the young trashed their bodies and their lives with the drugs many of us thought were so cool,” Collins adds.

“It was a time of tremendous hope and of tremendous naiveté, a pivotal period in which we would see how far we could push the wall.”

Tickets and sponsors

An Evening with Judy Collins will begin at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12, in the Des Lee Concert Hall of Washington University’s 560 Music Center. Tickets are $50.

Tickets are available at the Edison Box Office and through all MetroTix outlets. The 560 Music Center is located in University City at 560 Trinity Ave. Edison Theatre is located in the Mallinckrodt Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd.

For more information, call (314) 935-6543, e-mail edison@wustl.edu or visit edison.wustl.edu.

Edison programs are made possible with support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; the Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis; and private contributors.

The critically acclaimed one-man-show The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer comes to Edison Oct. 5. Photo by Michelle Robin Anderson. Download hires image.

Among the survivors are Alvin Sputnik and his wife Helen, who, despite all odds, have built a happy life in a small cottage atop a once-proud skyscraper. But when Helen takes ill and dies, the bereaved Alvin sets out on a dangerous mission to save what’s left of humanity.

So begin The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer, an inventive, heartwarming and visually spectacular mix of puppetry, mime and animation.

On Oct. 5, the critically acclaimed one-man-show—performed by Australia’s St. John Cowcher—will launch Edison Theatre’s 2013-14 ovations for young people series.

Still mourning Helen’s death, Alvin overhears a call from scientists at Earth HQ, postulating the existence of a lost paradise at the bottom of the sea. A hero is needed to find it. Alvin, with nothing left to lose, dons a deep-sea suit and dives headfirst into the watery underworld, in search of salvation and—perhaps—Helen’s soul.

Alvin Sputnik combines puppetry, mime and animation. Image courtesy of Tim Watts. Download hires image.

“If Pixar had a theatrical division, one would think (and hope) they'd create something like this show,” says NYTheatre.com. The New York Times adds that Alvin Sputnik’s “mix of environmental disaster, twee humor and cutie-pie whimsy makes it something akin to a theatrical Wall-E.”

“Is it odd to call a play set in a post-apocalyptic world charming and delightful?” asks StageBuzz.com. “Probably so, but be that as it may, The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer is a charming and delightful modern fable.

“While it deals with environmental issues, Alvin Sputnik is mostly a story about love and sacrifice.”

ovations for young people

The ovations for young people series will continue March 15 with Black Violin, a.k.a. Wilner “Wil B” Baptiste and Kevin “Kev Marcus” Sylvester, two classically trained musicians who combine classical music with jazz, funk and hip-hop. Concluding the series on April 12 will be 500 Clown in Trapped, a bouncy yet surprisingly philosophical rumination on ensnarement and escape.

Tickets and sponsors

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer begins at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5. Tickets are $12.

To maintain the intimacy of the performance, seating is limited to 200 seats per show. Tickets are available at the Edison Box Office and through all MetroTix outlets. Edison Theatre is located in the Mallinckrodt Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd.

Subscriptions to all three ovations for young people events are available for $27, or $24 for WUSTL faculty and staff.

For more information, call (314) 935-6543, e-mail edison@wustl.edu or visit edison.wustl.edu.

Edison programs are made possible with support from the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; the Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis; and private contributors. 

Angeles/WUSTL

Graduate student Michelle Harris and research scientist Darek Niedzwiedzki in PARC’s Ultrafast Laser Facility. The laser setup allows them to measure energy transfer steps among pigments in light-harvesting antennas that take place in a trillionth of a second.

The scientists who made it call it a testbed, or platform for rapid prototyping of light-harvesting antennas--structures found in plants and photosynthesizing bacteria--that take the first step in converting sunlight into usable energy. The antennas consist of protein scaffolding that holds pigment molecules in ideal positions to capture and transfer the sun’s energy. The number and variety of the pigment molecules determines how much of the sun’s energy the antennas can grab and dump into an energy trap.

In the August 6, 2013 online edition of Chemical Science, a new publication of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the scientists describe two prototype antennas they’ve built on their testbed. One incorporated synthetic dyes called Oregon Green and Rhodamine Red and the other combined Oregon Green and a synthetic version of the bacterial pigment bacteriochlorophyll that absorbs light in the near-infrared region of the spectrum.

Both designs soak up more of the sun’s spectrum than native antennas in purple bacteria that provided the inspiration and some components for the testbed. The prototypes were also far easier to assemble than synthetic antennas made entirely from scratch. In this sense they offer the best of both worlds, combining human synthetic ingenuity with the repertoire of robust chemical machinery selected by evolution.

One day a two-part system (consisting of an antenna and a second unit called a reaction center) might serve as a miniature power outlet into which photochemical modules could be plugged. The sun’s energy could then be used directly to split water, generate electricity, or build molecular-scale devices.

The project was organized by the Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) at Washington University in St. Louis, one of 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers funded by the Department of Energy in 2009. The team tapped the expertise of many PARC-affiliated scientists, including Dewey Holten and Christine Kirmaier of Washington University in St. Louis, Paul Loach and Pamela Parkes-Loach of Northwestern University, Jonathan Lindsey of North Carolina State University, David Bocian of the University of California, Riverside, and Neil Hunter of University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom.

Designer pigments
Nature has evolved many different systems to capture the sun’s energy, but they all rely on pigments, molecules that appear strongly colored because they are selectively absorbing some wavelengths, or colors, of light in the solar spectrum.

COGDELL/Holten/PARC

Antennas are made up of modules: a two-peptide dyad (side view shown above) with the pair of bacteriochlorophyll molecules (purple) in the middle. The bacteriochlorophylls absorb light and trap the energy transferred from other pigments. The additional pigmentsare attached at carefully chosen sites (red, orange and yellow) on the beta peptide (the green helix), or the top end of the alpha peptide (blue helix).

The pigment we are most familiar with is chlorophyll, the molecule that makes plants appear green. But that green color is a tipoff about the plant’s solar absorption. We see plants as green because they’re reflecting the green part of the spectrum and absorbing in the violet and the red parts of the spectrum instead.

Not only do plants miss the middle of the visible spectrum, they also miss light at wavelengths longer than we can see, including near-infrared photons absorbed by photosynthetic bacteria. The accessory pigments such as carotenoids that give leaves their splendid fall colors fill some gaps but large swaths of the solar spectrum pass through untouched.

“Since plant pigments actually reject a lot of the light that falls on them,” Hunter said, “potentially there’s a lot of light you could gather that plants don’t bother with.”

The team relies on Jonathan Lindsey to design and synthesize pigments that can absorb at wavelengths that will fill some of the holes in the absorption of natural systems. “It can’t be done from first principles,” Lindsey said, “but we have a large database of known absorbers and so drawing on that and reasoning by analogy we can design a large variety of pigments.” 

More than one synthetic or natural pigment can be attached to the protein scaffolding. “The prototypes in the Chemical Science paper both have two but ultimately we’d like to add three or four or even more,” said Lindsey. “One of our goals is to understand to what extent the protein can be derivatized with pigments.”

“The effectiveness of the design depends not only on having extra pigments but also pigments able to talk to one another, so that energy that lands on any one of them is able to hop onto the next pigment and then to the next one after that. They have to work together,” Hunter explained.

“The energy cascades down like a waterfall,” Hunter said. “So you pour the energy at the top of the waterfall and it hits one pigment and jumps to the next and the next and finally to the pigment at the bottom, which in terms of energy is the pigment that is reddest in color.”

Self assembly line
If broad spectral coverage was one goal of the project, another was to avoid the laborious synthesis typically required to make designer light-harvesting antennas.

Fortunately light-harvesting antennas from purple bacteria are modular devices that self assemble under appropriate conditions, conditions that have been worked out by team members Paul Loach and Pamela Parkes-Loach. The basic module is a pair of peptides (short proteins) called alpha and beta that in turn house two bacteriochlorophyll molecules that both absorb light and act as the trap for all the harvested energy.

Thanks to the chemical affinities of the components, they self-assemble into dyads when added together in detergent (detergent is used instead of water alone because parts of the peptides shun water). By adjusting the detergent concentration and temperature, the dyads form rings, which in native antenna contain up to 16 alpha/beta dyads and thus as many as 32 bacteriochlorophylls.

In the testbed, the scientists use peptides that have been slightly modified from the native amino acid sequence for attachment of the extra pigments to increase solar spectral coverage. The attachment sites were chosen to avoid disrupting the self assembly of the components into dyads and dyads into rings.

HUNTER/Holten/PARC

The dyad modules assemble into rings (side view, above left, and top view, above right) that pack many pigments together for light harvesting. Because of the additional pigments attached to the dyads, the antennas absorb more of the sun’s light than natural systems.

“This is an example of what the field would refer to as semi-synthesis,” Lindsey said. “We take naturally occurring materials and combine them with synthetic ones to make something that doesn’t exist in nature. By taking lots of material from nature we can make molecules that are architecturally more complex than those we can make from scratch.”

Once assembled, the antenna are sent to the Holten/Kirmaier lab, where a variety of spectroscopic methods including ultra-fast laser spectroscopy are used to excite each pigment molecule and to follow the energy transfer from one pigment to the next and down to the target bacteriochlorophyll. Given the right pigments in the right locations, this transfer is extremely efficient, and little energy is lost on the way.

“I’ve been working in photosynthesis for 50 years,” said Loach, “and I can’t think of many other times when there were so many good people with so many different talents coming together to try to solve problems. It’s fun to be part of it and to see what comes out of the collaboration.”

A recent report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor indicates that there are significantly fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs around the world.

Sarah Haselkorn

“I think a lot the university’s success with female entrepreneurs begins with admissions,” says Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School. “When you admit ambitious, confident young people, they tend to do great things, whether they are male or female.”

Recent female entrepreneurship successes include:

• The Migrant and Immigrant Community Action Project (MICA)– Founded by Nicole Corté, who earned a master’s degree in social work from the Brown School and a Juris Doctorate from the School of Law in May 2012; and Jessica Mayo, who earned a Juris Doctorate in May 2012, the organization works with low-income immigrants to overcome barriers to justice.
• The Green Bean restaurant– Founded by Sarah Haselkorn, who earned a bachelor's of science in systems science and engineering from the School of Engineering & Applied Science in May 2013, the Central West End restaurant features locally sourced food and sustainable materials.
• Liberal Diagnostics Center– Founded by Amber Ansari, who earned an MBA from Olin Business School in May 2013. Ansari founded and managed the initial operations of the facility in Liberal, Kan., while attending the full-time MBA program in St. Louis.
• Farmplicity– Co-founded by Lauren Ortwein, who earned a BSBA from Olin Business School in May 2013; and senior Jolijt Tamanaha, majoring in political science in Arts & Sciences, Farmplicity makes it easier for restaurants to order locally grown food.
• myEDmatch– founded by Alicia Herald, who earned an EMBA degree in 2011, the company matches educators with jobs to find the best fit for both the school and the employee.
• Sparo Labs– Co-founded by Abigail Cohen, who earned a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering in May 2013, Sparo Labs is developing a low-cost spirometer, a device which measures lung function, aimed a helping people in developing countries.

"Popular press suggests women don't become entrepreneurs because it's too risky,” says Kasey Joyce, a second-year MBA student and president of the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club.

“Washington University turns that assumption on its head,” she says. “The university has created an environment that allows women to build their businesses with the tools and skills needed to make calculated decisions to eliminate that risk. The result is that most of my entrepreneurship classes, clubs and events have a strong female presence. We're a passionate and driven community and we don't want to work in a cubicle all our lives. Entrepreneurship gives us that freedom and the university gives us the tools to get there."

Washington University helps nurture and fuel student entrepreneurship through a variety of programming and support, including the Olin Cup, the YouthBridge Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition (YSEIC), the Discovery Competition in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, The Hatchery course, the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and a partnership with St. Louis startup hub T-REx.

“There has been a general culture shift in the Washington University community over the last 10 to 15 years that founding a business after graduation is a viable and advisable option,” says Holekamp, who co-teaches The Hatchery, one of the university’s capstone entrepreneurship courses.

The recent national attention focused on St. Louis as an entrepreneurship hub has certainly helped.

“There is not doubt that the student community is inspired by the St. Louis startup community,” Holekamp says. “We are engaging our students in the St. Louis scene, and that becomes infectious. Students want to stay here and grow their businesses. Getting them exposed to the field takes away some of the veil of mystery of being an entrepreneur, making it less intimidating.”

Opportunities abound for both men and women.

“There are amazing resources here if you take advantage of them, and you should, because you’re only here for four years,” says Haselkorn, founder of Green Bean. “It’s important to find the right people to reach out to who can help you.”

Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis

Entrepreneur magazine has ranked Washington University No. 5 in undergraduate programs and No. 6 in graduate programs. Degrees in entrepreneurship are offered at the undergraduate and graduate level in the business school; WUSTL’s Brown School offers a master’s degree in social entrepreneurship in conjunction with Olin Business School. A minor degree in entrepreneurship is an option for all undergraduates at WUSTL. The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies manages two annual business plan competitions: the Olin Cup for commercial ventures and the YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition. The School of Engineering and & Applied Science launched its Discovery Competition last fall with the goal of promoting new and innovative solutions for real-world problems and allowing students to compete for financial resources that could help turn their ideas into businesses. The winning team was awarded $25,000.

James Byard/WUSTL

Nancy Duan, Michelle Liberton and Lingxia Zhao, are members of a team that has taken the first proof-of-principle steps toward inserting the genes needed to fix nitrogen — otherwise found only in bacteria and the bacteria-like Archae —into the cells of crop plants.

Since the dawn of agriculture people have exercised great ingenuity to pump more nitrogen into crop fields. Farmers have planted legumes and plowed the entire crop under, strewn night soil or manure on the fields, shipped in bat dung from islands in the Pacific or saltpeter from Chilean mines and plowed in glistening granules of synthetic fertilizer made in chemical plants.

No wonder Himadri Pakrasi’s team is excited by the project they are undertaking. If they succeed, the chemical apparatus for nitrogen fixation will be miniaturized, automated and relocated within the plant so that nitrogen is available when it is needed and where it is needed and only then and there.

“That would really revolutionize agriculture,” says Pakrasi, PhD, the Myron and Sonya Glassberg/Albert and Blanche Greensfelder Distinguished University Professor and Director of the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) at Washington University in St. Louis.

Engineering with biological parts
Much of modern agriculture relies on biologically available nitrogenous compounds (called “fixed” nitrogen) made by an industrial process, developed by German chemist Fritz Haber in 1909. The importance of the Haber-Bosch process, as it was eventually called, can hardly be overstated; today the fertilizer it produces allows us to feed a population roughly a third larger than the planet could sustain without synthetic fertilizer.

On the other hand, the Haber-Bosch process is energy intensive, and the reactive nitrogen released into the atmosphere and water as run-off from agricultural fields causes a host of problems, including respiratory illness, cancer, and cardiac disease.

Pakrasi thinks it should be possible to design a better nitrogen-fixing system. His idea is to put the apparatus for fixing nitrogen in plant cells, the same cells that hold the apparatus for capturing the energy in sunlight.

The National Science Foundation just awarded Pakrasi and his team more than $3.87 million to explore this idea farther. The grant will be administered out of I-CARES, a university-wide center that supports collaborative research regionally, nationally, and internationally in the areas of energy, the environment, and sustainability.

This award is one of four funded by the National Science Foundation jointly with awards funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council in the United Kingdom. The teams will collaborate with one another and meet regularly to share progress and successes. The NSF release is available here. 

A proof of principle
As a proof of principle Pakrasi and his colleagues plan to develop the synthetic biology tools needed to excise the nitrogen fixation system in one species of cyanobacterium (a phylum of green bacteria formerly considered to be algae) and paste it into a second cyanobacterium that does not fix nitrogen.

The team includes: Tae Seok Moon, PhD, and Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, both assistant professors of energy, environmental and chemical engineering in the School of Engineering at Washington University, and Costas D. Maranas, Donald B. Broughton Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at Pennsylvania State University.

“Ultimately what we want to do is take this entire nitrogen-fixation apparatus—which evolved once and only once—and put it in plants,” Pakrasi says. “Because of the energy requirements of nitrogen fixation we want to put it in chloroplasts, because that’s where the energy-storing ATP molecules are produced.” In effect, the goal is to convert all crop plants, not just the legumes, into nitrogen fixers.

Amazing cycling chemistry
All cyanobacteria photosynthesize, storing the energy of sunlight temporarily in ATP molecules and eventually in carbon-based molecules, but only some of them fix nitrogen. Studies of the evolutionary history of 49 strains of cyanobacteria suggest that their common ancestor was capable of fixing nitrogen and that this ability was then repeatedly lost over the course of evolution.

The big hurdle to redesigning nitrogen fixation, however, is that photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation are incompatible processes. Photosynthesis produces oxygen as a byproduct and oxygen is toxic to nitrogenase, the enzyme needed to fix nitrogen. This is why most organisms that fix nitrogen work in an anaerobic (oxygenless) environment.

Cyanobacteria that both photosynthesize and fix nitrogen separate the two activities either in space or in time. Cyanothece 51142, a cyanobacterium Pakrasi’s lab has studied for more than 10 years, does it through timing.

James Byard/WUSTL

Integrated into the project is an undergraduate inter-institutional iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) training program. Through iGEM, a team of six undergraduates from Washington University and Penn State, including Phillip Sossenheimer, Joanthan Luskin, Jagdeesh Kottapalli, and Rebecca Shih (above), will be trained in the genetic engineering and work on projects designed to dovetail with the aims of the nitrogen-fixation project.

One outcome of this program will be the creation of an iGEM toolkit for cyanobacterial engineering. Most iGEM teams have worked with organisms that do not photosynthesize. For example, a past winning WUSTL iGEM project produced key molecules in the spice saffron and transferred the necessary genes to Escherichia coli, a non-photosynthesizing bacterium.

It is the Pakrasi team’s hope that the toolkit would provide tools and resources to inspire other teams to work in this area.

In addition, the undergraduate team will participate in the iGEM competition, the premier international synthetic biology competition in which teams of undergraduate researchers from various universities build biological systems of their own design based on standardized parts.

By providing transformation systems and techniques and a simple low-cost cultivation system suitable for cyanobacteria, the group hopes to inspire other iGEM teams to work with photosynthetic organisms.

Cyanothece 51142 has a biological clock that allows it to photosynthesize during the day and fix nitrogen at night. During the day the cells photosynthesize as fast as they can, storing the carbon molecules they create in granules. Then, during the night, they burn the carbon molecules as fast as they can. This uses up all the oxygen in the cell, creating the anaerobic conditions needed for nitrogen fixation.

Thus the environment within the cell oscillates daily between the aerobic conditions needed for capturing the energy in sunlight and the anaerobic conditions needed for fixing nitrogen.

A single mega transfer
The scientists have chosen their proof-of-principle project very carefully to maximize the odds it will work.

Cyanothece 51142 is particularly attractive as a parts source for the project because it has the largest contiguous cluster of genes related to nitrogen fixation of any cyanobacterium. Roughly 30 genes are part of the same functional unit under the control of a single operating signal, or promoter.

The scientists hope this cluster of genes can be moved to another cyanobacterial strain in a single mega-transfer. The one they’ve picked as the host, Synechocystis 6803, is the best studied strain of cyanobacteria. Not only has its genome been sequenced, it is naturally “transformable” and able to integrate foreign DNA into its genome by swapping it with similar native strands of DNA.

But it’s actually the next step in the project that will provide the greater challenge for Pakrasi and his team. The scientists will need to figure out how to connect the transplanted nitrogen-fixing gene cluster to Synechocystis’ clock. “Like every cyanobacterium,” Pakrasi says, “ Synechocystis has a diurnal rhythm. But how to tap into that rhythm we don’t know yet. We have some ideas we’re going to test, but that’s where the challenge lies.”

Overcoming the challenge of sustainably producing food for a world population of more than 7 billion while reducing pollution and greenhouse gases will require more than luck. Odds are it will take a daring, “out of the box” idea like this one.

Gaylyn Studlar, director of Film & Media Studies in Arts & Sciences, in the program's new offices in Seigel Hall.

We sat down to discuss audience expectations, the studio system and the difficulty of aging in public.

You open with Mary Pickford, a founder of United Artists and one of the great stars of silent film, famous for playing girls and young woman. Was Pickford’s career a case of Hollywood refusing to let a child star grow up?

Well, no, actually. As a teenager, when she first started working for [director D.W.] Griffith, Pickford was cast in a range of roles. You see her playing the ingénue, the matron—or at least, the adult married woman. What’s interesting is that, when she gets older, she plays an orphaned child in part of The Foundling (1916) and the public responds. Her roles start getting younger.

Did she resist that constraint or embrace it?

She tried other roles—a Spanish street singer in Rosita (1923), an Elizabethan-era aristocrat in Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924). And these movies made money, but not what they did when she played a teenager or a kid. So she retreated to type.

To what degree did Pickford control her own public image?

I think very much so. She was an incredibly savvy businessperson, which may be why she clung to that image of the little girl.

For example, when she married Douglas Fairbanks, it was very messy. They’d both been committing adultery, until the first Mrs. Fairbanks blew the whistle. This was during World War I—and Mary and Doug initially claimed the accusation was German propaganda! [Laughs].

But soon the publicity around her is saying things like, “Oh, Mary had such a sad childhood.” “She had to support her family.” “She deserves this happiness.”

Mary Pickford in a studio portrait for The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917).

Across the board. There was a belief—particularly in the 1920's—that women controlled family movie-going. We have exhibitor reports complaining about, say, Lon Chaney, “This guy can't bring in women. He's too gruesome." Or “Great with men and boys, but the women don’t like it.”

Interesting how conventional wisdom has flipped. Today Hollywood is all about boys and young men.

There’s this whole discussion about whether female stars can guarantee box office anymore. Everyone is so amazed by the success of movies like Bridesmaids and The Heat.

But it waxes and wanes. In the 1930s and 40s, movie exhibitors would poll fans about their favorite stars. Women tended to like women and men generally liked men—except in 1934, when men’s favorite was Shirley Temple.

Let’s talk about Temple. She’s the iconic child star but, like many others, had difficulty transitioning to more grown up roles.

Shirley Temple ran into that brick wall when she was 12. Twentieth Century-Fox basically said, “You're too tall. You're too fat. We're letting you go."

The singer and actress Deanna Durbin. Her popularity, in films like Three Smart Girls (1936), helped save Universal Studios from bankruptcy.

At 12. Then she was picked up by MGM, which said, "You're too tall and too fat but we can do something about the fat part." It was cruel. Her one film at MGM was a flop, and they let her go.

So how do young stars—and their handlers—navigate the realities of maturing?

Well, it’s very dangerous. Sometimes they’ll use something very sexual—say, posing for racy pictures in Vanity Fair. Sometimes it’s manipulated through publicity. “So-and-so is dating so-and-so.” Dating becomes a way to announce the arrival of adulthood.

Of the actresses you profile, who successfully threaded that needle?

Deanna Durbin was such a hot property for Universal—as a teenager she basically saved the studio, financially and artistically—that she had to grow up. They had to find a way to keep that money machine going. But unlike Pickford, Durbin did not control her own career, and she chafed against that. She retired at age 27 and moved to France.

Shirley Temple’s transition was rocky, but in a strange way, she remained America’s darling. Even through the 1950s, after she retired from the screen, people would still buy magazines with her on the cover. Her most successful later vehicles, like The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy, are those in which she’s surrounded by other stars.

But Shirley is pretty charming in some of them. People say that, as an adult, she was a complete washout, but that’s really not true.

Elizabeth Taylor in a 1944 studio portrait.

Taylor is unusual, and I talk about some of the reasons in the book. For one, she was an unusually beautiful and mature-looking child. Uncannily so—Universal supposedly fired her because she didn’t look enough like a little girl.

Her first adult role was in The Conspirator (1949), at age 17. For the first five minutes, they present her as this innocent teenager, but then she meets Robert Taylor and gets married. Suddenly she’s a grown woman dealing with a husband who may be a murderer.

Another interesting thing is that Taylor’s voice didn't fully mature for a long time. Even playing middle-aged, in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), there’s this trail of youthfulness in her voice.

When an adult actress plays younger than her age, is this a reasonable response to the demands of the market, or is it something the studios impose upon her?

I think the better question is, why does the public want this?

Audrey Hepburn is an interesting case because men didn’t really respond to her. They preferred bosomy women like Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. Hepburn’s fans were teenage girls. But by the early '60's she was getting a lot of the same responses Pickford had gotten in the late '20's. “Why are you still acting like you’ve never been kissed? Isn’t that a little silly for a woman in her mid-30s?” Her screen persona continued to be labeled “elfin” and “adolescent.”

Men are allowed to act eternally young. Bruce Willis is how old? I just saw him on Letterman. He was riding a bicycle.

But for women, we’re trained to think that younger is always better, that there are no benefits to becoming older. I mean, what happens to actresses? You’re relegated to playing the mom—often at the margins of a film.

Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face (1957).

Well, that's always hard to say, but films do pick up on things in the culture. As an industry, film has had to cultivate different possibilities for viewer identification—it gives you a lot of options. And sometimes these become very popular, even when they seem to be going against the grain.

Mary Pickford is probably picking-up on pro-Victorian sentiments, which are still swirling around even in the 1920s. She's obviously not attached to the same kinds of values as exciting modern girls like Clara Bow or Joan Crawford.

But not everybody was becoming a flapper. Not everybody was moving to the big city. Not everybody was drinking gin, smoking cigarettes and losing their virginity. Older values remained important to many people, and Pickford’s little girls represented those nostalgic ideals in a powerful way.

Assembly Series programs are free and open to the public. The fall 2013 schedule, be​low, opens with First Year Reading Program author Eula Biss on Sept. 9 and ends with feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon on Nov. 14.

Because some information may change or be added at a later date, please check the website frequently for updates. Here, you also can subscribe to receive announcements and reminders.

FALL 2013 SCHEDULE

Monday, S​ept. 9

Biss

As the​ recent racial controversies make clear, Americans and American law still are grappling with slavery’s legacy. And as Biss’ essays in Notes from No Man’s Land, this year’s choice for the First Year Reading Program, make abundantly clear, that legacy is ambiguous, complicated, and tied inextricably with questions of identity that are deeply embedded in our culture.

Rudolph Clay, head of outreach services in University Libraries and co-host of the staff discussion groups held earlier this month, calls the book a provocative investigation of race and identity. He co-hosted the discussions with Alfreda Brown, Human Resources project manager for diversity.

“First and foremost, Notes from No Man’s Land is a great read,” Clay said, adding that “what makes the book so great is her creativity and how she looks at age, geography, all of the different things that divide people. Everyone is going to find something that speaks to them, that they will want to talk about.”

Biss’ first collection, The Balloonists, was published in 2002; Notes from No Man’s Land, published seven years later, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. Her essays have appeared in numerous literary anthologies, including The Best American Nonrequired Reading and The Best Creative Nonfiction, as well as literary journals such as the Seneca Review and The Believer.

Biss, who received a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College and a master's in fine arts from University of Iowa, teaches writing at Northwestern University.

Throughout the year, the Class of 2017 will participate in a variety of activities designed to mine the themes in Notes from No Man’s Land. To find out more about the selection as well as a list of reading discussion resources, visit http://fyrp.wustl.edu.

Friday, Sept. 20

Bomani

Bomani is the kind of research scientist whose low profile belies the significance of his work at NASA’s Glenn Research Center,where his team is creating biofuels that are sustainable, renewable and alternative. He uses the term “extreme green” to describe the objective: to develop the next generation of aviation fuels that do not use any of the Earth’s most precious resources – fresh water and arable land — but do use some of the safest and most plentiful products found in nature. (See Bomani's TED talk: http://www.ted.com/speakers/bilal_bomani.html​)

Panel Discussion: "STEM Research and Education"

Bomani will join a WUSTL panel composed of: Marcus Foston, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering (School of Engineering); Jeff Catalano, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and director of graduate studies; Brittni Jones, doctoral candidate in the Department of Education; and Kathryn Miller, PhD, chair and professor of biology; all in Arts & Sciences.

Palacio

Alfredo Palacio

"Government and Health Care: Perspectives from a President and a Physician"
Global Health Week Lecture
5 p.m., Graham Chapel

During his years as minister of health, vice president and president of the Republic of Ecuador, Palacio’s reputation as a reformer was well-founded. He led many efforts to initiate economic and social advancements, especially in health care. The cardiologist (who trained at Washington University’s School of Medicine) is a strong advocate for universal medical coverage and is credited with beginning the modernization of health care in his country.

Palacio’s appearance is part of WUSTL’s Global Health Week, which runs Sept. 23-27 and includes an international fair as well as a host of activities, demonstrations and talks designed to educate and entertain the public on a broad range of health-care issues, including nutrition and cooking. (Visit the website for details.) 

Monday, Sept. 30

Simmons

There have been many “firsts” in Ruth Simmons’ life, chief among them being the first African-American president of an Ivy League university. Hers was an extraordinary transformation, which began as the 12th child of sharecroppers, and it was one fueled solely by education. The scholar and academic leader has been dedicated to expanding access to higher education and extolling the value of a liberal arts education, two overarching goals that reflect the philosophy of the late, beloved WUSTL teacher and administrator, Jim McLeod. Co-sponsors: The Center for the Humanities and the College of Arts & Sciences (More on Jim McLeod: http://pages.wustl.edu/figure/archives/october-2011)

Friday, Oct. 4

Gruber

Just a few days after the Affordable Care Act’s mandatory insurance component becomes law, the principal architect of the Massachusetts system and chief adviser to President Obama’s plan will be on campus to explain the costs and benefits of health-care reform. The title of his talk is the same as his comic book that explains in 140 delightful pages the 1,000-page legal document. Co-sponsors: Gephardt Institute for Public Service and the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy, both in Arts & Sciences; the Brown School and the School of Law. (See more on the comic book here.) 

Monday, Oct. 7

Hall

“Embryos in Evolution and Evolving Embryos: An Historical Overview”
Thomas Hall Lecture
4 p.m., Umrath Lounge

For most of the 20th century, scientists attempting to understand how body structures change focused on either developmental biology or evolutionary biology. Then, during the 1970s, scientific trailblazers such as Hall, Stephen Jay Gould and Gunther Wagner began to merge the two concepts. It was in this new field called evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) where breakthroughs occurred in understanding how body structures change — and advance — through evolution. Hall’s research, predominantly in the area of the early vertebrate embryo known as the neural crest and its derived craniofacial skeleton, has led to a greater understanding of how cellular differentiation works.

Thursday, Oct. 10

Lessig

“Libraries and Technology”
Jack E. and Debbie T. Thomas Inaugural Library Lecture
5 p.m., Simon Hall May Auditorium

Legal scholar, author and political activist Lessig approaches societal problems with a pragmatism firmly rooted in a philosophical idealism. Whether it’s advocating for sensible intellectual property law that more aptly reflects the needs of a digitized citizenry, or taking up a cause he now carries close to his heart — removing the corrupting influence of money from American politics — Lessig finds a pathway to progress. His first address will focus on how our political system is broken and his proposal to fix it. In the second program, he will discuss aspects of technology that are changing the ways libraries are run and used. Co-sponsors: School of Law and University Libraries. (Visit Lessig's blog here.) 

Wednesday, Oct. 16

Nawa

Afghanistan’s $65 billion a year opiate industry destroys thousands of lives each year by creating addicts, by killing the addicted, by violence associated with the drug trade, and in many other, less obvious ways. When Afghan-American journalist Nawa traveled back to her native land between 2000 and 2007, she was shocked by stories such as Darya’s, the 12-year-old daughter of a dealer sold into marriage with a middle-aged drug lord to pay off her father’s debt. On the other hand, she found that some women farmers were benefiting from the drug trade. These stories compelled her to write Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords and One Woman’s Journey through Afghanistan.

Panel Discussion: Date to be announced
“Aftershocks of the Afghanistan War: What's Next for Those Who Left and for Those Left Behind”

As America’s longest-running war winds down, Afghanistan is coming back into focus. What lies ahead for this country and its people? What have the traumatic effects of war wrought on those who have left and who are left behind? The October 2013 edition of Washington Magazine will feature Nawa’s interviews with several WUSTL faculty and alumni, and the professors featured in the story will participate in a panel discussion.

Friday, Oct. 25

Basij-Rasikh

“If we have to spill our blood to pay your school fees, then we will,” Basij-Rasikh’s father told her many years ago when she was illegally attending a secret school during the Taliban’s reign in Afghanistan. To receive an education, great risks were taken, but she grew up in a family where education was prized and daughters were treasured. Now the graduate of Middlebury College provides educational opportunities for the next generation of girls through the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA) a boarding school she co-founded and runs, and through other global initiatives for women’s education.

Friday, Nov. 1

Alexander

Although Jim Crow laws institutionalizing segregation were overturned decades ago, Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow observes that it’s perfectly legal to discriminate against convicted criminals, a group predominantly made up of African-American men. Today’s U.S. criminal justice system has relegated millions to permanent second-class status, effectively creating the same racial caste system as Jim Crow, as felons are denied basic civil and human rights long after they are released. Co-sponsored by the Missouri History Museum and the School of Law. (On the book: http://newjimcrow.com)

Tuesday, Nov. 5

Wagner

Wednesday, Nov. 6
Panel Discussion: “The Future of the St. Louis Region”
Clayton Centennial Celebration
7 p.m., Simon Hall May Auditorium

The St. Louis region has much to offer, but what about its future — a future tied closely to Washington University’s? To celebrate the centennial anniversary of Clayton’s founding, experts will offer their thoughts on how our region will fare in the future. They include WUSTL provost Holden Thorp, PhD, who will address education, and plant conservationist Peter Raven, PhD, who will explore environmental sustainability. A third panelist to discuss medicine and health care will be announced on the Assembly Series website.

Thursday, Nov. 14

MacKinnon

Perhaps no one person has changed the legal landscape of sex equality in the United States more than MacKinnon. She pioneered the concept that sexual abuse violates equality rights, as well as the legal claim that sexual harassment is sex discrimination. In the international arena, she represented Bosnian survivors of sexual atrocities, winning legal recognition of rape as an act of genocide and a $745 million settlement. Co-sponsors: Law, Identity & Culture Initiative in the School of Law; the Brown School; Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies, in Arts & Sciences; Association of Women Faculty; and the Office of the Provost (Here is MacKinnon on the film Lovelace.) 

For additional information on the Assembly Series, visit the website or call (314) 935-4620.

Richard M. Kurtz, PhD, associate professor emeritus of psychology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest on Monday, Aug. 26, 2013. He was 76 and residing in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Kurtz

Kurtz, whose research interests included hypnosis, attention and time cognition, joined the university in 1968 as an assistant professor of psychology. He became associate professor in 1972 and took over as director of the clinical training program for psychology in 1986, a position he would hold for more than 17 years.

“Rick Kurtz assumed the directorship of our clinical program in a very trying time,” said Henry L. “Roddy” Roediger III, PhD, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and former chair of psychology. “He guided the program back to strength, and he shepherded it well throughout the years.

Born in Wheeling, W.Va., in 1937, Kurtz earned three psychology degrees from the University of Cincinnati — a bachelor’s in 1959, a master’s in 1961 and a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1966.

Throughout his career, Kurtz taught a popular undergraduate course on abnormal psychology. He also taught psychology as an adjunct instructor in University College in Arts & Sciences for many years before retiring in 2007.

He is perhaps best known as an enthusiastic adviser of graduate students.

“Rick Kurtz was the backbone of the clinical psychology program,” said Stanley Finger, PhD, professor emeritus of psychology. “He not only guided the program but had many students taking their PhDs under his direction. I would venture to guess that he directed and signed off on more PhDs in psychology than any other faculty member to this day.”

Colleagues describe Kurtz as bright and open-minded, and credit his personality, humor and unabashed use of the English language with adding both strength and color to the department. His creative flair for descriptive language was legendary, and many of his most inspired phrases and sayings came to be called "Kurtz-isms."

“Rick trained many, many students who cared deeply for him, and he also endeared himself to other faculty members in the department,” said Randy Larsen, PhD, chair of psychology and the William R. Stuckenberg Professor of Human Values and Moral Development. “He had a long career with us, and helped our clinical program greatly.”

Kurtz also had diverse interests outside psychology, including a keen interest in military history, gourmet cooking and ”classic” detective fiction.

“He liked horses, to shoot pistols and reading histories of war strategies,” Finger recalled. “He could converse about Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy with the same ease as when discussing Freud.”

In accordance with his wishes, there will be no memorial service. 

Donations to support clinical training in the Department of Psychology may be sent to Washington University, Campus Box 1202, 7425 Forsyth Blvd., St. Louis, Mo. 63105.

The United States must take military action against Syria, even though it may not deter Syria or other “belligerent nations” from using weapons of mass destruction, suggests a foreign policy expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Knapp

“The international community, led by the United States and backed by NATO, will likely form a ‘coalition of the willing’ to justify such action, and probably not seek a United Nations Security Council resolution because Russia and China, who support the Assad regime, would likely block it,” says Knapp, whose U.S. history courses focus on modern wars.

“Military action could range from several cruise missiles launched at the command and control units suspected of firing the chemical weapons to attacks against the regime itself and even Syrian infrastructure.

“It will not, however, likely involve a full scale, boots-on-the-ground invasion of Syria because the goal will be to punish the Assad regime for violating international law and humanitarian standards, not to embroil the U.S. in yet another war in the Middle East.

“Such action would also send a signal to other belligerent nations such as Iran and North Korea that the use of WMDs will not be tolerated by the international community.

“It would also be designed to restore some U.S. credibility in the region and around the world. However, while such action may be necessary, it remains to be seen whether it will achieve any of the desired results,” says Knapp, who is leading a campus discussion on Syria from 1-2:30 p.m. Sept. 6 as part of WUSTL’s International Relations Round Table, a group that regularly debates global issues.

“The conversation at the White House will likely focus on what to do if the strikes fail. And that is probably not a conversation that President Obama, who wants his foreign policy legacy to be ending two wars not starting a third, will want to have.”

Knapp is available for comment.