Our Highlights

Office of Technology Management fuels entrepreneurial spirit

The university’s recently established Needleman Program for Innovation and Commercialization (NPIC) will provide critical funding to help move research toward early-stage clinical trials and commercialization. The first three awardees are Carl DeSelm, MD, PhD, John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, and Kory Lavine, MD, PhD. 

Understanding the brain and nervous system is one of the most pressing challenges in medicine. To meet this challenge, WashU Medicine has built and is opening the Neuroscience Research Building, a 609,000-square-foot facility expected to be among the nation’s premier neuroscience research hubs.

COVID-19, RSV and influenza A are the most predominant of seasonal viruses, each transmitted through aerosols and droplets that are easily spread indoors. A team of researchers at Washington University is developing an inexpensive, handheld breathalyzer that could make rapid screening a step closer to reality.

A device aimed at enabling neurosurgeons and other physicians to perform noninvasive blood-based biopsies in adults with brain tumors has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “Breakthrough Device” designation. The device includes technology from Washington University in St. Louis and developed by Cordance Medical Inc., a medical device company in Mountain View, Calif.

Shripad Bhagwat, PhD, a drug development expert with decades of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, has been named the inaugural senior director of the Needleman Program for Innovation and Commercialization (NPIC) at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Sonobiopsies generate genetic, molecular data to inform treatment decisions for brain diseases

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is channeling $50.3 million over the next five years into a new consortium dedicated to advancing the generation and analysis of multi-omics data for human health research. As part of this team, Washington University in St. Louis is establishing and will lead a central production center that functions as a hub for multi-omics analyses for materials from consortium members at each of six disease study sites identified by the NIH.

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have developed a breath test that quickly identifies those who are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. The device requires only one or two breaths and provides results in less than a minute.

Proof-of-concept device could also monitor for flu, RSV, other respiratory viruses