A scholar of modern Jewish history specializing in East European Jewry and its diaspora communities, Glauber’s work has appeared in numerous journals. He is the co-editor of four collections of Hebrew essays published by Blima Books.

Glauber’s installation lecture, titled “There and back again, or: How a Hebrew book from St. Louis survived the Holocaust and returned home,” described the remarkable journey of an individual volume Glauber discovered on his first day working with the materials in the WashU Libraries’ collection.

This new position was endowed in honor of Miriam Barr, who died in June 2021, by her son, Eliav Barr, and his husband, Paul Koulogeorge, AB ’88. Their gift established an endowed fund at WashU Libraries to support a subject librarian, the Miriam Barr Librarian for Jewish and Near Eastern Studies, and provides resources to advance collecting, scholarship and programming in this field.

“Sam’s appointment to this position has fulfilled a critical need within the libraries,” said Mimi Calter, vice provost and university librarian, who introduced Glauber at the ceremony. “Having a scholar who possesses both a command of Hebrew and a strong understanding of Eastern European history is allowing us to look at our collections in a way that we haven’t been able to in the past.” 

An avid collector, Miriam Barr possessed an eye for finding and appreciating beauty. Although her collecting interests were broad, Barr was especially drawn to books and Judaica like historical photographs, maps and other artifacts.

“It is a great privilege, as well as a great responsibility, to take on this role to care for the many works of Jewish cultural heritage held here at WashU and in so doing, to honor the legacy of Miriam Barr, a Holocaust survivor, beloved matriarch and a lover of Jewish books and libraries,” Glauber said.

Glauber earned a master’s degree from Ben Gurion University in Israel, where he is working to complete a PhD. He thanked the Barr family for their vision and generosity in creating the endowed librarian position. 

“Libraries, of course, contain many treasures,” Glauber said. “But without librarians to serve as their stewards and to provide access to them, these treasures can languish on the shelf for many years without anyone knowing that they’re there.”

About Miriam Barr

Born in 1937 to Jewish parents living in present-day eastern Ukraine, Barr was only a toddler when her father died. When Barr was 4, the Nazis apprehended her and her mother and put them on a train headed for the Belzec extermination camp in Poland. She escaped by jumping from the train but watched her mother fall to her death. Barr experienced many more horrors during World War II and then as a refugee before finding asylum in Israel at age 12. There, she excelled as a student, earned a nursing degree, and married Isaac Barr, then a medical student. They raised a tight-knit family, which Barr prized as her ultimate victory over the Nazis.

“My mother was fiercely proud of her Jewish heritage and having beaten unbelievable odds,” Eliav Barr said. “Keeping history alive was imperative to her.”

“Miriam loved books and libraries, and she used education to lift herself out of hardship and build a fulfilling life,” Koulogeorge said. “Eliav and I are thrilled to support an area that was so close to her heart. We hope the Miriam Barr Librarian will inspire the next generation of students to follow Miriam’s lead and chart their own paths through learning.”

About Paul Koulogeorge and Eliav Barr

Paul Koulogeorge has been a steadfast donor to WashU Libraries since 1992. Today, he and Eliav Barr are sustaining charter members of the Danforth Circle chair level, a new recognition society reserved for alumni, parents and friends who give at the highest level to WashU’s Annual Fund. The couple’s generosity also extends to the Paul Koulogeorge and Eliav Barr Fund, an endowment they created in 2014 to provide ongoing collections support. Koulogeorge has served on the Libraries National Council since 2015 and is in his second term as chair. In addition, Koulogeorge is chair of the university’s Philadelphia Regional Cabinet and is an ambassador for With You: The WashU Campaign. Koulogeorge spent 35 years as a marketing executive, retiring as vice president of marketing, advertising and public relations from The Goddard School.

Eliav Barr has come to know WashU through his husband. Barr is the senior vice president of global clinical development and chief medical officer at Merck Research Laboratories, where he has worked for 30 years. Several of Barr’s mentors, including Roger M. Perlmutter, MD, PhD, and Dean Y. Li, MD, PhD, are WashU Medicine graduates. Many members of his research team also are WashU alumni. 

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This mechanism is at the center of a new study by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis, published in Current Biology.

“Corollary discharge is found in every animal, in every system, and that’s because it solves a universal problem, which is: How do animals distinguish sensory inputs coming from the outside world versus sensory inputs caused by their own actions?” said Bruce Carlson, a professor of biology in WashU Arts & Sciences. “That’s a universal problem, and it’s something that our sensory systems can’t solve by themselves.”

This type of neuroscience research can help uncover mechanisms that afflict human sensory processing and prediction. Once scientists understand a brain circuit inside and out, they can better fix broken circuits.

To study the inner workings of corollary discharge, Carlson and his team turned to weakly electric fish. These animals generate brief electrical pulses called electric organ discharges to communicate and sense their surroundings. But this form of communication presents a problem. Every time a fish sends out a pulse, it also “hears” itself. Without some way to filter its own pulse out, the sensory system would be overwhelmed.

That’s the role of corollary discharge. When the fish’s brain sends the command to produce an electric pulse, it also sends a predictive signal to cancel out the expected self-generated input. Thus, the fish remains sensitive to outside signals.

But as with everything else in nature, nothing is fixed. These electrical pulses vary widely from species to species over evolutionary timelines, but also within individual fish. Hormones such as testosterone can fluctuate over the course of days, lengthening the pulse, and signals can grow longer as an animal ages. So the question becomes: How does the corollary discharge system keep up with these timing changes?

For the new study, researchers recorded electrical activity in several brain regions involved in producing electric signals, comparing fish with short and long electric discharges, including hormone-treated fish and different species.

Martin Jarzyna, a graduate student in the Carlson lab and first author on the new paper, recorded the electrical activity at every step of the corollary discharge pathway within multiple individual fish. “It’s a tortuous path from the motor area to the sensory area,” Jarzyna explained. “Never before has anybody recorded from each area within an individual animal. We never had the full picture of activity across the entire circuit.”

By measuring when neural activity occurred relative to the fish’s motor command, they identified the brain region where timing shifts first appeared: a small population of neurons called the mesencephalic command-associated nucleus (MCA). Unexpectedly, they found that all three kinds of change they studied — hormonal, developmental and evolutionary — converged on this same mechanism.

In other words, MCA works as a kind of central timing hub. Rather than recalibrating multiple neural pathways independently, the brain can coordinate changes through a single structure. This is particularly important because the MCA branches into three pathways: one devoted to communication behavior, one involved in sensing behavior and one that regulates the production of electric signals.

These findings suggest evolution repeatedly relied on MCA instead of developing entirely new mechanisms. “A common solution evolved that can maintain these accurate sensory predictions, such that new solutions don’t need to be reinvented,” Jarzyna said.

Although this study was conducted in electric fish, the potential impacts extend beyond aquatic communication. Corollary discharge is essential for sensory processing in many animals, including humans, yet the underlying circuitry remains poorly understood.

“We’ve known about corollary discharge for a long time, but we know very little about the mechanisms operating that pathway,” Carlson said.

He said this new work highlights the broader value of studying animals with unusual sensory abilities: “Studying animals that have unique behaviors can inform general questions in neuroscience. Whatever it is that’s unique about their behavior can make them suited to asking certain sorts of questions that you couldn’t ask in another system.”

Looking ahead, researchers in the Carlson lab plan to investigate what is changing at the cellular and molecular levels within MCA neurons. Future work will involve intracellular recordings from MCA neurons to figure out not just where these events are taking place in the brain, but what is actually happening during them.

Jarzyna noted that this research also could help future researchers better understand disorders in which sensory predictions go wrong, such as schizophrenia. “Our study, while not directly addressing these conditions, is helping us to better understand the normal mechanism by which these sensory predictions operate,” he said.

Jarzyna MW, Carlson BA. Developmental and evolutionary changes in sensorimotor integration to maintain coordination of corollary discharge and afferent input in electric fish, Current Biology, 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.068

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (IOS-2203122 to B.A.C.) and the National Institutes of Health (F31NS139904 to M.W.J.)

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Andy Butler, a professor of education and of psychological and brain sciences, both in Arts & Sciences, has been appointed vice provost for undergraduate education. He will provide strategic leadership across undergraduate education, including student success, pedagogical excellence and curricular alignment.

Many of these functions previously were fulfilled by Jennifer Smith, also in Arts & Sciences, who had served as vice provost for educational initiatives. Smith is returning to teaching but will continue working with the team, serving as an assistant vice provost, along with Peter Boumgarden, the Koch Family Professor of Practice in Family Enterprise at Olin Business School, and working with Butler on undergraduate initiatives.

Amy Eyler, a professor and associate dean for faculty affairs at the Brown School, has been appointed to the new position of vice provost for academic excellence. In this role, she will oversee faculty affairs and help advise the provost on academic priorities and initiatives. Eyler previously served as chair of the Faculty Senate Council (2021–23) and president of the Association for Women Faculty (2021–22).

Nathan Jacobs, a professor of computer science and engineering at McKelvey Engineering, has been appointed to the new role of vice provost for artificial intelligence (AI).

Betsy Sinclair, the Thomas F. Eagleton University Professor in Public Affairs and Political Science in Arts & Sciences, has been appointed to the new role of vice provost for innovation. Previously, Jacobs and Sinclair were assistant vice provosts for digital transformation.

“Betsy and Nathan have done extraordinary work moving forward our WashU+AI academic initiative and will continue partnering on this monumental undertaking,” West said.

Vijay Ramani, senior vice provost for graduate education and international affairs, and Sandro Galea, vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives, will continue in those roles.

Executive Vice Provost Mary McKay is stepping down from her role, West said, thanking her and Smith for their years of service.

“We are excited about the strength and experience this group brings to the provost’s office and the work ahead,” West said. “We are all very grateful for the leadership and service of Mary McKay, whose contributions have helped move the university forward through enormous change over the years. We are also pleased that Jen can focus on the role she loves the most: teaching WashU students.”

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Celeste M. Karch, a national leader in the study of the genetic and cellular basis of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, has been installed as the inaugural Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Karch’s research integrates human stem cell models and genomics to decode the biological underpinnings of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Celeste Karch is helping redefine how scientists understand Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions,” said Chancellor Andrew D. Martin. “Her work is revealing new possibilities for earlier detection, prevention and treatment. We are deeply grateful to the Morriss family, whose generosity makes it possible to recognize not only scientific discovery but also the collaborative, forward-looking approach that drives progress in making transformative contributions to science that can benefit patients.”

David H. Perlmutter, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine, installed Karch.

“Celeste Karch is reshaping how the field thinks about the genetic and cellular drivers of neurodegeneration,” Perlmutter said. “She is way ahead of the field in recognizing the importance of human cellular models of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. These models have accelerated scientists’ understanding of disease pathogenesis and the testing of new therapies. This professorship is a fitting recognition of her remarkable accomplishments and will help ensure her continued impact in the field.”

Karch’s lab takes an integrative approach to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, bringing together genetics and “disease-in-a-dish” stem cell models to identify the cellular mechanisms that drive neurodegeneration. Her team has developed methods to analyze a person’s genetic code and determine which variants are dangerous, which are harmless, and which may even be protective — work that has helped patients and families understand their disease risk and eligibility for clinical trials.

Among her major breakthroughs, Karch discovered that when the brain’s cellular recycling centers, called lysosomes, stop working correctly, the malfunction serves as an early warning sign of disease — a finding that points toward a preventive treatment strategy for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. She also revealed how certain genes control the brain’s immune cells and can be harnessed to improve their ability to clear Alzheimer’s-related damage. And, using stem cells grown from patient skin samples, her team has demonstrated that specific genetic mutations cause immune cells to malfunction in ways that likely accelerate the progression of dementia.

Among Karch’s most significant contributions is creating one of the world’s largest collections of stem cells for dementia research. This “biorepository” contains more than 1,000 cell lines from diverse individuals, allowing scientists globally to study the human brain in ways that were previously impossible.

Karch’s scientific contributions have won her recognition as a leader in the field of neurodegeneration. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Alzheimer’s Association and other major funders. She is scientific director of the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) and an active member of the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center (Knight ADRC) at WashU Medicine. Karch has also received numerous honors, including the Rainwater Charitable Foundation’s Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early Career Scientist, and she was named an investigator for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization founded in 2015 by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg to help cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century.

To ensure that medical breakthroughs benefit everyone, Karch helped launch the African iPSC Initiative in 2025. This global program, established at the Biomedical Science Research Training Centre at Yobe State University in Nigeria — in partnership with Sussex Neuroscience in the U.K. and the Knight ADRC — studies how African ancestry influences dementia. Alongside her global impact, Karch remains a dedicated mentor, spending much of her time training the next generation of neuroscientists and advocating for diversity within the scientific community.

“Celeste Karch brings her extraordinary scientific vision and gift for multidisciplinary problem-solving to everything she does,” said Eric J. Lenze, MD, the Wallace and Lucille K. Renard Professor of Psychiatry and head of the WashU Medicine Department of Psychiatry. “Her lab has produced multiple major discoveries, each addressing a different piece of the Alzheimer’s disease puzzle, while simultaneously building resources and networks that elevate the entire field. We are tremendously proud to recognize her with this professorship and grateful to the Morriss family for making it possible.”

Karch completed her undergraduate education at Kalamazoo College in Michigan before earning her PhD from the University of Florida. She conducted postdoctoral research at WashU Medicine before joining the faculty in 2013.

About Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III

A graduate of Saint Louis Country Day School and Princeton University, Reuben Morriss III earned a law degree from WashU in 1964. He joined Boatmen’s Bank, beginning a long career as a leader of the St. Louis financial sector. He eventually became chairman and president of Boatmen’s Trust Co., a position he held until his retirement in 1995. He was a board chair of Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School in Ladue, Mo., and of William Woods University in Fulton, Mo. He also served on the boards of St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield, Mo., and the St. Louis Bi-State American Red Cross.

Barbara Burton Morriss was a graduate of John Burroughs School in Ladue and Briarcliff College in Westchester County, N.Y. She was a board member of the Alzheimer’s Association and the Central Institute for the Deaf, and she donated time and resources to many other local charitable and cultural institutions.

The couple maintained strong ties to WashU. A member of the Alumni Board of Governors, Mr. Morriss was actively engaged with WashU Law as a member of the school’s national council, campaign cabinet and alumni association board. Throughout their lifetimes, the Morrisses generously supported the School of Law, the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center and the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center.

The couple was married for 48 years and had two children, Burton Douglass Morriss and Barbara Dulany Morriss, and five grandchildren. Reuben Morriss III died in 2006, and Barbara Burton Morriss died in 2018.

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“This partnership demonstrates WashU’s ‘In St. Louis, For St. Louis’ commitment to our region in concrete and tangible terms,” Chancellor Andrew D. Martin said. “Under the leadership of Dean Dorian Traube and her team in the Brown School, the Public Exchange and the researchers leading CLEAN STL are creating a model for connecting academic expertise with local leaders to effect real change.”

The agreement formalizes and expands CLEAN STL — Contaminant Level Evaluation and Analysis for Neighborhoods — a multidisciplinary initiative launched in fall 2025 to provide residents and city leaders with accurate air and soil data to support long-term recovery efforts. The project began as a pilot developed in partnership with community organizations Better Family Life, Love the Lou and 4theVille and is now growing into a multiyear collaboration with the city.

The expanded initiative represents a significant investment of university resources, with WashU committing more than $500,000 over the next two years to support the project’s first phase of growth.

The signees on the partnership were St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer; Julian Nicks, chief recovery officer for the city; Victoria Anwuri, St. Louis health commissioner; and Dorian Traube, the Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the WashU Brown School.

It brings together the resources of the WashU Public Exchange with the city’s Recovery Office and Department of Health to safeguard community health during demolition and rebuilding and to give residents direct visibility into the conditions in their neighborhoods.

Led through the WashU Public Exchange initiative, CLEAN STL brings together expertise from WashU’s Brown School, Arts & Sciences, McKelvey Engineering, Sam Fox School and School of Law.

“St. Louis is moving into the next chapter of recovery, and that work has to be grounded in trust, transparency and good science,” Spencer said. “This partnership puts real-time information in the city’s and residents’ hands, brings world-class expertise to the neighborhoods that have waited too long for it, and shows that the rebuilding of north St. Louis is going to be done in a community-centric way.”

A shared commitment

“This reflects the kind of university WashU aspires to be — one that brings its research, expertise and institutional capacity into direct partnership with the community to help address urgent regional challenges,” said Lisa Weingarth, senior advisor to the chancellor and executive director of the university’s “In St. Louis, For St. Louis” initiative. “The work is rooted in listening, long-term partnership and a shared commitment to supporting the health and recovery of St. Louis neighborhoods.”

The WashU Public Exchange works across the university to connect researchers with community and industry partners to address complex social challenges through collaborative research and action.

“Public Exchange is designed to move ideas beyond the university setting by creating pathways for research, lived experience and cross-sector expertise to inform one another,” Traube said. “By connecting WashU researchers with community and industry partners, we can translate research into practical solutions faster, strengthen recovery efforts and create lasting impact for the St. Louis region and beyond.”

Following the tornado, many residents raised concerns about potential environmental health risks tied to debris, demolition and contaminated soil. Lead and other heavy metals can become airborne during destructive events and subsequent demolition activities before settling into surrounding soil, creating long-term public health concerns.

Public data, practical strategies

CLEAN STL was designed to help address those concerns through community-centered environmental testing and public-facing data sharing.

The project draws on a breadth of WashU expertise, including environmental geochemist Jeff Catalano, a professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences; air quality expert Jay Turner, the James McKelvey Professor in Engineering Education at McKelvey Engineering; and Matt Bernstine, director of the Office for Socially Engaged Practice at the Sam Fox School. The WashU Environmental Law Clinic also is supporting the effort.

Under the expanded partnership, WashU researchers will broaden soil testing efforts with additional community partners and establish a network of air-quality monitors in neighborhoods experiencing concentrated demolition activity. The monitors will provide neighborhood-level air-quality data to help track dust and contaminants during rebuilding efforts. WashU researchers will place 10 air-monitoring units around the city in the areas of highest demolition concentration.

Researchers also will explore practical and cost-effective remediation strategies for residents with contaminated soil concerns. In addition, the Health Communication Design Studio at the Sam Fox School will help translate complex scientific findings into accessible public information for residents and community organizations.

Additional information about CLEAN STL and opportunities for community engagement will be shared as the expanded project moves forward.

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The Bears are the nation’s top all-sports program in Division III for the first time and only the eighth different institution to win. Points for the Directors’ Cup are awarded based on each institution’s finish in NCAA championships. It marks the 22^nd straight year that the Bears have finished in the Top 10.

“Consecutively for 21 years, WashU has been in the Top 10 of the Directors’ Cup, but year 22 was different, with 18 teams all nationally ranked in the Top 20,” said Anthony J. Azama, associate vice chancellor for student affairs and director of athletics. “There is no other way to receive this prestigious award than to earn it. Congrats to the administrators, support staff, coaches and student-athletes for their hard work and 3.67 GPA. To university leadership, Chancellor Martin and Vice Chancellor Gonzalez, thank you for your commitment to the development of scholar-champions. This is a special place!”

Overall, 18 sports are counted in the final DIII standings, four of which must be men’s and women’s soccer and men’s and women’s basketball. The next highest (14 max) sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, are used in the standings. 

WashU tallied 1,266.50 points during the 2025-26 year, highlighted by women’s soccer and women’s indoor track-and-field national championships. Among the 19 programs, 18 made the NCAA Tournament and four finished in the Final Four in their respective sports.

“Winning the first-ever Directors’ Cup in WashU history is a trailblazing achievement for our department. It reflects the collective success of all our programs, not just one team, and demonstrates sustained excellence across athletics,” said Jim Conlon, head women’s soccer coach. “It validates the hard work of our student-athletes, coaches, staff and university leadership, while highlighting the culture of high standards, collaboration and commitment that defines our department. Most importantly, it establishes a new benchmark for future generations and shows that WashU can compete and excel at the highest level across multiple sports.” 

“We have always felt like we had a special group of people in athletics — now we can all collectively say that we have done something truly special as one team and one family,” added Pat Bloom, head baseball coach.

In total, 18 WashU programs reached the postseason, earning points in:

Baseball, regional final (50)

Men’s basketball, Sweet 16 (64)

Women’s basketball, Sweet 16 (64)

Men’s cross country, 16^th place (58.5)

Women’s cross country, 7^th place (72)

Women’s golf, 5^th place (75)

Men’s indoor track-and-field, 8^th place (70.5)

Women’s indoor track-and-field, national champions (100)

Men’s outdoor track-and-field, 14^th place (60)

Women’s outdoor track-and-field, national runner-up (90)

Men’s soccer, Sweet 16 (64)

Women’s soccer, national champions (100)

Men’s swimming and diving, 10^th place (67.5)

Women’s swimming and diving, 13^th place (63)

Softball, regional final (50)

Men’s tennis, regional final (64)

Women’s tennis, national runner-up (90)

Volleyball, Sweet 16 (64)

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By their nature, cancer cells have different nutritional needs than healthy cells. 

“Cancer cells have a distinct metabolism,” said Patti, the Michael and Tana Powell Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis and a professor of genetics and medicine at WashU Medicine. 

Understanding those differences could open new possibilities for tracking and ultimately defeating the disease. That’s why Patti and others at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, are turning their attention to a relatively new frontier of research: Cancer metabolomics, the comprehensive study of the small molecules that cancer cells either consume or produce as they attempt to grow and multiply. 

Earlier this year, Patti and co-author Joe Rowles, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences and molecular oncology trainee in Siteman Cancer Center’s Cancer Biology Pathway Program, explored the latest research and most pressing questions in cancer metabolism in Nature Reviews Cancer.

Patti is an internationally recognized leader in mass spectrometry, a technology that makes it possible to identify and quantify specific molecules in a sample. With more than 20 mass spectrometers in his ultra-clean lab, Patti has the power to track even the tiniest of changes in the levels of cancer metabolites — small molecules involved in cellular metabolism. The challenge is determining which of those molecules can be targeted in the fight against cancer.

“The fact that cancer cells run distinct metabolic programs gives us two big opportunities,” Patti said. Metabolites could be used as markers to identify tumors, he explained. More importantly, a deeper understanding of cancer metabolism might lead to new drugs or dietary strategies that slow tumor growth while sparing healthy cells.

Tracking the metabolic needs of cancer cells is no simple task. For one thing, cancerous cells can act very differently depending on the context. “A cancer cell in a lab dish might use completely different nutrients than the same cell that’s growing in a mouse or a human,” Patti said. “One of the defining attributes of cancer cells is that they are very flexible.”

The complexity of tumors also poses a challenge. “A lung tumor, for example, might have dozens of cell types, and they aren’t all malignant,” Patti said. “Some of them, like immune cells, can actually be helpful.” It’s hard to zero in on the metabolites associated with the cancer cells and not with the other parts of the tumor, he explained, and it’s challenging to find a healthy comparison sample for experiments. “There’s no such thing as a healthy tumor.” 

Patti, PhD, and his team are collaborating with WashU Medicine researchers  — including David Mutch, MD, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Yin Cao, ScD, an associate professor of surgery and of medicine — to address these challenges. All three are research members at Siteman Cancer Center.

In ongoing experiments, they’re using isotopically labeled glucose to track the dynamics of tumor metabolism in patients. “WashU is a great place to do this kind of work, because the medical school has been a pioneer in developing innovative clinical tests using isotopes,” Patti said. 

In many cases, it’s a cancer cell’s appetite that really sets it apart from healthy cells. “They generally consume many of the same things that healthy cells consume,” Patti said. “They just do it much faster.”

Still, a closer look at metabolomics data could lead to new dietary strategies to prevent and control cancers. “I’m very enthusiastic about the idea that we can leverage diet to improve the lives of cancer patients,” Patti said. To reach that point, metabolomics studies will have to expand to thousands of people with different diets, genetic profiles and overall lifestyles. “We’ll need tons of data points to try to figure out how all of these different things are connected,” he said. 

In 2024, Patti and co-authors reported in Nature that fructose — a sugar found in high-fructose corn syrup — can indirectly fuel tumor growth in mouse models of melanoma, breast cancer and cervical cancer. Metabolomics studies found that the tumors were especially fond of a fructose product created in the liver.

The finding underscores the importance of close examination of the metabolic and nutritional pathways that allow cancer cells to flourish. “If you take cancer cells and put them in a dish and give them fructose, they won’t use it,” Patti said. “But if you have a tumor and you eat tons of fructose, it makes the tumor grow, in some cases, four or five times faster.”

Patti is especially alarmed by the growing rates of cancer among young people, a surge that has yet to be fully explained. “Cancers are still fairly rare in that age group, but they’re becoming increasingly common,” Patti said. “It’s happening so quickly that it can’t be caused by genetics alone. There must be a lifestyle factor, and it might come down to diet.”

Cancer metabolomics may seem like a niche area of research, but the insights could ultimately tip the fight against cancer to our advantage. “It is not a new idea to fight cancer with dietary modifications, but it’s too complicated to design interventions based on simple studies of cancer cells alone in isolation,” Patti said. “We are excited that metabolomics data from human patients can provide the knowledge needed to sort out the complexity.” 

Above all, Patti noted, cancer cells are greedy. And their greed could ultimately be their undoing. 

Rowles JL Patti GJ. Decoding cancer across scales with metabolomics. Nat Rev Cancer 26, 312–327 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-026-00908-0

This work was delivered as part of the PROSPECT team supported by the Cancer Grand Challenges partnership funded by Cancer Research UK (CGCATF-2023/100037 to G.J.P.), the National Cancer Institute (OT2CA297576 to G.J.P.), the French National Cancer Institute and the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK.

Originally published on the Ampersand website

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Vij, a professor of medicine in the department’s Division of Oncology, was installed by Chancellor Andrew D. Martin and David H. Perlmutter, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine. The professorship was funded by St. Louisans Jeffrey and Prue Gershman, who are dedicated philanthropists and volunteers supporting local education, health and arts organizations.

“Jeffrey and Prue are deeply committed to improving the lives of the people of St. Louis, and it is a true honor that they have chosen WashU to be partners in that goal,” Martin said. “Through this professorship, their generosity will accelerate progress against blood cancers by supporting Dr. Vij’s work to bring new, more effective treatments to patients. His leadership has helped grow WashU Medicine’s reputation as a national force in stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy, and with the Gershmans’ support, that momentum will continue.”

Vij treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine. As the principal investigator of the Multiple Myeloma Tissue Banking initiative at Siteman, Vij leads a collaborative research team studying the genetic underpinnings and cellular microenvironment of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. He has led several clinical trials of investigative therapies for blood cancers, including immunotherapy agents and novel stem cell transplant strategies, that went on to become standard treatments. He has authored over 300 scientific publications in the arena of blood cancers.

“Dr. Vij has consistently pushed the field forward, pursuing multiple promising avenues to improve outcomes for patients with blood cancers, particularly multiple myeloma,” Perlmutter said. “His work spans discovery science, clinical trials and national collaboration — advancing new therapies while building the partnerships that move the field as a whole. His ability to translate scientific insight into real-world advances continues to shape the future of care in this field.”

Vij has served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology education and scientific committees and on the myeloma committees of the Clinical Trials Network and Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. He currently serves as senior editor of the journal Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma and Leukemia and is a past chair of the American Society of Hematology scientific committee on plasma cell dyscrasias, a type of cell disorder linked to blood cancers. Vij has received the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation Innovator Award, the Center of Excellence Award and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Visionary of the Year Award.

A respected and effective educator, Vij has mentored 25 early-career researchers over his career and in 2007 received the Teacher of the Year Award from the Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Program at WashU Medicine.

“Dr. Vij is an expert in myeloma whose warmth and support give his patients confidence that they are in the best possible hands and getting the best treatment,” said Victoria J. Fraser, MD, the Adolphus Busch Professor of Medicine and head of the Department of Medicine. “He is widely recognized as a leader in the field for his research, his thoughtfulness as a physician and his creativity as a clinical investigator and mentor. The tremendous energy he brings to resources such as the Multiple Myeloma Tissue Banking initiative will benefit the field for years and decades to come.”

Vij completed his medical education at Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, India, followed by postgraduate training at Halifax General Hospital and Royal Infirmary in the U.K. He completed an internal medicine residency at Rush University in Chicago and fellowships in medical oncology and hematology and in bone marrow transplantation at WashU Medicine. He joined the WashU Medicine faculty in 2000.

Jeffrey S. and Prue H. Gershman

Jeffrey S. and Prue H. Gershman, of Clayton, Mo., have supported numerous programs and organizations in and beyond St. Louis through philanthropy and through volunteer service for the arts, education, healthcare and community organizations.

Jeffrey is an attorney who has practiced business, real estate and tax law in the St. Louis area since 1981. He is active in the St. Louis business community as a director on the boards of Central Bank of St. Louis and Gershman Investment Corp. Prue has worked for 40 years as an educator and social worker at several institutions, most recently as the director of counseling and wellness at John Burroughs School in Ladue.

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Established in 1998, the universitywide award recognizes a staff member for exceptional contribution to the university and is the Office of Human Resources’ highest honor.  

“Julie exemplifies a unique leadership that combines scientific expertise with humanity. She is the steady force that keeps every aspect of the lab running smoothly … making her not only the backbone of the laboratory, but also an inspiring leader in the community,” her colleagues wrote in their nomination.  

Ritchey began her career in 1984 at Jewish Hospital of St. Louis. Following the merger and formation of Barnes-Jewish Hospital, she worked in the WashU Department of Surgery before joining the DiPersio lab in 1994. In 2013, she received the Dean’s Research Support Staff Award, the highest honor conferred to staff members by WashU Medicine. 

More than three decades after beginning her role in the lab, Ritchey remains dedicated to advancing research on stem cell therapies. Her work has made cutting-edge CAR T-cell immunotherapy treatment accessible to cancer patients. Ritchey also has mentored dozens of researchers, training and troubleshooting their experiments with her extensive laboratory knowledge. John DiPersio, MD, the Virginia E. and Sam J. Golman Professor of Medicine, said Ritchey is a known as a leader within the division. 

“As the bedrock of my research laboratory and a pillar of the Stem Cell Biology and Cellular Therapy sections in the Division of Oncology, Julie’s contributions go far beyond technical expertise; she has been essential in propelling WashU Medicine research to the forefront of oncology,” DiPersio wrote in his recommendation. “Nothing gets done without Julie.”  

In 2020, Ritchey helped facilitate the move of the cellular therapy laboratories in the expansion of the BJC Institute of Health building. Her colleagues unofficially dubbed a conference room on the ninth floor the “Julie Ritchey Huddle Room” in honor of her efforts.  

Ask Ritchey about the accolades from her colleagues, though, and she’ll give all the credit back to her team. 

“I work with the best people. The award reflects that we have a very collaborative group, even outside the DiPersio lab, with all the other labs we interact with here,” Ritchey said. “Everybody just has one goal: to move science forward.” 

Various other WashU staff members also were honored in May for their contributions to the university: 

• Matthew Cain, an assistant professor of medicine and director of the Advanced Biocontainment Laboratories: Laboratory Safety Award of Excellence 
• Meihsi Chiang, assistant director of evaluation and dissemination at the Brown School’s Evaluation Center: Community Impact Award 
• Jordan Cooper, inaugural director of cross-cultural connections in the Center for Diversity and Inclusion: Emerging Leader Award 
• Kacey Pennington, payroll services manager, Controller’s Office: University Operations Award
• Dennis Tapella, manager of Urbauer and Jubel halls’ machine shops and Machine Shop Practicum instructor: Safety Leadership Award
   

View a full listing of this year’s honorees, alongside school-level recognitions and a list of employees celebrating five to 55 years of service, on the Human Resources website. 

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According to Ali, Jefferson’s Quran, purchased in 1765, sat on his bookshelves alongside legal treatises and other works of political theory. Like other Enlightenment-era thinkers, the young lawyer believed that even Islam had to be studied seriously if he wanted to legislate in a modern world. Yet, Jefferson and the other fathers often held contradictory beliefs about Islam: It was both feared and held up as a test case for the boldest claims about American religious liberty.

“Many people in the founding era were more comfortable with what one might call ‘toleration’ than with full religious liberty,” said Ali, who teaches in the WashU John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. “Toleration assumes that one religion, usually Protestant Christianity, sets the tone for the nation, and that other groups may be allowed to exist as long as they do not challenge that dominance.

“In that world, Islam can appear as something so foreign and so threatening that it sits outside of the circle of toleration altogether.”

According to Ali, Jefferson took a more expansive stance on religious liberty. Inspired by English philosopher John Locke, he argued that religious liberty meant no established church, no religious test and no civil punishment for belief. That view shaped his work on the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which disestablished the Church of England in Virginia, ended tax support for a single state church and declared that no one could be forced to support religious worship or lose civil rights because of their beliefs.

Jefferson later said the law was meant to protect “the Jew, the Gentile, the Christian, the Mohammedan, the Hindu, and the infidel of every denomination.”

That same logic carried into the Constitution. Article 6 states that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification for office under the United States. That was a radical break from European practice, where public office was often restricted by religion. Jefferson, George Washington and John Adams all defended the clause as essential to republican government. If authority came from “we the people,” then access to office could not be limited by creed.

In principle, then, the new republic could include a Muslim governor, a Jewish senator or an atheist judge, Ali said. Supporters of the Constitution accepted that possibility as the price of genuine liberty. Critics, especially Anti-Federalists, saw danger in the idea.

Theory versus practice

Jefferson imagined that, in principle, even a Muslim could one day stand as an equal citizen under the law and serve in office, and he believed that religious groups should not be subjected to violence or persecution. In private correspondences, though, he sometimes echoed more conventional dismissals or disavowals of Islam as superstitious or despotic, Ali said.

“I want to be wary about not romanticizing Jefferson’s universal claims about religious liberty,” Ali said. “Jefferson’s inclusion of Mohammedans in his rhetoric didn’t mean that actual Muslims in his world, whether the enslaved Africans on U.S. soil or foreign diplomats, enjoyed anything like full equality. Nor did it mean that public culture suddenly embraced Islam as a legitimate American religion.”

As president, Jefferson led the young nation’s first sustained overseas military campaign, the Barbary Wars, fighting against Muslim powers in the Barbary states and Morocco of North Africa. According to Ali, the Barbary Wars crystallized an American image of Muslim politicians as barbaric, fanatical and fundamentally opposed to U.S. civilization and Western values.

“This gap between formal policy and popular rhetoric matters, because it helped plant the early seeds of what we now call American Islamophobia.”

Ali said these contradictory actions reveal a structural limit to American religious liberty. On one hand, there’s the theoretical promise of expansive religious liberty. On the other is a long habit of viewing Muslim-majority societies through the lens of threat. American public life has been negotiating both legacies ever since, Ali said.

While Jefferson and the other founders imagined Muslims as hypothetical citizens in arguments about religious liberty, their convictions did not extend to the enslaved Africans, many of whom were Muslims, then living in the U.S.

“There is clear evidence that educated, literate Muslims were among those enslaved in the early republic. They remind us that Islam was present not only in theory, but in their lived experience,” Ali said. “Yet when Jefferson or Washington wrote about Mohammedans as possible citizens, they almost always imagined Muslims as people out there in North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, in the realm of diplomacy and war.

“The founders’ most generous language about religious liberty often pushed beyond their own practices. They could imagine equal rights for an abstract Muslim neighbor, while failing to recognize, or at least refusing to honor, the humanity and religious lives of the enslaved Africans in their own households,” Ali said. “Placing those facts side by side sharpens the tension at the heart of this 250-year-old story.”

Hypocrisy or visionary?

Article 6 of the Constitution and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom are held up as visionary texts. At the same time, Ali noted that the documents were written in a world where Muslims were being invited in, at least in theory, while others were being held in chains. That tension between an abstract inclusion and a lived exclusion doesn’t disappear in American memory, Ali said.

“As we return to 1776 from the vantage point of 2026, Jefferson’s Quran poses for us an uncomfortable but necessary question,” Ali said. “The Declaration tells us that all men are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights. Yet the person who penned those words enslaved other human beings and helped wage war against Muslim powers in North Africa.”

According to Ali, we could treat that story as one of hypocrisy. Or one could view this as an example of how the founders, in their better moments, laid down principles that were broader than their own practices.

“When Jefferson or Washington imagined Muslims as hypothetical citizens, they planted the seeds that would take generations to grow,” she said. “Even today, these seeds are still being contested. American Muslims have long been treated as suspect enemies, as alien to the nation, especially in the years since 9/11.

“And yet, American Muslims also now serve in Congress, and they hold local office. They serve in the military, teach in public schools and live out the role that Locke and Jefferson once described only in theory.”

According to Ali, Jefferson’s Quran doesn’t tell us what to think about Islam today, but it does confront the question of what the founders knew they couldn’t avoid: Will the promises of 1776 stop at the edge of our own religion, or will they extend, as Jefferson and his allies sometimes argued, to Muslims and beyond?  

“On this anniversary of 1776, Jefferson’s Quran offers us this choice: We can treat the founding story as a closed story that belongs to one religious group, or we can treat it as this unfinished project whose promises can be widened again and again to match its own highest claims,” she said.

Tazeen Ali presented “Islam and the Founding Fathers” as part of the 2026 spring course “1776, Then and Now,” offered by the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.

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