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As a Washington University student, Andrew Glantz launched an app he hoped would turn food photos into food donations. A decade later, the app, GiftAMeal, has sent some 2 million meals — and hundreds of thousands of dollars — to food banks across the country.

When Shradha Challa, MBA 2024, was challenged to develop a business idea that solved a problem, she focused on a problem she had experienced in St. Louis: Getting a good cup of chai. Finding the solution set Challa on a path to founding her own business, Rasa Chai. It’s also brought recognition in the form of a national entrepreneurship prize.

One in eight of those who experience a stroke die within a year of hospital discharge. But a clinical trial led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that modifications to stroke survivors’ homes – such as grab bars, shower seats, ramps and other safety interventions – reduce the risk of death within a year or so of leaving the hospital and allow many to keep living independently in their homes.

Focused on fostering meaningful connections with our local communities, the Office of Community Partnerships (OCP) at the Brown School aims to cultivate, support, and sustain partnerships that bring about transformative social change for local communities and the region. The Brown School has identified priority geographic areas in the most critical need, making a measurable impact through social and economic justice.

Dr. Jorge Llibre-Guerra and his colleagues at Washington University’s Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center are making strides in understanding the disease’s causes, development, chemical blood markers and treatments. Yet much work remains, and clinical trials are underway.

Erin Foster, an associate professor of occupational therapy, and Scott Norris, MD, an associate professor of neurology, have established a site at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis for the Black and African American Connections to Parkinson’s Disease (BLAAC PD) study, an international study aimed at understanding the gene changes that may lead to Parkinson’s disease in people with African ancestry.

Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Park released a new fly-through rendering video and an economic impact report projecting that the project will generate over $660 million in economic activity across the St. Louis region within the next 10 years. WildCare Park, a safari park and conservation center under development in north St. Louis County, is expected to open to the public in 2027.

In fall 2025, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, in collaboration with WashU’s McKelvey School of Engineering and Arts & Sciences, will launch a new Master of Design for Human-Computer Interaction and Emerging Technology (MDes). Led by Jonathan Hanahan, an associate professor in the Sam Fox School, the program aims to forge a curricular and research model in which designers, engineers, humanists and scientists work together on the next generation of socially innovative digital products.

It was lost in plain sight: a Chinatown in downtown St. Louis that existed for nearly a century. It never made it to the history books and barely made the news. Now there’s a widespread effort to honor these stories in light of recognizing the city’s shared past. 

A Washington University Doctor is leading a project studying the concept of “prescriptions for fruits and vegetables” that will help people in the St. Louis Metro access discounted fruit and vegetables.