The partial government shutdown, which began at midnight on Oct. 1, is impacting far more than just the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Many St. Louis citizens are among those across the entire country feeling the effect of the partial shutdown.

Many St. Louis citizens working at St. Louis’ most prominent tourist destinations were deemed nonessential employees and furloughed. The affected tourist destinations include the prominent Gateway Arch and the Old Courthouse, some of the most visible icons of the city. These monuments are currently closed to visitors, and only a minimum number of employees have been retained at the Gateway Arch, strictly to watch resources at the monument and handle public safety.

The effects of the partial shutdown, however, reach much farther than just national monuments. Many workers at Scott Air Force Base, located east of St. Louis, have been furloughed as part of the partial shutdown. Military personnel at the base will only be paid until Oct. 15, after which they also will receive no pay.

The situation is similar at the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri. The judiciary will remain open until approximately Oct. 15, after which it will be forced to reassess whether the court can remain open.

Many day-to-day activities, however, have not been affected. The United States Postal Service has continued to deliver the mail on time, and security agencies such as the FBI and TSA have continued operations. Lambert-St. Louis International Airport remains open and functioning on a normal schedule.

The effects of the partial shutdown will hit harder the longer the shutdown continues. Businesses that depend on the national monuments or spending from workers that have been furloughed will suffer, and will lose more money the longer the government cannot agree on a budget. However, there is another rapidly approaching deadline that could result in far more dire consequences for the United States.

On Oct. 17, the government will default on its debt if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, the amount of money that Congress allows the Treasury to borrow. The effects of a default would affect far more than just the United States. The world economy, which is heavily dependent on the U.S. economy, would be harshly affected. Both economies would face severe financial crises, and the fallout would be much more severe than what was seen following the 2008 financial collapse.

Fortunately, the United States government has never defaulted on its debts, so precedent suggests that the debt ceiling will be raised. However, as the Oct. 17 deadline moves closer, the partial shutdown that is already affecting so many citizens in St. Louis and beyond may be put on the backburner as President Obama and Congress attempt to compromise over raising the debt ceiling.

Every new Saint Louis University student learns about the so-called ‘Shady Shell’ and is warned to never go past the Fox Theatre into North St. Louis. By attaching these stigmas to parts of the city, SLU students insulate themselves in what is widely known as the SLU bubble, according to Norman White, an associate professor of criminology at SLU. The student-led Breaking the Bubble discussions, organized by White, aim to help SLU students learn about the divides that exist in St. Louis and provide opportunities to start breaking down these barriers.

The stigmas that SLU students have created, according to White, extend past the Shady Shell nickname and the Fox Theatre warning. The warning to SLU students to never go past the Fox Theatre is a manifestation of the Delmar Divide, a socioeconomic division along Delmar Boulevard that separates some of the poorest neighborhoods in St. Louis from their more affluent surroundings. In addition, the university itself was once called the ‘Oasis in Midtown’, with a clear implication that the rest of Midtown was not well-off. These terms, according to White, display one way that SLU students form bubbles around the university and the surrounding neighborhoods.

The first Breaking the Bubble discussion occurred on Sept. 26 after two years of planning. These meetings were inspired by some of White’s students who were motivated to address the topic of the SLU bubble. According to White, one of the main problems that he wanted to change at SLU, partially through these discussions, was to help students view the North St. Louis communities in a different light.

“We don’t understand places that are just down the road. This leads us to make assumptions that aren’t true. Instead, we need to view these people as another one of us, rather than as ‘others,’” said White.

Junior Alanah Nantell, who attended the discussions, also believed that the first step in breaking the bubble around SLU and its neighboring communities was to understand the people in the neighborhoods.

“We need to know and connect with the people,” said Nantell. “It’s more than just going and helping for an hour or two; we need to live with them as a part of the same community to understand them.”

White believes that after SLU students form this understanding of their community, they will become more open to going past SLU’s campus and working to improve St. Louis’ impoverished areas. Current groups and programs that aim to serve these places include SLU Corps and the Sweet Potato Project. SLU Corps has a partnership with Angel Baked, a bakery employing North St. Louis youths to bake cookies. The Sweet Potato Project provides valuable employment to North St. Louis youths by helping them create and sustain a business selling cookies made with self-grown ingredients.

These programs are similar to many that White has helped students participate in over the years. SLU students have taken part in major community cleanups in the past and can also join tutoring programs for disadvantaged children in St. Louis. These programs, according to White, are in line with the Jesuit mission of serving others, which is why White believes that SLU is ideal for these discussions.

“SLU is the perfect place for me to be doing what I do,” said White. “The students here are motivated and really want to help their surrounding communities.”

The second of the four discussions will take place in November and will cover the effects of urban planning on the North St. Louis community. White hopes that the remaining discussions will help students learn more about North St. Louis and the problems facing the area.

“It’s easier to ignore the problem than it is to solve it. The inhabitants of these communities are the invisible people of St. Louis,” said White.

However, with enough awareness, White believes that SLU students can lead the way to breaking the bubbles around SLU’s campus and the neighborhoods of North St. Louis.

The fight against malaria has taken a new turn with the research of Marvin Meyers, Director of Chemistry at the Center for World Health and Medicine at Saint Louis University. Meyers and his research team recently identified two new classes of compounds that could have the potential to be used in the future in antimalarial drugs. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted $566,000 to the Center for World Health and Medicine for further study of these compounds and their effectiveness against the malaria parasite.

The malaria project was initiated three years ago, when Dan Goldberg, a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, identified a protein, called plasmepsin V, in the malaria parasite that could be a potential target for antimalarial drugs. Plasmepsin V was similar in structure to a protein that has been targeted for Alzheimer’s disease, ?-secretase. Meyers and his team worked to see if inhibitors for ?-secretase, which block protein activity, would also inhibit plasmepsin V.

Meyers found that one of the inhibitors was active for plasmepsin V as well. He and his team attempted to optimize the compounds with the inhibitors, leading to the inhibitors losing effectiveness against plasmepsin V, but gaining effectiveness against the parasite as a whole.

At this stage in his research, Meyers successfully applied for and received a grant from the NIH to continue work on his malaria research. A factor in the successful grant application was the collaboration on the malaria project between the Center for World Health and Medicine and the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, which is receiving a matching grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Meyers also believes that the NIH granted money to the malaria project due to the quality of the research.

“I think that they recognized the quality of the science and the potential for the project, and that led them to fund us,” Meyers said.

According to Meyers, undergraduate involvement may have also played a role in SLU obtaining the grant.

“We use this project to help train undergraduate students. We’ve had two former students working on this project, and we now have two seniors working here as well, and they’ve really made a nice impact,” Meyers said.

Meyers and his team have two goals for the NIH’s three-year grant. First, they hope to increase by tenfold the strength of the compounds that they have already found to be effective against the malaria parasite. This process could lead to the identification of clinical candidates for a new antimalarial drug. Second, Meyers and his team hope to identify the protein that their compounds are inhibiting, which could lead to new antimalarial compounds being discovered.

If all goes well, Meyers and his team hope to eventually optimize a compound that can be put in a pill, and taken as medicine for malaria. Such a pill, when combined with existing antimalarial drugs, could go a long way towards the ultimate goal of eradicating malaria from the world.