Biology DepartmentUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

The genomic integrity of an organism is at risk of being compromised every time one of its cells divides. This is because errors in chromosome segregation result in aneuploidy – an abnormal cell division outcome in which daughter cells acquire an incorrect set of chromosomes. Aneuploidy is a hallmark of many cancer cells and the cause of numerous developmental disorders as well as a majority of miscarriages in the first trimester. To ensure that DNA is accurately segregated during cell division, replicated chromosomes must interact with and become aligned by the spindle. Despite the importance of getting it right, cell division is error prone and dividing cells must constantly detect and correct erroneous interactions between chromosomes and the spindle to avoid aneuploidy.

The Maresca lab investigates a central, yet poorly understood contributor to the process of cell division - force. It is evident that forces produced by motors and microtubules stabilize correct interactions between chromosomes and the spindle; however, the molecular basis by which this is achieved is unclear. Research from the Maresca lab characterizing a mysterious cell division force known as the polar ejection force (PEF) has recently been published in and featured on the cover of The Journal of Cell Biology. Maresca, with MCB grad students Stuart Cane and Anna Ye and technician Sasha Luks-Morgan, found that erroneous interactions between chromosomes and spindle microtubules could not be corrected when the PEF was experimentally increased. Elevated PEFs led to dramatic chromosome mis-segregation and aneuploidy. The research reveals how an important molecular motor generates the PEF and how forces impact the accuracy of cell division by overwhelming error correction mechanisms.
Read more at Science Daily.
Read still more at JCB.

Biology Assistant Professor Tom Maresca was recently awarded the Child Health Research Award (CHRA) by the Charles H. Hood Foundation. The CHRA supports newly independent faculty in order to provide them the opportunity to demonstrate creativity and assist in the transition to other sources of research funding.

The two-year grant of $150,000 is awarded annually to five researchers who are within five years of their first faculty appointment at an academic, medical or research institution in New England. The Charles H. Hood Foundation aims to improve the health and quality of life for children through grant support of pediatric researchers.

Geckskin, a super-strong adhesive device developed by Biology professor Duncan Irschick and his colleagues, has been named one of the top five science breakthroughs of 2012 by CNN Money.

Inspired by the footpads of geckos and able to fasten a 700 pound weight to a smooth wall, Geckskin was created by Irschick and polymer scientists Michael Bartlett and Alfred Crosby. Irschick has studied the gecko’s climbing and clinging abilities for more than twenty years. The researchers published their findings in Advanced Materials last February.

Previous efforts to synthesize the tremendous adhesive power of gecko feet and pads were based on the qualities of microscopic hairs called setae, but efforts to translate these qaulities to larger scales were unsuccessful, in part because the complexity of the entire gecko foot was not taken into account. A gecko’s foot has several interacting elements, including tendons, bones and skin, that work together to produce easily reversible adhesion.

Irschick, Bartlett, Crosby and the rest of the research team unlocked the simple yet elegant secret of how it’s done, to create a device that can handle very large weights. Geckskin and its supporting theory demonstrate that setae are not required for gecko-like performance, according to Crosby. “It’s a concept that has not been considered in other design strategies and one that may open up new research avenues in gecko-like adhesion in the future.”

Read the CNN Money write-up.

View a video about Geckskin.

Biology professor Ben Normark has won a $653,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Biodiversity Discovery and Analysis program to study the armored scale insects of tropical rainforests on four continents. It is part of a collaborative project with Geoff Morse, a former UMass OEB Darwin Fellow, now at the University of San Diego. Normark, Morse, and OEB student Daniel Peterson will collect armored scale insects from the rainforest canopy and understory in Malaysia, Australia, Cameroon, and Panama. Many armored scale insects are common pests in human-altered habitats, but the armored scale insects fauna of rainforests is unknown. The Normark Lab will use DNA sequences and microscopic characters to discover and describe new species. The project will test the "niche explosion hypothesis" of Normark and Biology research professor Norman Johnson, which predicts a correlation between population size and the ability to feed on a large number of different kinds of plants. One of the goals is to discover potentially invasive species before they become invaders.

Biology professor Tom Zoeller is co-author of a groundbreaking new paper that outlines a safety testing system to help chemists design inherently safer chemicals and processes. Resulting from a cross-disciplinary collaboration among scientists, the innovative “TiPED” testing system (Tiered Protocol for Endocrine Disruption) provides information for making chemicals and consumer products safer. TiPED can be applied at different phases of the chemical design process, and can steer companies away from inadvertently creating harmful products, and thus avoid marketing another BPA or DDT.

The paper, Designing Endocrine Disruption Out of the Next Generation of Chemicals was published in the journal Green Chemistry. More information about TiPED is available here.