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Faculty Member Receives Grant
E. R. Dumont (Biology) and co-PI I. R. Grosse (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering) received a four-year, $982,633 grant from the National Science Foundation to support a new website called Biomesh, which teaches biologists how to study the behavior of biomechanical systems using the same computer modeling technique employed by engineers designing aircraft or bridges. Known as finite element analysis, this technique has revolutionized engineering, and has the potential to transform how biologists approach research in areas ranging from functional morphology and developmental biology to the study of evolution and cellular mechanics. Biomesh will support this learning experience by developing a shared digital resource collection of finite element models of biological systems. Biologists are just beginning to use finite element modeling to understand the biomechanical behavior of biological organs, tissues and even cells in both living and extinct organisms. Dumont research focus, for example, is how the physics involved in feeding has affected the evolution of diversity in mammals.
Graduate Student Receives Grant
OEB graduate student Justin Henningsen, who works in Duncan Irschick's lab, recently received an NSF predoctoral grant for $120,000 to conduct detailed studies on the role of the throatfan in dictating reproductive success and survival in green anole lizards. Justin will conduct field studies in Georgia on natural populations that he will be able to mark and follow over time and record details on processes of life, death, and birth. Research Highlighted in Science Daily
Research in Duncan Irschick's laboratory was recently featured on the front page of Science Daily, which features the most exciting work in all scientific fields. This research showed that lizards that were introduced to islands only 36 years ago have rapidly evolved new gut structures and feeding performance.
Undergraduate Receives Research Fellowship
Kelli Pattavia, an undergraduate Biology major working in Magdalena Bezanilla's lab, has won grant funding from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) 2008 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. The goal of the SURF program is to provide opportunities for students to pursue meaningful research in plant biology at their home institutions early in their college years. The program targets students who have just completed their sophomore year of their undergraduate studies. Kelli won for the project entitled Genotyping Moss ADF Overexpression Lines.
The SURF award includes $3,000 undergraduate student summer research funds, a one-year student membership to ASPB, and $500 for student travel to Plant Biology 2009 in Honolulu, HI. A $500 mentor stipend (which can include supplies from the mentor) is also awarded. Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Summer Research Interns
Congratulations to the 2008 Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Summer Research Internship recipients!
The following students were chosen to participate in the 2008 Summer Research Internship Program. They will be conducting full time research in their host labs and will receive a $3600 stipend for the summer.
Greg Brennan - Nambu Lab (Biology);
Joseph Burbage - Stuart Lab (Microbiology);
Ngoc Ho - Thompson Lab (Chemistry);
Chris Meaden - Lee Lab (Biology);
David Paquette - Gierasch Lab (Biochemistry);
Erin Parker - Downes Lab (Biology);
Jerome Rogich - Garman Lab (Biochemistry);
Mona Salameh - Caicedo Lab (Biology);
Dimitri Steblovsky- Gierasch Lab (Biochemistry);
Maryam Suberu - Jerry Lab (Vet. and Animal Sciences);
Cornelius Taabazuing - Schnarr Lab (Chemistry);
Pardeep Thandi - Thayumanavan Lab (Chemistry);
Nikki Woodward - Hebert Lab (Biochemistry). Article Published
The Irschick lab recently published an article in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that a species of lizard introduced to a novel island environment has rapidly evolved a new macroevolutionary feature. The paper is:
Herrel A, Huyghe K, Vanhooydonck B, Backeljau T, Breugelmans K, Grbac I, Van Damme R, Irschick DJ. 2008. Rapid large scale evolutionary divergence in morphology and performance associated with the exploitation of a novel dietary resource in the lizard Podarcis sicula. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105:4792-4795.
Lecturer Honored
Michael Dolan, who teaches Biol 105 for Continuing and Professional Education, has been elected Secretary of the International Society of Protistologists. He is also working with Rob Cox, head of special collections at the W.E.B. DuBois Library, to create a history of protistology collection.
Upcoming Biology Department Seminars
The Biology Department is sponsoring a number of seminars in the next few weeks, each to be held at 4:00 PM in Morrill 2, Room 319A (OEB Seminar Room), refreshments to be served at 3:45.
Tuesday, February 5th, Anthony Herrel; Monday, February 11th, Robert Cox; Tuesday, February 12th, Ewa Urbanczyk-Wochniak; Tuesday, February 19th, Samuel Hazen; Monday, February 25th, Esteban Fernandez; Tuesday, Feburary 26th, Brian Gregory; Monday, March 3rd, Ivan Baxter; Wednesday, March 5th, Dustin Rubenstein; Monday, March 10th, Sheila Patek. Faculty Member Honored
Tobias Baskin has become a "United States Partner" of the Center for Integrated Plant Biology based at the University of Nottingham, UK. The partnership was recently funded by the BBSRC (British Basic Science Research Council) to apply systems approaches to study hormone regulated root growth. Funding is for four years, and will cover short-term, reciprocal visits between researchers in Nottingham and Amherst as well as several other sites in UK and USA, to develop tools and collaborative projects, and for organizing several international workshop-style meetings.
2008 Sinauer Associates Lectureship in Biology
Michael J. Ryan will give the 2008 Sinauer lecture in Biology on Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 4:15 PM in the Flavin Auditorium (SOM 137). The title of his lecture is "Sexual selection and communication in the Tungara frog: Brain, behavior and evolution." Refreshments will be served at 4 PM.
Michael J. Ryan is the Clark Hubbs Regents Professor in Zoology at the University of Texas, Austin, and a Research Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. His research on sexual selection and communication is among the pioneering work in the integration of brain, behavior and evolution. His 1985 book, The Tungara Frog: A Study of Sexual Selection and Communication, has become a classic, and continues to be a leader in his field with recent and influential papers in Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences among others.
Ryan's primary research interest is in the mechanisms and evolution of animal communication. His approach has been to integrate Tinbergen's "four questions": function (adaptive significance), evolution (phylogenetic patterns), mechanisms, and acquisition of behavior (learning and development). He has addressed how sexual selection and species recognition promote the evolution and phylogenetic patterns of signal diversity and the brain mechanisms that decode it. In addition, his work unveils fascinating natural history in animals as varied as frogs, swordtail fishers, frog-eating bats, and blood-sucking flies.
Faculty Member Receives Grant
R. Thomas Zoeller recently received a one-year grant for $386,678 from NIH to study PCB disruption of thyroid hormone action during development. The long-term goals of this research are to determine the mechanisms by which polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) disrupt thyroid hormone (TH) action during brain development, to define the neurological consequences of this disruption in rodent model systems, and to translate this information to study human populations. PCBs are widespread and persistent environmental contaminants, and incidental exposure to PCBs has been associated with reduced TH levels in pregnant women, lower birth weight and early growth rate, and neurological deficits. We propose that a combination of coplanar (dioxin-like) and non-coplanar PCBs are required to produce non-coplanar metabolites that bind to the TH receptor (TR), producing effects that are dependent on the TH response element (TRE), cellular context and TR isoform. The resulting effects on brain development are not predictable based on our current knowledge. To test this hypothesis and its implications, we will identify specific PCB metabolites in cell culture and in animals following treatments with defined mixtures. AhR-null and CYP1A1-null mice will be employed to confirm the role of AhR and CYP in the generation of PCB metabolites and effects on TH signaling. Specific metabolites will be tested for their ability to bind to rat and human TR_1 and TR_1 isoforms. Metabolites that exhibit binding will be characterized for their ability to interfere with TH signaling in cell culture and in animal studies. In vitro studies will specifically address the ability of PCB metabolites to act as thyroid hormone agonists or antagonists. A combination of approaches including luciferase reporter assays, electrophoretic mobility shift (EMSA) and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) will be used in these in vitro studies. Human cells lines derived from liver, fibroblast, monocytes and neurons will be used to test whether these molecular events occur in humans. Endpoints of TH actions disrupted by PCBs in human fibroblasts or monocytes may be useful in studying these events in human populations.
This page is maintained by Karen Nelson. Send email to <knelson@bio.umass.edu>
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