Jeana Yates has been awarded The University of Alabama’s Council on Community-Based Partnerships premiere award in the area of community engagement for her work with the Biology Outreach Program. This honor recognizes the program as an Outstanding Faculty/Staff-Initiated Engagement Effort for 2020 and includes $2,000 of funding support. The Biology Outreach Program trains undergraduate biology […]
BSC graduate students Nate Sturm and Jennifer Fortunato win 1st and 4th place at UA 3MT Finals
BSC graduate students Nate Sturm and Jennifer Fortunato were both successful at the UA Three Minute Thesis (3MT) semi-finals and advanced to the UA finals on Monday, November 11th. . There was stiff competition at the finals, but Nate Sturm was awarded first place and Jennifer Fortunato was awarded fourth place. Nate will advance to […]
Dr. Ciesla in industry partnership with hemp grower
In a recently signed agreement with The Wemp Co. will sponsor Dr. Lukasz M. Ciesla to analyze its hemp. The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, or Farm Bill, declassified hemp (all parts of the Cannabis plant containing less than 0.3% THC) as an illegal drug, deeming hemp as an agriculture commodity that can be grown, […]
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New study co-authord by Dr. Greg Starr warns about carbon dioxide release from permafrost
A new study, published in Nature Climate Change, warns that winter carbon dioxide from the world’s permafrost regions could increase by 41% if human-caused greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace. This study was supported by NASA ABoVE and conducted in coordination with the Permafrost Carbon Network and more than 50 collaborating institutions. See coverage […]
Congratulations to 3 Minute Thesis semi-finalists Nathaniel Sturm, Jennifer Fortunato, and Sommer Starr
On October 9th the Department of Biological Sciences Three Minute Thesis competition was held. The department-level winners are: First place: Nate Sturm Second place: Jennifer Fortunato Alternate: Sommer Starr These students competed at the semi-finals on October 24th with other graduate students from across campus. All three did an amazing job and both Nathaniel Sturm […]
BSC graduate student Meghan Yap-Chiongco awarded best poster at SEEC
Congratulations to Meghan Yap-Chiongco for winning Best Poster at the 2019 Southeastern Ecology and Evolution Conference in Auburn, AL! Meghan is a Ph.D. student in the Kocot lab. Her dissertation research is focused on biomineralization in Mollusca. Most studies on molluscan biomineralized structures have focused on conchiferan (e.g., snail or bivalve) shells. Aplacophorans are from […]
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New BSC study on innate immune responses to paraquat exposure in a Drosophila model of Parkinson’s disease
A new study in Scientific Reports by Dr. Urmila Maitra, Mr. Michael Scaglione, Dr. Stanislava Chtarbanova, and Dr. Janis O’Donnell used transcriptomic profiling in a Drosophila Parkinson’s Disease model in response to paraquat-induced oxidative stress. Their results revealed extensive regulation of innate immune response genes following paraquat ingestion. This work provides a novel link between […]
Dr. Harris awarded NSF RAPID to rescue Saint Louis University’s frozen tissue collection and house at UA Ichthyological Collection
Saint Louis University Museum’s Genetic Resources & Collections (GRC) amassed a collection of approximately 63,000 catalogued and vouched specimens or tissues from over 6,600 species of freshwater and marine fishes since its beginning in 1983. The GRC contains important temporal samples, extensive within-species geographic sampling for North American taxa, a broad taxonomic sampling of freshwater […]
Congratulations to the 2019 BioFest poster presentation award winners!
BioFest is the annual Department of Biological Sciences welcome to new students, biology career fair, and undergraduate and graduate student research poster colloquium. We had 59 poster presentations and over 800 visitors that signed in! 1st place – “Age-dependent survival and fitness consequences across an extreme salinity gradient in a euryhaline fish, the mangrove rivulus […]
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Dr. McKain and collaborators awarded $3.8M from NSF to study plant invasion genomics
Invasive species threaten biodiversity, impact crops, restructure ecosystems, promote disease, and damage infrastructure, costing the US $120 billion annually. Despite these impacts, understanding of how and why introduced species become invasive is shockingly incomplete. This knowledge gap reflects a lack of information about the early stages of invasions and the role of evolution in promoting […]
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