Biology-Engineering Collaboration Advances the Study of Embryo Behavior
Biology professor Karen Warkentin and Engineering professor J. Gregory McDaniel collaborate to study the vibration-cued escape-hatching behavior of treefrog embryos. They designed a new vibration-playback system to answer previously intractable questions about how embryos use information. The first paper using this new tool, published online in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology with PhD student Julie Jung and collaborator Luis Alberto Rueda Solano, reveals that how embryos use vibrations to assess danger changes as they develop, in ways that match adaptive predictions. Less and more developed embryos both use vibrational information to make life-and-death decisions, but they do so in different ways that make sense based on the different risks they face if they make mistakes. This reveals a new level of complexity in embryo information use and behavioral decisions.
Alum Darcy Gordon Published in PLoS One
Dr. Darcy Gordon's research on exceptional polymorphism and neuroplasticity in ants published in PLoS One and featured in AAAS EurekAlert, which can be viewed here.
Dr. Co Featured in BU Today’s “Office Hours”
BU Today's new video series, Office Hours, examines questions students bring to their instructors during their office hours. Their first installment features Senior Lecturer Liz Co, who explains the science of learning and how students can use this to their benefit during their time at BU.
Professor Davison Receives $1.5 Million NIH Grant
Assistant Professor Ian Davison received a new $1.5-million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for "Neural circuits for regulating social behavior in rodents.” This project tests basic principles for how the brain encodes sensory information about other individuals, maps it onto behavioral centers in the limbic system, and probes the learning mechanisms that adjust the sensitivity of these pathways, allowing animals to calibrate their interactions with familiar partners based on experience.
Professor Rotjan Awarded BU Supervisor of the Year
Biology Department Lecturer and Research Assistant Professor Randi Rotjan has been awarded Boston University Supervisor of the Year for 2019! Dr. Rotjan is a prolific instructor and researcher, and has clearly taken the time to work intensively with the students in her lab as well. Hayley Goss, an undergraduate in the Rotjan lab, says that Dr. Rotjan "saw something in me that no one else had, she was the first person to believe I could one day become a scientist and that I was capable of doing meaningful research within my field." PhD student Brian Kennedy also noted that he has "never had a supervisor that is so caring and yet sets such an extremely high standard." Learn more about the Supervisor of the Year award here. Congratulations on this well-deserved award, Dr. Rotjan!
Professor Cruz-Martín Receives Biogen Grant
Assistant Professor Alberto Cruz-Martín has received a two-year grant as part of a collaborative effort with Biogen to study the role of specific neuroimmune genes in the wiring of the prefrontal cortex, a brain region implicated in schizophrenia. Studies in humans and mouse models of neurodevelopmental disorders have established the involvement of immune molecules in neuronal development and brain pathology. Elucidating the function of individual genes in the brain is crucial for understanding the mechanisms of mental illness and to reveal potential therapeutic targets for pharmacological intervention.
Professors Primack and Templer Awarded NSF Grant
Professor Richard Primack and Professor Pamela Templer have received an NSF grant entitled "ADVANCE Partnership: From the Classroom to the Field: Intervention Training to Improve Workplace Climate.” The goal of this proposal is to empower academics to transform workplace climate in the fields of ecology, evolutionary biology and animal behavior through an online survey of society memberships, workplace climate workshops, development of training scenarios relevant to field work, and making training materials publicly available online.
Professor Andrew Emili Awarded NIH/NIA Grant
Professor of Biology (CAS) and Biochemistry (BUSM) Andrew Emili and Professor of Pharmacology (BUSM) Ben Wolozin have received a joint NIH/National Institute on Aging R01 grant ($3,945,190) entitled "Systems-level functional proteomics analysis assemblies in Alzheimer's disease and mouse models of tauopathy". The goal of this proposal is to comprehensively map and identify the subnetworks of synaptic protein complexes that are central players in the synaptic dysfunction occurring with neurodegeneration. Drs. Emili and Wolozin will use the emerging power of quantitative network proteomics to systematically characterize the major protein assemblies present at normal and diseased synapses on a proteome scale. This research will be propelled by recent discoveries demonstrating that a dynamic network of protein interactions drives tau biology and changes with the course of disease. Interpreting these perturbed assembly networks, though, demands knowledge of the localization and compositional specificity of such complexes. They hypothesize that selective disruption of specific synaptic protein assemblies mediates the functional degeneration associated with tauopathy. Their unbiased interactome screening technology is uniquely suited for global interrogations of synaptic protein networks remodeled during disease progression.
Cymone Reed Publishes Biology Letters Paper
A big congratulations to Cymone Reed (CAS ’18), the lead author along with Ph.D. student Rebecca Branconi, Postdoctoral Fellow John Majoris, Research Associate Cara Johnson, and Associate Professor Pete Buston, who published the paper “Competitive growth in a social fish” in the Royal Society’s Biology Letters. The paper demonstrates that clownfish are able to increase their growth rate in response to social competition.
Buston Lab Postdoctoral Fellow Awarded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship
Theresa Rueger, who will be joining Prof. Pete Buston’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow, has been awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship from the European Commission to work on Social Evolution in Coral Reef Fishes. Dr. Rueger obtained her PhD with Geoff Jones at James Cook University and she will be co-advised during her postdoc by Mike Cant at the University of Exeter.