Albert Mondragon Published in Cell Reports
MCBB PhD alumnus Albert Mondragon from Kim McCall’s group recently published his work on extracellular acidification as a cell death mechanism in Cell Reports. Other contributing authors include Biology PhD students Alla Yalonetskaya and Johnny Elguero, Biology BA alumni Yuanhang Zhang and Anthony Ortega, and BMB Alumnus Oandy Naranjo. https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(19)30350-X
MA Student Melissa Zarate Awarded NSF Fellowship
Melissa Zarate (MA Biology, EBE, 2020) has been awarded a 3-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Mel will be working jointly with the Schmitt Lab (CAS Anthropology and Biology) and Davies Lab (CAS Biology) to study the population genetics of Critically Endangered yellow-tailed woolly monkeys (Lagothrix flavicauda) in the montane cloud forests of Peru. She will be conducting her research in collaboration with NGOs Neotropical Primate Conservation, Yunkawasi Peru, and Rainforest Partnership to provide community education and conservation recommendations to local communities based on her findings.
Professor Templer Elected ESA Fellow
Professor Pam Templer has been elected a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America. According to the ESA, "Fellows are members who have made outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA, including, but not restricted to, those that advance or apply ecological knowledge in academics, government, non-profit organizations, and the broader society. They are elected for life." Congratulations to Professor Templer on this well-deserved achievement!
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.