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Research illuminates how one of the most prevalent zoonotic diseases infects cells MU undergraduate Raymond Preston shows an inoculated agar plate he…
Cheng Gao built the MAIVeSS model to accurately predict optimal flu vaccine viruses when provided with a virus strain. | Photo by Sarah Gassel, Bond LSC By Sarah Gassel | Bond LSC Flu vaccines could be getting a booster of their own with the help of machine learning. MAIVeSS — the Machine-learning Assisted Influenza VaccinE…
Close up illustration of isolated cancer cells at molecular scale. | Adobe Stock Joint release by Hokkaido University, Toyo University and University of Missouri Researchers in Japan and the United States have developed a novel method for boosting the immune system’s capability to detect and eliminate cancer cells. This technology robustly augments the amount of…
By Beni Adelstein When Julia Rodriguez walked into Bond Life Sciences Center in 2004, she and dozens of others…
Lloyd Sumner (left) and James Amos-Landgraf teamed up to work on colon cancer research shortly after Sumner joined Bond LSC in 2016. | Photo by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer Could there be a better way to detect colon cancer than a colonoscopy? A less invasive test might depend on its association with…
Bond LSC principal investigators Bing Yang (left) and Ron Mittler were once again recognized on the list of Highly Cited Researchers. | photos by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC Discoveries in research come with time, so the incremental accumulation of knowledge toward breakthroughs is fundamental to science and the future.…
Landon Swartz, a graduate research student at the University of Missouri in the David Mendoza-Cózatl lab at Bond LSC, looks at the camera on the OPEN leaf machine and makes adjustments to the plant the robot is photographing. | Photo by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer The LED lights danced as the OPEN…
Marc Libault, a new Bond LSC principal investigator and professor of professor of plant science and technology in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Missouri. | Photo by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC Marc Libault only ended up one floor up from his old…
The Bengal tiger was one of five feline lineages compared to gives a comprehensive look at genome sequence structures that could have driven the evolution of distinct cat species. This new reference genome is comparable to the human genome in terms of its completeness, and could be used to for feline…
Wendy Picking, professor of veterinary pathobiology and principal investigator at Bond Life Sciences Center sits in her office and shows off some notes she jotted down about the vaccines she’s working on. | Photo by Beni Adelstein, Bond LSC By Beni Adelstein Wendy Picking uses the power of proteins to fight pesky pathogens like…
Lab of Olga Baker, a Bond LSC researcher and professor of otolaryngology at the University of Missouri. From left to right, Harim Tavares dos Santos, Olga Baker, Kihoon Nam, and Frank Maslow. | Photo by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer A digital declutter is a way to get rid of the seemingly endless…
Lab of Roman Ganta, Bond LSC principal investigator and McKee endowed professor of veterinary pathobiology. | Photo by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer It only takes a quiet walk through the Missouri woods to encounter ticks. As they crawl from the rich vegetation among the bushes and grass onto humans and animals alike,…
Zooming in on the tools: TS33 Secretion System William Picking standing next to a poster from his work in the Journal of Molecular Biology. This diagram depicts the structure of protein PscK from the pathogen Pseudomonas Lanuginose, which is used in a system to inject toxins into immune cells. Images A and C depict the…
Research skills aren’t built in a day, but Cynthia Tang’s diligence brought those skills to bear as she recently received an NIH fellowship to further her budding career in science. “Receiving the F30 fellowship means that the NIH sees value in my research proposal, in my training environment at the University of Missouri, and in…
Kamal Singh (right), a principal investigator at Bond Life Sciences Center, assistant professor in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine, and the director of the Molecular Interactions Core stands next to Saathvik Kannan (left), a senior at Hickman High School and a computer programmer and researcher for the Singh lab. | Photo by Roger Meissen,…
By Sarah Kiefer The hunt for emerging coronavirus variants keeps Torin Hunter busy testing samples from sewer systems across Missouri. As a part of The Sewershed Surveillance Project, Hunter has spent the last year and a half taking each test tube and carefully filtering the samples to contribute data on how SARS-CoV-2 can be present…
By Beni Adelstein | Bond Life Sciences Center M.D-PHD candidates Cynthia Tang and Brian Thomas share their experience applying for the NIH F30 Fellowship. | Photos by Roger Meissen Brian Thomas got the official letter in the mail Monday after months of waiting. “It’s a long time coming,” he said, “lots of patience and collaboration.”…
By Sarah Kiefer With a forceful swing of his badminton racket, Vikranth Chandrasekaran propelled the shuttles across the court. A game with coworkers and friends is the perfect way to wrap up a day in the lab for the postdoctoral fellow. He’s offered to teach his colleagues the strategies of badminton at the University of…
Clayton Kranawetter, a postdoctoral fellow in the Lloyd Sumner lab at Bond LSC, recently received a USDA National Institutes of Food and Agriculture Postdoctoral Research fellowship in which he uses this mass spectrometry machine to study the significance of plant border cells. | photo by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC…
By Sarah Kiefer Alexandra Diller jumped off a cliff, in a sense. Instead of taking on more clear and straightforward science, she dove into vessel regeneration and never looked back as she works on the burning question, ‘can muscles regenerate in the absence of blood vessels and vice versa?’ “Knowing how vessels grow back can…
Michaela Beedy, Brian Thomas, and Margaret Beecher work on aptamers in the lab of Donald Burke. | Photo by Beni Adelstein, Bond LSC Shrinking the Target: Developing Cancer Therapies As cancer cells multiple and spread, doctors face finding treatments that destroy tumors while doing the least amount of damage. This search for precision in cancer…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC For Elaina Sculley, the word filter means much more than narrowing down your search results on a website. The second-year animal sciences graduate student spends her days using computer programming tools as part of her bioinformatics studies and her work in Wes Warren’s lab at Bond LSC. Her focus…
Bond Life Sciences principal investigator and associate research professor of veterinary pathology, Monique Lorson (left) and postdoctoral fellow Gangadhar Vadla (right) worked together to identify the ABT1 modifier in the diseases, spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress (SMARD1) and Charcot Marie Tooth 2S (CMT). | Photos by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer |…
By Sarah Kiefer The ocean is a current throughout Lahcen Amor’s childhood memories. Growing up one block away from the Atlantic Ocean in Rabat-Salé- Morocco, Amor and his friends ventured into the water in search of a good time and some extra spending money. They would dive down to catch fish, seaweed and mussels, which…
By Sarah Kiefer Lorenzo Ceccon wanted a career full of methodical problems for him to try and solve. “I like science because it is a very logical thing. A + B = C,” he said. “It’s very systematic, so I guess I just like finding the answers to the questions I wonder about.” The senior…
By Sarah Kiefer A strong, stable stem is like Rachel Weber’s career in plant biology. Weber started in a research lab only a few months after she stepped onto the University of Missouri campus for the first time. “I was really excited and surprised because I didn’t expect as a freshman to have this opportunity,”…
By Sarah Kiefer It was a dark and stormy night … While this line sets an eerie scene in many mystery novels, the setting isn’t often a lab bench. For Lara Stefani, suspense bleeds over between her hobbies and work. Stefani writes and reads science fiction to activate her artistic side, but as an undergraduate…
By Sarah Kiefer On the weekends, the “tornado machine” was the highlight, one of Emily Giri’s favorite parts about her dad being a meteorologist. “I was a very weird child,” Giri said. “In kindergarten, someone gifted me an encyclopedia about horses, and that was the best thing I had at the time.” Between a tornado…
By Sarah Kiefer It all started with the glow of a blacklight. In a simple experiment in high school biology, DNA from a jellyfish was put into the bacteria E. coli demonstrating the basics of genetic engineering. Saad Raza was hooked. Science became something that would fascinate and inspire him simultaneously. “I just thought that…
By Sarah Kiefer Nylon, ribbon and cotton are just some of the materials that make up cosplay costumes that fill convention centers. Natalie Arnold often participates in these conventions, picking new, fictitious characters to bring to life in costume form. She enjoys the imaginative layers that it adds to her work. Arnold has always been a theater…
By Sarah Kiefer Summer break. For most students it’s a time to relax and unwind from school, but for Samuel Anakpeba-Dinguyella, he saw it as an opportunity to exercise his creativity in new and inventive ways. “My mom was washing dishes and I was in the living room. I was just messing around,” Anakpeba-Dinguyella said.…
By Sarah Kiefer Barriers in science can come in many different forms, whether it be through the force of a magnetic field, an experiment gone awry or communication between people. Kevin Muñoz Forti makes it a part of his daily work to break down these issues and work towards solutions. Muñoz Forti facilitates a system…
By Sarah Kiefer Musical notes once filled Maggs X’s mind, when they were preparing to be an opera singer and showcased their voice to all who would listen. Now, instead of reading sheet music, X reads the gene expression profiles collected from the organs of Mexican cavefish. But they wouldn’t have it any other way.…
By Sarah Kiefer Thousands of cells are made into gel-emulsified droplets and are quickly surrounded in a bed of oil — all in a day’s work for Grant Zane. Grant Zane is a research specialist lead at the University of Missouri Genomics Technology Core in Bond LSC where he performs these types of experiments and…
Roman Ganta, Bond LSC principal investigator and professor in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer Most people don’t find their area of research by contracting a disease, but Roman Ganta did. When Ganta caught malaria in graduate school, the illness plagued him…
Bing Yang, a Bond Life Sciences Center researcher and MU professor of plant sciences. | Photo by Josie Heimsoth By Josie Heimsoth | Bond LSC When it comes to making better crops, CRISPR-Cas9 based gene editing have revolutionized plant science with its ability to more precisely and quickly alter plant DNA. But the technology can…
By Sarah Kiefer Arabidopsis may just look like a small, kelly-green weed to the naked eye, but this plant holds a particular importance in the lab. For first-generation college student, Clement Bagaza, it’s part of why he moved to the United States. Coming from Rwanda, Africa, he found an opportunity to study plants and experience…
Bond Life Sciences principal investigator, Laxman Gangwani. | Photo by Josie Heimsoth, Bond LSC By Josie Heimsoth | Bond LSC Laxman Gangwani had a choice to make in January of last year. His old friend, Chris Lorson had an opportunity at MU that was difficult to pass up. Gangwani and Lorson, principal investigator at Bond…
By Sarah Kiefer Whether it’s on the tennis court or in the lab, Kristyn Conrad keeps a firm grip on her plans for the future. One way she maintains her goal-oriented mindset is in the lab doing cancer research. “This type of work makes me feel amazing. I don’t know how else to describe it,…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC With a few clicks and taps on a cellphone, the timeline of a seedling of corn is preserved forever. Dario Alavez Mercado is responsible for this simple yet effective method of recording the growth of corn from seedling to maturity. “I know that only by understanding the things that…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC It may have taken almost three years, but Shin-Ichiro Agake made it back to the Prof. Gary Stacey lab. The Japanese native had his study abroad cut short in 2020, sending him packing, and a lot happened in that time. He got married, has a five-month-old baby, earned…
By Josie Heimsoth and Cara Penquite | Bond LSC David Mendoza unflinchingly faces the “black box” of plant science everyday, asking the question, ‘how do plants know if they don’t have enough nutrients?’ Mendoza’s study of micronutrients — elements vital to plant health and energy but only present in small quantities — led him to…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC When cold and dry air collide in a battle of wind and debris, a tornado begins to form. This process got Leah Whitley into the field of science, intrigued with how things materialize in the world. “I’ve always had a fascination with how things build up, and how everything…
Bond Life Sciences principal investigators Bing Yang (left) and Ron Mittler (right) are recognized for making the Highly Cited Research List by Clarivate. | Photos by Erica Overfelt, Bond LSC. By Josie Heimsoth | Bond LSC Science builds on the work of all those experiments that come before, so it’s no surprise that being frequently…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC With each fresh streak of transformed E. coli cells growing in a Petri dish, Adam Shoemaker finds a bigger purpose in the lab work he is doing every day. “I’ve always had the philosophy that I want to have the world be a better place when I’m gone because…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC Roberto Nascimento believes a personal touch led him to where he is today. Nascimento found it essential to reach out via email to the programs where he might land, which is something many of his peers questioned. But, Nascimento saw it very clearly. “If you don’t try, you already…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC Barbara Sumner grew up in Houston, Texas, and discovered her enthusiasm for chemistry in high school, captivated by how chemical processes can explain how things work in our everyday lives. “It was a subject that I just really loved,” Sumner stated. Sumner originally pursued chemical engineering in college, which…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC Sunlight is where it starts for a daffodil. As rays cascade upon the plant, photosynthesis begins and this carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange gives the flower what it needs to survive. For Gangadhar Vadla, he drew a picture of this vibrant process in his head in high school. “When…
Bond LSC researchers Scott Peck (right) and David Mendoza (left) collaborate with MU biochemist Antje Heese in a new $1.2 million NSF grant. By Josie Heimsoth, Bond LSC Plants must integrate many environmental signals to successfully grow and reproduce. Three researchers at MU have recently discovered a new connection between some of these signals that…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC Longfei Wang, like many, was in high school when he realized for the first time what he wanted to be when he grew up. In his case, it happened to be choosing the path of a biologist. His fascination with a well-known fundamental biological structure was the main factor…
The mutant corn ear in the middle makes kernels in single rows rather than paired rows. The McSteen lab studies kernel development in this grass crop to one day help improve crop yields. | photo by Kristina Abovyan, Bond LSC by Kristina Abovyan, Bond LSC You might look at your yard and not think much…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Wendy and Bill Picking tackle a stomach-churning area of science. Fascinated by the bacterium responsible for bacillary dysentery, Bill studies its structure and function, while Wendy aims to use information on that same bacterium for healing. “I do the vaccine stuff, but he’s a protein chemist. So the proteins…
Pew Charitable Trusts may be best known for its non-partisan think tank subsidiary that focuses on demographic and social science issues, but its mission to improve public policy and inform bleeds over into support for science. David Mendoza — a Bond Life Sciences Center principal investigator and associate professor of plant sciences in the College…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC When Jaime Barros-Rios explains his work to others, he says he studies how plants make wood. All plants — from oaks down to daffodils and clovers — do, in fact, make wood …. or at least components of it. That component is lignin, a functional unit of plant cell…
By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC Bond Life Sciences Center’s Ron Mittler was recently named Curators’ Distinguished Professor by the University of Missouri System Board of Curators. This top honor is bestowed on professors for outstanding scholarship who have established substantial reputations within their field. “I am honored. Mizzou is such an amazing, supportive, and…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Kamlendra Singh sat down in his fourth floor office as a Bond LSC Investigator for the first time on September first after nearly 14 years at the Bond Life Sciences Center studying HIV, COVID-19 and how the right molecule can interact to fight disease. Designer compounds are Singh’s specialty,…
Negin Manshour first stepped into biology research as an engineering student using robotic algorithms to simulate proteins. When she left academia for her nine-year career developing elevator systems, her fascination with biology never faded. “I always had it in my mind that I wanted to work with proteins or biological concepts,” Manshour said. Manshour, a…
Gene-editing is the pinnacle of a biologist’s toolbox, but often left unexplained it seems more magic than science. Growing rice from a small cluster of cells to 4-foot stalks can take six-months or more of planning and careful nurture. But how do scientists change the intricate genetic material in each cell of the plants? The…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Donald Burke is a principal investigator at the Bond Life Sciences Center. He is a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology and a joint professor of biochemistry. Photo by Lauren Hines | Bond LSC What started as an email correspondence between two aptamer enthusiasts rapidly snowballed into a hat…
Photo by Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Art and science are often considered opposites, but Beatriz Praena Garcia sees overlap. “I think in this job you need to be very artistic,” Praena said. “I have a basic methodology to do the essays … then I read a little bit online. You can search in another…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Photo by Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Ajay Gupta learned biology basics as a first year undergraduate on the bumpy bus ride from his small hometown to Punjab Agricultural University. Just a few hours’ ride, he made the most of his time before he returned home to help his…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Cynthia Tang is an M.D.-Ph.D. student in the Wan lab. Photo by Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Cynthia Tang’s academic career is marked by her propensity to multitask. From earning a major and three minors during her undergrad to making a documentary while getting lab and clinical experience, she…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC When Samantha Yanders stepped to the front of Monsanto Auditorium, she followed presentations from two researchers with three degrees each. Yanders only had three years of undergraduate research experience. Nevertheless, she pinned the microphone to her tie, ran her fingers through her short curly hair, and explained her research…
By Karly Balslew | Bond LSC If the world can be taxing on a person as pressure mounts, just think about how stress must feel to plants. Humans can add a layer of clothing when cold or get a glass of water when thirsty, but plants do not share this simple luxury and must endure…
Investigators at Bond LSC take steps to apply basic research By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Photo by Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Scribbling in a lab notebook and planning experiments tucked between shelves of equipment, it’s easy to fixate on day-to-day lab operations. But scientists also face the challenge of finding how research can…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC One step into the Advanced Light Microscopy Core (ALMC) sounds an automated bell prompting Alexander Jurkevich, the core’s director, to step out of his corner office into the open square room. With a friendly smile, Jurkevich coordinates biologists across MU’s campus to reveal the wonders of the microscopic world.…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Mengran Yang sat perched on a stool too tall for the cart of lush green tobacco plants in front of her. Behind towering shelves of lab equipment, she hunched over the plants and steadily pricked each leaf with a syringe. Yang works with Arabidopsis and tobacco plants to learn…
By Karly Balslew | Bond LSC Exploring new places and diving into the world of the unknown can be intimidating. At a young age, Leah Lepore was immersed in this world and grew to love it. “The first time I left the country was to travel to Japan and it was an incredible culture shock,”…
Hari Krishnan holds a handful of A. pavonina seeds. Known for their bright color, the seeds are known among many Asian and African communities as coming from the red bead tree. Photo by Cara Penquite | Bond LSC By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC An energetic and fulfilling day starts with a spread of healthy…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Growing up in a humble beach town in China, Aijing Feng dreamed of following the footsteps of her idol and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Now halfway around the globe nimbly tapping a keyboard in her cubicle at the Bond Life Sciences Center, she realizes the shortcomings of her tech-giant…
The Baker lab poses for a group photograph. The lab has been working with specialized pro-resolving lipid mediators in efforts to help patients with Sjögren’s Disease. Photo by Karly Balslew, Bond LSC By Karly Balslew | Bond LSC Saliva is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when we think about eating our…
Data connects all: ‘Champion collaborator’ Xu bridges research disciplines with bioinformatics By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Dong Xu extracts wonder from numbers with a keyboard and eager teams of scientists at his fingertips. With his salt-and-pepper hair visible above the cubicle walls and his voice softly but steadily articulated, the beauty of bioinformatics takes…
By Karly Balslew | Bond LSC Kathryn Vanden Hoek proves that it is never too early to dive into research if you have a passion for it. The undergraduate research assistant started hands-on research her freshman year through the Freshman Research in Plants Programs (FRIPS). This program introduces new students to plant research and exposes…
Photo by Roger Meissen By Karly Balslew | Bond LSC Pigs may have a reputation for being lazy and dirty but to immunologist John Driver, they are the key to understanding influenza in humans. “Pigs are a great animal to study influenza in because they are susceptible to getting the flu,” Driver said. “They are…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Learning has no borders for Jiude Mao. His inquisitive mindset drives him to cross research disciplines and countries chasing the answers to his questions. Mao studies mutations in the gene Ighmbp2 that result in spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress type one (SMARD1) and Charcot Marie Tooth 2S (CMT2S)…
COVID-19 virus particles have spike proteins, represented in red, that attach to receptors on host cells. Antivirals block the receptors on host cells so the virus cannot infect more cells. | Creative Commons Photo By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Vaccines were the light at the end of the tunnel throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but…
By: Karly Balslew | Bond LSC Science and art may feel like completely separate departments but for research scientist Juliette Baker, this couldn’t be further than the truth. Her mom is a graphic designer and fueled her passion for art while Baker’s own love for science fused the two worlds together. She even drew a…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Invested in two to three hobbies at a time, Lynden Voth is not afraid to try something new. His flexible mindset – applied equally in his personal life and research – led Voth to discover his passion for molecular pathogenesis and therapeutics. “I was kind of in a completely…
DNA is the genetic material that determines the characteristics of plants and animals. Using CRISPR gene editing, researchers altered the characteristics of rice plants. | Creative Commons Photo by Pixabay By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC A tickle in the throat, a stuffy nose, congestion . . . the tell-tale signs of a cold are…
By: Karly Balslew | Bond LSC Mariam Teme’s passion for plants started while growing up in Mali, West Africa, as she watched her father — an agricultural economist — interact with plants daily in the lush area where she grew up. “It’s like my own little bubble of peace when I’m surrounded by plants,” Teme…
Researcher Sung-Hwan Cho holds mutant Arabidopsis thalianas. The Gary Stacey lab used these mutant variations to study how plants react to external stressors. | Photo by Karly Balslew, Bond LSC By: Karly Balslew | Bond LSC When we get hurt, our body signals our brain to warn us about stress and damage. We acknowledge the…
By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC When one of Reinier Suarez’s undergraduate professors suggested he go to graduate school, he was confused. “I had never heard of a Ph.D. in my life,” Suarez said. Three years later, Suarez is a first-year graduate student studying COVID-19 variants. Suarez came to Mizzou as part of the university’s…
Jing Zhou focuses the microscope through her computer. The microscope feeds its view directly to her screen so Zhou can see the pancreatic cells. | Photo by Cara Penquite, Bond LSC By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Not all tumors are created equal, and potential treatments aren’t universal. When it comes to pancreatic cancer, surgery…
Photo by Christina Victoria Craft on Unsplash By Karly Balslew | Bond LSC New drug treatments take time and money to develop, especially with diseases as complicated as cancer. Developing a new drug to help cancer patients can take up to fifteen years and can cost roughly $1.6 billion, according to a paper published in…
Bond LSC and UNMC scientists explain mutations unique to the Omicron variant Austin Spratt, undergraduate mathematics student in the Kamlendra Singh lab, shows protein models of the Omicron spike protein and the receptor it attaches to when infecting cells. “The genetic codes are used to identify the mutations, and then we use the structure to…
Nathan Bivens, director of the Genomics Technology Core at Bond Life Sciences Center, loads the Chromium 10X Genomics machine as part of the single-cell RNA sequence method. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC During pregnancy, the fetus and mother can talk to each other without saying a word.…
Even though Roberts couldn’t accept the award in person, the Chinese Association of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine still held an award ceremony and presented the medal to one of Roberts’ past associates. | photo contributed by Michael Roberts, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Still in the lab after 45 years, chancellor’s…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Don’t mistake Harim Dos Santos’ kind demeanor and introspective silence for a lack of ambition. On the contrary, his head is full of reflection and big dreams. Coming from Brazil, Dos Santos has achieved quite a few of those dreams including researching at an American university. Dos Santos is…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC In the mornings after her usual walk on the local trails, research technician Qiongying Yang heads to the Kamlendra Singh lab. Her desk is surrounded by large empty beakers and the windowsill houses two big, beautiful flowerpots she gave her desk mate. Her soft-spoken manner, warmth and mathematical talent…
Nathan Bivens, director of the Genomics Technology Core at Bond Life Sciences Center, holds a special slide that assigns barcodes to expressed genes on different places on the tissue. This helps Bivens know where certain gene expressions came from on the tissue. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Clayton Rushford isn’t one to complain. While in the Marc Johnson lab at the Bond Life Sciences Center, he’s the guy cheering up lab mates when experiments fail or going with the flow when he must repeat an experiment for the fifth time. As long as he’s doing science,…
By Madalynn Owens | Bond LSC Brian Thomas’ passion for science has been shaped by the excellent mentors he has had throughout his scientific and academic career. At Mizzou, that came from Donald Burke-Aguero. “His mentoring style really fit with what I needed going forward,” Thomas said. “In medicine you can help hundreds of people,…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC The work was tiring. The hours were long. However, Ph.D. candidate Li Su wasn’t affected by any of it. She was in her element During her undergraduate degree in China, Su studied turfgrass science. “There was a chance for undergraduates to do some research project, so I tried it…
Megan Sheridan, a postdoctoral fellow working with the R. Michael Roberts lab, removes the base solution from a demonstrated sample of stem cells that will be grown into placental cells for study of their interaction with the Zika virus. | photo by Phillip Sitter, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC At 24 weeks…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC The best piece of advice Ph.D. candidate Billy Schulze ever received was from his father before a baseball game in high school. In past games, Schulze kept striking out. He wasn’t getting any runs. Things seemed bleak. Schulze’s father pulled him aside and said with a smile, “Don’t suck.”…
Arabidopsis plants line the shelves of a basement room in Bond LSC. The new biofortification direction the Angelovici lab found in maize seems to also be present in arabidopsis plants. | photo by Phillip Sitter, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Whether it’s through kernels, cereal or chips, corn pops up everywhere in…
As president of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) chapter at MU, graduate student Sara Ricardez Hernandez works to connect minority students to research opportunities. | Photo contributed by @MizzouSACNAS on Twitter, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Sara Ricardez Hernandez starts her day in the Chris…
Increasing detection of reinfections and rediscovering brand new infections within days raises concerns for herd immunity and the durability of vaccine efficacy. Cynthia Tang working to figure out how COVID-19 reinfections can bring us answers on how the virus is developing at Bond LSC. | photo by Davis Suppes, Bond LSC By Davis Suppes |…
Research refines platform to address immune disorders Dr. Esma Yolcu and Dr. Haval Shirwan, Co-pioneers of ProtEx technology By Davis Suppes | Bond LSC The things that protect you can also cause the most harm. That’s especially true when it comes to your immune system, which protects you against infections, but is also responsible for…
Saathvik Kannan, Kamal, Singh, and Austin Spratt, worked together at Bond LSC to identify new SARS-CoV-2 variants. | photo by Davis Suppes, Bond LSC COVID-19 analysis looks at variant spread By Davis Suppes | Bond LSC Variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 continue to plague the world with spikes in infection, keeping the current…
After 40 years of hard work, it is finally time for David Pintel to pass the torch. Dr. David Pintel, retiring after 40 years at Bond LSC, takes in his office during his last week at Bond LSC. | photo by Davis Suppes, Bond LSC By Davis Suppes| Bond LSC David Pintel is hanging up…
Lyndon Coghill is the new Director of Informatics Research Core, and he is already making big moves at Mizzou. Lyndon Coghill, Director of Informatics Research Core, stands near his office on June 22 at Bond LSC. | photo by Davis Suppes, Bond LSC By Davis Suppes | Bond LSC Lyndon Coghill’s official title may be…
Although Brassica cretica doesn’t look much like cabbage, broccoli or kohlrabi, the wild relative is the closest relation to our modern vegetables and its endurance might show us how to make our vegetable crops more resilient in the future. | Illustration courtesy of Andi Kur By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC You might not envision…
Large amounts of the Arabidopsis plant are grown at Bond Life Sciences Center for multiple labs to experiment with and use. | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Think about how a home alarm system alerts a person to a potential burglary with sensors detecting whether an intruder picked…
Maria Lusardi showing how she connects the pH sensors to the Arduino. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC As the semester comes to an end, Bioinformatics in Plant Sciences (BIPS) close the school year with a lot of accomplishments: one team earned Best Abstract honors at the Mizzou…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Kulbir Sandhu’s curiosity had guided him from place to place, but it was his fascination with plant science that has stayed the same. While Sandhu has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Bing Yang lab at Bond Life Sciences Center for the past six months, his path towards plant…
Janlo Robil, graduate student in the Paula McSteen lab, came up with the GrasVIQ project after he finished a project that required him to count hundreds of plant leaf veins. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC It’s not surprising that researchers feel discouraged when pursuing projects that involve…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC As an undergraduate student, Sara Ricardez Hernandez did not have mentors that exposed her to the many opportunities available for underrepresented students — like summer programs and other research initiatives — but now a graduate student and a Life Sciences fellow, Ricardez Hernandez wants to make sure that no…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Whether Ellie Swan is in the gym lifting 200 pounds or in the lab preparing samples, she loves learning how nutrition and exercise affect the body. “I’ve always really liked exercising and nutrition, and I like learning about that, so it’s interesting to me to learn about it on…
Tatiana Arias and Chad Niederhuth studied the plant, kale, in this publication. | “Kale” by photofarmer is licensed under CC BY 2.0 By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC It is said that variety is the spice of life. When it comes to kale, much of that variation derives from domestication, and genetic differences that evolved over thousands of years resulted…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Katie Horton feels most at home in the shady woods of the Southeastern United States, so much so that she can name and give out a few facts about almost all of the plants. Horton, a graduate student in the Walter Gassmann lab at Bond Life Sciences Center, moved…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Alexandra Diller Costello, a biology graduate student in the D Cornelison lab in Bond Life Sciences Center, recently received a three-year NIH fellowship from the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute. It provides Diller Costello with funding to pursue her work on muscle and blood vessel regeneration for three…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC When Chiemerie Azubuogu announced his new position in the Bond Life Sciences Center on his LinkedIn page, he thought back to when he first came to the U.S. from Nigeria eight years ago. “If I get into a time machine and go back to that particular date on the…
Abou Yobi working in the Ruthie Angelovici lab. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Many works aimed at improving seed nutritional quality have been faced with limited success because of the lack of clear understanding of how amino acids are regulated. Abou Yobi wanted to get to the…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Growing up in the countryside of Pakistan, Teka Khan did not have a science class in high school. In fact, his first science class was in college and it was in English — a language he did not know at the time. “First I had to understand the word…
The figure shows the wild type of the plant to the left. The mutant type to the far right shows when the negative regulator SRFR1 and the TOPLESS gene TPR2 are absent in a plant, the immune system intensifies and the plant stops growing. | Photo contributed by Walter Gassmann, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC With water up to his waist, Nathan Bivens is in his element fly fishing as he waits for a trout to grab onto the end of his line. Bivens picked up this hobby growing up in his hometown of Cassville, which is also where his path to the Bond…
Shawn Abrahams | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Last summer was emotional for many people throughout the country. Movements like Black Lives Matter led many to reflect of the role race plays in society, and to act. Scientists like Shawn Abrahams used that as inspiration to look more…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC When one hears of a magician, they think of a man that pulls a rabbit out of a top hat or ‘cuts’ people in half. Magicians have a lot of tricks up their sleeve. People do not think of scientists as magicians, yet they still perform wonderous things. “I…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC The greenhouse isn’t a place most researchers linger. With condensation sticking to the glass windows, scientists usually don’t dawdle longer than 30 minutes in the heat and humidity. But Dangping Luo, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to mind and takes his time tending to his rice plants. A…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC As someone interested in getting a Ph.D., you apply to several schools and programs hoping to get in. When Lauren Jenkins first interviewed with Mizzou, she knew it was the one. But the interview was not the first time she’s had a good impression with the school. As an…
Cynthia Tang and Henry Wan | photos by Becca Wolf and Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC You would think that the less sick you are, the less contagious you are. That’s just logic. However, science isn’t always logical. Especially with Covid-19. Henry Wan, principal investigator at Bond Life Sciences Center,…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Social media botany advocate and self-proclaimed coffee snob, Shawn Thomas is the kind of person to find joy in everything. Thomas graduated from the University of Georgia in spring 2018 and worked as a bioinformatics technician for a year with Jim Leebens-Mack before joining Chris Pires’ lab at Bond…
As part of an international collaboration, principal investigator Wes Warren helped study capuchins in Costa Rica. | Photo contributed by Amanda D Melin, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Through monkey poop and three years of work researchers from all over the world sequenced the Panamanian white-faced capuchin genome for the first time…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC When the pandemic hit, Maddie Graham’s lab life shifted focus. The junior biomedical engineering pre-med student suddenly started to find answers by extracting RNA out of wastewater to help detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, which reiterated how important science is in our lives. “I don’t think medicine…
Jay Thelen sitting amongst Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometers in the lab. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Two decades ago Jay Thelen speculated an unknown protein anchored acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase), an important enzyme complex, to the chloroplast membrane. He even published a paper about it, not knowing exactly…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Building a community through screens and limited interaction can be difficult. However, it’s no problem for Margaret Lange at Bond Life Sciences Center. “I’ve met such wonderful people,” Lange said. “It really is true that if you surround yourself with the right kind of people who are positive, who…
Metabolite screening looks to better understand cancer Research scientist Rajarshi Ghosh in the Lloyd W. Sumner lab loads samples into the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (MNR) spectrometer for analysis. | Photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Doctors take blood or urine samples to see what’s going on in the body…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC It’s not a straight line between basic research and Silicon Valley, but Shuai Zeng made the dots connect. Last summer, Zeng, a Ph.D. candidate in computer science, had an internship at Google headquarters in Mountain View City, California, where he worked on an applied research team. There, he helped…
Yesterday, Tom Spencer, MU’s interim vice chancellor for research and economic development, officially named Bond LSC Interim Director Walter Gassman to the permanent director role. Below is Spencer’s announcement. Colleagues, Today, I am pleased to announce that Walter Gassmann, professor in the Division of Plant Sciences and a member of the Interdisciplinary Plant Group,…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Science is a pyramid. Every breakthrough and discovery are reached through incremental steps that build off the previous level. Shrikesh Sachdev, a senior research associate in the Michael Roberts lab, thoroughly understands this. “It takes many small steps to get to a treatment or a cure,” Sachdev said. “It…
Nick Dietz and Marianne Slaten observing a plant in the lab. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Technology advancements have always driven scientific discoveries in order to perform in depth research, but that has never been more true today. “A couple of decades ago it was perfectly fine…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Michael Pisias came to realize that he wanted to study polyploidy while sitting in an undergraduate genetics lecture class at California State University-Sacramento (CSUS) a few years ago. This unique phenomenon is when the cells of an organism have more than two paired sets of chromosomes, which intrigued Pisias.…
Bond Life Sciences Center principal investigators Bing Yang (left) and Ron Mittler (right) are pictured above. | photos by Erica Overfelt, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Building onto previous knowledge is a pillar of the scientific process, and citations in research do just that. This makes recognition of Bond Life Sciences Center…
Morgan Halane, Bond Life Sciences Center alumnus, visits his former middle school to get students interested in botany. | photo contributed by Morgan Halane, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC It seems most people grow out of bombarding their parents with millions of questions. However, plant biologist Morgan Halane never could shake the…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC In a cluttered basement in Dearborn, Michigan, one could find Leland Cseke conducting amateur plant tissue culture experiments on his family’s pool table as a child. These attempted experiments consisted of whatever he could find around the house, such as gelatin mix, items from his mother’s bathroom, and motors…
Cell sheet development promises better treatment for destroyed tissue After 30 minutes on ice, a cell sheet begins to materialize in the fluid. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Imagine a sticker a few centimeters wide and as thin as a strand of human hair except made of…
Kinjal Majumder and David Pintel | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Four years of hard work certainly paid off for Kinjal Majumder. Majumder, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Pintel lab at Bond Life Sciences Center, spent the past four years looking at how the parvovirus, Minute Virus…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC With her cheerful and friendly demeanor, graduate student Caley Smith can transform any rigid lab into a place of warmth and scientific excitement. In 2017, Smith was searching for a lab on campus where she could explore the world of genetics. “It was probably not until high school biology…
Imbalance in research is steep, but visibility and confidence key factors for women Victoria Calzada is visiting the Donald Burke-Agüero lab from Uruguay to study aptamers. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Victoria Calzada was in the corner of the Donald Burke-Agüero lab, focused on her computer when…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Columbia has been very different than Ardmore, Oklahoma, for Zhentian Lei. But the move from the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, a nonprofit agricultural research center, to Bond Life Sciences Center has been a good one for the researcher. “I like it here much better,” Lei said. “The town that…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Despite his quiet demeanor, Toshi Ezashi leaves an impression on those who meet him in the halls of Bond LSC through his quiet intensity and constant courtesy. The research professor was here before the “Joy of Discovery” sculpture in the atrium was built or the living plant wall was…
Maria Lusardi-Claire, an undergraduate student in the Mendoza lab, uses the cloud, a program apart of CyVerse. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Clouds come in many shapes and sizes. Some are big and fluffy, others dark and ominous. Or, as in David Mendoza’s case, the cloud is…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Growing up with many pets and watching Animal Planet, Rachel Carroll, a master’s student in the Wes Warren lab at Bond Life Sciences Center, has known one thing about what she wanted to do for a living. “I just decided that I wanted to find a career where I…
Yosef Fichman, post doctorate fellow in the Mittler lab, walks through how the lab uses arabidopsis plants for certain experiments. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Shaking a bad rap can be hard. However, the Ron Mittler lab at Bond Life Sciences Center has shifted the scientific community’s…
$5 million grant awarded to study RNA’s place in start of life on Earth In his lab at Bond LSC, Donald Burke-Agüero examines his model of the RNA protein structure. | Photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC The search for life on other planets may seem quite literally out…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Growing up in Columbia, Jessica Kinkade never thought she would end up working in town. “I never expected to come back here, but it’s neat that it worked out that way,” Kinkade said. “It’s nice to be able to see my family and work in a familiar place that…
Arabidopsis grows in Ron Mittler’s lab. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Daylight might not seem dangerous, but for plants, too much daylight can cause hazards similar to a nasty sunburn or a human scalding themselves. When you jerk your hand back from a boiling pan or a…
Bing Stacey | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Patience is a virtue, at least it is for Bing Stacey. Stacey recently completed a project that took her a total of eight years. It took her five years to develop a fast neutron mutant population and it took an…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Years ago, when career technician Mona Kacher was still in school, her science teacher asked their students who wanted to dissect a salamander first. Some students were hesitant, others excited, but no one more excited than Kacher who had already raised her hand. Originally, Kacher was a medical technician…
Ashley Meyer | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC When given an opportunity to use the newest technology, one has to take it. Ashley Meyer, the lab supervisor of the Wes Warren lab at Bond Life Sciences Center, recently started using the improved technology of single cell RNA sequencing…
Sung-Hwan Cho, a research scientist in the Gary Stacey lab, checks in on the arabidopsis plants that he uses in his purinergic signaling experiments. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Until the 1990s, the presence and significance of extracellular ATP, a nucleotide that normally provides energy to a…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC It’s all about the journey and Karl Kerns has been places. Originally from a small town in southwestern Iowa, Kerns did his undergrad years at Iowa State University (ISU), taking internships in Maryland, Texas, southeast Asia, and southern Australia, among other places that focused on animal physiology and fertilization.…
Post doctorate Harim Tavares from the Baker lab works in “the hood,” which is a space used to prevent researchers and other outside factors from contaminating cells. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Saliva is often something people take for granted. It helps break down food, maintain teeth and keep the oral cavity feeling comfortable.…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Research assistant Alana Rodney walked into her high school science class a few years ago expecting to fill another credit. However, it was there that she found her love of genetics. “I just remember doing the lab and I learned how to use a pipette,” Rodney said. “I was…
Crops resist bacterial leaf blight; ruling clears path to provide smallholder farmers with a safe, affordable option for preventing destructive disease A farmer works on paddy rice field. Columbia and St. Louis, MO, October 14, 2020 – The Healthy Crops team, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have used gene editing tools…
California mice | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC It’s hard to see a family member treated differently because of a behavior disorder, but those with relatives diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) know its impact. Since it affects how people act, communicate, and learn, people with ASD often…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC If you like your work, you won’t ever work a day in your life. That’s the case for Norma Castro-Guerrero, a research scientist in David Mendoza’s lab at Bond Life Sciences Center. Having a good attitude and making the most of everything is something she strives to do. “I…
Research scientist Jianbin Su studies the immune system in lettuce on the third floor of the Bond Life Science Center. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Scientist Jianbin Su’s research lately took him outside to look at patches of grass and cracks in sidewalks around Mizzou’s campus, searching for a subject in the wild. He…
Henry Wan | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf Geese will soon fill the skies as they migrate south in V-formation as the weather gets colder and the leaves start changing color. For a month or so, migrating birds take over, crossing roads, sitting in parks and stopping to eat leftover seeds…
Lucas Woods from the Weisman lab watches lung cancer cells and oral epithelial cells grow. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Vaccine development remains a central goal to get the current COVID-19 pandemic under control. While vaccines are highly vital in the fight against the current pandemic, what…
Using cell lines to better understand copper homeostasis Nikita Gudekar working at her lab table. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC When one thinks of copper, they often think of a shiny new penny. A striking engravement of Abraham Lincoln’s side profile with the words, ‘In God we…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC It was another day in the lab. Kinjal Majumder, a postdoctoral fellow in the David Pintel lab at Bond Life Sciences Center, was working on his research and stopped to check his email. At that moment, he found out he just won a $700,000 grant from the National Institutes…
Marc Johnson collecting pellets in his lab. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC There is not much thought that goes into using the bathroom. You do your business, flush, and wash your hands. It is just a part of the daily routine. Recently though, human waste has become…
These maps show the receptors’ locations, density and count in a cancer cell. | photo contributed by Alexander Jurkevich, Donald Burke-Agüero, David Porciani and Skyler Kramer. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC With two laptops in front of him and a supercomputer on the edge of campus, graduate student Skyler Kramer runs through code daily…
Clement Essien poses outside Bond LSC near the building’s garden. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Artificial intelligence (AI) can do more than just write a book given a few words. It can help make cancer treatments more effective and predict the presence of disease in cells, which…
Jiude Mao works on BPA testing in the lab of Cheryl Rosenfeld. By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Bisphenol A, more commonly known as BPA, has been a source of scientific dispute for the past decade. With a lack of consensus among scientists, consumers are left unaware of the potential harms of the chemicals in…
New funding changes some structure to program Olivia Warner By Jerry Duggan | Bond LSC Mizzou was always near the top of Olivia Warner’s list for Ph.D. programs. Its renowned psychological sciences program, sound training in Warner’s specialty of addiction and supportive, collaborative atmosphere that she didn’t see at other places made it a top…
Kinjal Majumder | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Where you are creates opportunities. The structure and placement of labs encourages researchers to collaborate and talk to each other and often, connections and friendships are formed. For Kinjal Majumder, a virologist and postdoctoral fellow in the David Pintel lab…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Landon Swartz, undergraduate student researcher, is motivated by a simple desire — to help others through the power of computer engineering. Coming from Springfield, Missouri, Swartz decided to go to Mizzou in 2017. “I chose engineering,” Swartz said. “It fits my idea of solving problems, but also lets me…
Haval Shirwan and Esma Yolcu By Jerry Duggan | Bond LSC Haval Shirwan and Esma Yolcu arrive at Bond LSC as accomplished researchers. While having different expertise within the field of immunology, the married couple collaborates extensively on research and together developed ProtEx technology, an alternative to traditional methods of gene therapy for immunomodulation with…
Kwaku Tawiah, Ph.D. candidate, poses on the fifth floor of Bond LSC. | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Disease diagnosis takes money, time and technology — something rural communities don’t always possess. Kwaku Tawiah, a fifth-year graduate student, and researchers in the Burke lab are creating a probe…
Olga Baker, professor of Otolaryngology, will join Bond LSC June 1, 2020, as our newest principal investigator with a focus on inflammation. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Olga Baker is the type of person who acts when she sees a problem. In her home country of Venezuela,…
Marc Johnson | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Marc Johnson’s research focus changed suddenly one day this February when he received a shipment. That package of synthesized SARS-COV2 spike genes — the virus that causes COVID-19 — has now taken him down a new path. “It was unusual,…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Growing up more than 9,000 miles away in Melbourne, Australia, Michael Petris never thought he would work at MU, especially since he could not even locate the state of Missouri on a map. Now a professor of biochemistry, Petris was introduced to science early on in his life by…
The imaging system helps collect data on the growth of plants. | photo contributed by Samuel McInturf. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC In a corner of the David Mendoza lab, a small machine runs back and forth across a track, taking pictures continuously of plants grown in clear square plates. This machine not only…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC At four years old, first year Ph.D. student Bruna Luz was running around and catching bugs in her backyard just to stare at them, trying to understand how they worked. “Biology has always been part of my life,” Luz said. Now, Luz studies soybean genetics and how soybeans interact…
By Jerry Duggan | Bond LSC As countries hang their hopes on the drug remdesivir for battling COVID-19, recent modeling and computer-aided drug evaluation at the University of Missouri caution to keep an open mind and consider other drug treatments. Kamlendra Singh at MU’s Bond Life Sciences Center evaluated remdesivir — an antiviral originally developed…
By Jerry Duggan | Bond LSC As countries hang their hopes on the drug remdesivir for battling COVID-19, recent modeling and computer-aided drug evaluation at the University of Missouri caution to keep an open mind to other drug treatments. Kamlendra Singh at MU’s Bond Life Sciences Center assessed remdesivir and several other drugs for long-term…
The main halls of Bond LSC are empty due to researchers being told to work from home. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC On an average day, you can find post doctorate Norman Best surrounded by corn in the greenhouse or at his bench in the McSteen lab…
Henry Wan | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC With shelter in place orders being extended throughout the country and events being canceled, COVID-19 is a pressing issue, and influenza researchers at MU have been pivoting recently to begin studying the virus. Henry Wan, an influenza researcher and Bond…
Mary Butler, an undergraduate from Truman State University, gains experience working on experiments in the lab of Bond LSC’s Cheryl Rosenfeld. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox How did an undergraduate student from Truman State University spend last summer working on a research project with a Bond Life Sciences Center primary…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC The placenta is a crucial organ that develops in a woman’s body during pregnancy that provides oxygen and nutrients to the fetus. After her experience doing research on this organ while getting her master’s degree at the University of Kansas Medical Center, current MU Ph.D. student Jessica Milano-Foster has…
Figure B is a colorized radiographic image that shows the path of boron in a five-day-old maize seedling. | photo contributed by Alexandra Housh, Michaela Matthes, Amber Gerheart, Stacy Wilder, Kun-Eek Kil, Michael Schueller, James Guthrie, Paula McSteen, and Richard Ferrieri. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC The element Boron, while extremely low in levels,…
Nathan Bivens and Wes Warren. | Photos by Mariah Cox & Erica Overfelt, Bond LSC By Jerry Duggan | Bond LSC Behind any breakthrough in science lies a research process full of precise methods and instrumentation essential to moving from hypothesis to discovery. Some of those genetic breakthroughs just became more possible on UM System…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Bing Stacey works on her soybean genetics papers in her office with the company of a plant on the windowsill and a large tropical photo of the Philippines on the second floor of Bond LSC. For the past few years, Bing Stacey has been working towards uncovering the secrets…
Dong Xu, Bond LSC principal investigator and Shumaker Endowed Professor in the University of Missouri’s College of Engineering. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC A Bond Life Sciences Center researcher has been inducted into an elite organization comprised of two percent of all medical and biological engineers. The American Institution for Medical and Biological…
The Sears Greenhouse Complex at the University of Missouri. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Picture this. It’s 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside and snow is falling in Columbia. The weathermen have projected 4 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. As wind whips the snow around, students…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Some scientists go into research for basic science, such as finding an enzyme and figuring out its functions and properties. Others like Hsin-Yeh Hsieh, gravitate toward applied sciences where they use what they know to develop technology. “Because I can use everything I learned in science as building blocks…
Anand Chandrasekhar It’s an asset to be able to visualize and think about the nervous system from the perspective of an electrical engineer. Cell biologist Anand Chandrasekhar — whose work…
Arabidopsis growing in Ron Mittler’s lab. | photo by Becca Wolf, Bond LSC Protein important in balancing iron and reactive oxygen in plant and cancer cells By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC You might tend to think durability is more of an issue in building a car or engineering a building, but environmental stress makes…
By Jerry Duggan|Bond LSC Kamal Singh was in the town of Allahabad in his native India, preparing for competitive exams to become a government official. As he craned his head to the left, he saw a highly respected official getting berated by an arrogant and disrespectful political leader. While Singh always knew that, in these…
Christian Lorson poses next to a microscope in his lab. | photo by Lauren Hines, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC From developing a question to discovering a potential solution and putting it into practice, the journey from research to practical application is a long one. Nevertheless, each step brings that solution one…
By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC Medical bacteriologist, George Stewart has had a few stops along the way before he got to Bond LSC in 2004. Having done schooling and research at universities from the midwest to the east coast, it has been a long journey filled with many ups and downs, but a rewarding…
By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC With his wide range of teas laid out along the windowsill, and his small posters still in stacks on the floor, Mel Oliver is still setting up his new office at Bond LSC after arriving in December. It takes a while to settle into a new space like the…
This Raspberry Pi device developed by former MU undergrad Brandin Grindstaff allowed members of the Chris Pires lab to remotely monitor their plants. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC What does an iconic American dessert have in common with a credit-card-sized single-board computer? Well, only its name. Small…
Janlo Robil submitted the piece above entitled, “Auxin Motherboard” to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in October 2019. | photo contributed by Janlo Robil, Bond LSC By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC The scene of the science fair wouldn’t be complete without the paper mâché volcano, the gymnasium full of colorful display boards set…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Growing up in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, Sanzida Rahman longed for space to grow a garden. She often grew plants and vegetables on small windowsills and the roof of her home, making the most of what little space she had. From an early age, Rahman, a doctoral student…
George Smith, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, speaks at the Joint Recruitment Weekend at Bond LSC. |Photo by Jerry Duggan, Bond LSC By Jerry Duggan | Bond LSC It was an entirely new process for Henry (XiuFeng) Wan as he spent part of last weekend wooing potential graduate students at the 11th annual Graduate Life…
Russian silver foxes that have been tamed show changes in their brains. | photo provided by Anna Kukekova Bond LSC scientist delves into how domestication alters the fox brain By Roger Meissen | Bond Life Sciences Center You might be familiar with the idiom “don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” but when it comes…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC It’s common knowledge that all Ph.D. candidates must complete research in preparation for a dissertation, but what happens when one’s faculty mentor moves to a different school before completion? Kaitlyn Waters found herself in that situation as she was preparing for the final year of her Ph.D. program. Waters,…
Two Bond Life Sciences Center researchers find their path in teaching and research Sarah Unruh and Vinit Shanbhag have both taken paths that have led them toward teaching positions and fellowships. By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC As one semester closes and another begins, Sarah Unruh finds herself at the start of a new chapter…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Karen Segovia wanted to work with animals the moment her childhood dog fell sick. With few veterinarians near the rural town in Perú where she grew up, she felt powerless to help, and that inspired her to eventually go to veterinary school. But it was her preparation for her…
Vinit Shanbhag (left) is pictured with a few of his co-collaborators Nikita Gudekar, Michael Petris (principal investigator), Kimberly Jasmer and Aslam Khan (from left to right). | Photo by Jinghong Chen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC We find copper in currency, electrical equipment and jewelry, but it also plays an essential role…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC It’s hard for a sixth-grader to nail down exactly what she wants to do for the rest of her life, but that’s when the process started for Madison Green. After all, it isn’t the easiest of decisions. With a wide range of possibilities, it can be hard for anyone…
For Mannie Liscum, thinking is a privilege, and his job gives him the chance to be fascinated by human’s capacity to conceptualize and learn new things. “It’s my goal to use as much of the stuff between my ears as I can while I’m here,” said the Bond LSC primary investigator. “And that’s what drives…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Fourteen billion years ago, the universe began expanding. Four billion years ago, the earth formed. Four million years ago, humans began to roam the Earth. Four years ago, Jordyn Lucas began her graduate degree studying the origins of life in the lab of Donald Burke at Bond LSC. “We…
Kristal Gant, a former MU PREP Scholar and current Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin – Madison | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC Kristal Gant is a long way from the student she was when she donned a lab coat and wielded a pipette in labs at…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Rachel Martin always faced challenges head-on. As a budding freshman who began her college career in the School of Journalism, she switched to biological sciences, tackled a double major in music, joined two research labs and kept up with clubs throughout her undergraduate career. Through it all, she has…
Bond LSC scientist works with global consortium to eliminate costly rice disease Rice terraces in Sapa, Vietnam: Rice is the world’s most important food plant, playing a vital role for nutrition in Asia and Africa in particular. In those countries, rice is generally grown by small farmers. If their fields are infected by bacterial blight,…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Taking things apart to figure out how they function was a huge part of Clayton Kranawetter’s childhood. From dismantling his parents’ old computer to disassembling a baseball pitching machine, he’s always been curious about the way things work. Kranawetter always looked for old machines or items that weren’t being…
Focus on new grants results in research funding bump On Oct. 11, 2019, as part of University of Missouri Homecoming festivities, Chancellor Alexander N. Cartwright shared about MU’s value to society during the annual State of the University address. | Contributed by MU News Bureau By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC It’s an inconvenient truth…
“Science is concrete, but it isn’t rigid. Research is constantly new and fresh.” By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC For Maddy Creach, a scientific career was always the end goal, and television and books have played a part in that inspiration. When she was a kid, her “big science nerd” of a dad watched NOVA…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Sharon Pike grew up in an era that didn’t encourage young girls to pursue fields predominantly occupied by men. Through trial and error in various careers, she eventually landed a spot as a lab technician at MU in 1985. Since then, she found her passion and voice in science,…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Two years ago, Paul Martin found his love for biology in a freshman-level non-majors course. He’s now a researcher in Walter Gassmann’s lab helping to study transcription factors that regulate a plant’s immune response to bacterial pathogens. Martin grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, near Arrowhead Stadium and has…
The September issue of Molecular Plant depicts a plant fluorescing in response to reactive oxygen species propogation taken by Yosef Fichman of the Mittler Lab. By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Plant biologists across the country opened their mailboxes last month to the glowing leaves of Arabidopsis on the cover of the latest issue of…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Growing up on farm in Brazil, Fernanda Amaral often wondered why her father had to treat the soil with nitrogen fertilizer between growing cycles. She questioned why the soil wasn’t enough to consistently provide crops the nutrients they needed to grow and flourish. Amaral remembers her father explaining soybeans…
Years at MU lands student turned faculty tenure-track position Maggie Lange-Osborn is a newly appointed assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Where can passion, hard work and more than a decade worth of experience get you? They landed…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC It’s a sensitive balance between growth and defense when it comes to plants. While a built-in, passive immune system helps them survive attackers, this response halts the growth and development of the plant, something that fascinates Ben Spears in the lab of Walter Gassmann at Bond LSC. “In our…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Saurav Sarma grew up amongst tea plantations and medicinal plants in the northeastern corner of India near Tibet, a state called Assam. His day-to-day observations of the plants sparked a curiosity that eventually led him to a career looking at the chemical building blocks behind it all in the…
Amanda Paz Herrera extends her passion for research to teaching others when teaching science. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Dry erase markers and Styrofoam molecular models are a part of Amanda Paz Herrera’s repertoire when teaching complex scientific processes to the average person. Teaching the next generation…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC #IAmScience because I have always wanted to understand how the world works and science is a way to do that at the most foundational level. Certainty hasn’t come easy to Jared Ellingsen, but in retrospect, his path to grad school in biochemistry has involved a long series of pieces…
I am science because I want to breed more new elite Brassica vegetable varieties and make people more healthy. Twenty-two years is a long time to focus on a single vegetable, but Yuxiang Yuan has done just that with Chinese cabbage. That focus has led her away from her normal life in China to the…
The complex title of the new painting in Bond LSC represents the nuance of its meaning. By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC It appears to simply showcase a spectrum of beautiful colors, but there is much more than meets the eye to the painting above the plant wall by Monsanto Auditorium in Bond Life Sciences…
Researchers from MU, the University of Maryland and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are building a microscope that doesn’t yet exist. Depending on their size, quantum dots emit different colors of light. By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Tiny neon dots speckle a black backdrop – and no, this isn’t a Hasbro Lite Brite. Rather,…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC #IAmScience because I get to spend the rest of my career being curious and creative, answering challenging questions, and making my small contribution to our collective body of knowledge. What does competitive swimming and cancer research have in common? For Kimberly Jasmer, the intense world of competitive swimming has…
Red-bellied Piranha. | Photo by Thomas Hawk By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Hollywood cinema stereotypes leave us with a false vision of voracious piranhas that swim in packs and readily attack beachgoers with their sharp teeth and strong jaws. This simply isn’t true, but their feeding habits are of particular interest to researchers because…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC #IAmScience because science allows people to find their own creativity through the art of research. Every Friday afternoon, the Pires lab can be found in the greenhouse washing pots and cleaning up, and while this could easily be seen as a mundane part of the week, Liz Countee sees…
Hong An is a postdoctoral fellow in the Pires lab. | Photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Broccoli, cauliflower, kale and cabbage all make up an important part of the food system and provide the nutrients we need to stay healthy—yet, there is still much that researchers don’t know…
Sara Zandalinas is a post-doc researcher in Ron Mittler’s lab | Photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC International flights usually require months of planning to score the best deals and to ensure minimal layovers, so Sara Izquierdo Zandalinas, a post-doc in the Ron Mittler lab, was faced with a…
Nathan Bivens, Director of the DNA Core, and Wesley Warren, Bond LSC primary investigator. | Photos by Mariah Cox & Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC The discoveries from research capture the public’s and other scientist’s attention, but what about the tools, instruments and data management systems that provide more…
Cross-collaborative research team looks to refine delivery of cancer treatments David Porciani, Josiah Smith, Leah Cardwell, Mark Daniels, Bret Ulery and Donald Burke | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC “When you want to use a tool to do something in the house, you have to use the right…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC When Carolyn Robinson was a kid, she was fascinated by the world around her. She remembers putting scabs under magnifying glasses and squishing bugs to try and understand the oddities of the world. “Science continuously blows my mind,” Robinson said. “There’s always something where you almost don’t believe it…
Henry Wan | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Every year we all tend to pay a visit to the doctor to get ahead of cold and flu season. Nothing could be worse than being in the midst of a hectic time at work or school and being out…
Ke Gao and Sam McInturf reveal Sun Bear to presidents and administrators of UWC and MU. By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Fourteen days. That’s how long it took Sam McInturf and Ke Gao to put together a root imaging machine named ‘Sun Bear’ at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa this…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC It’s the little things we take for granted, and for science experiments, one of those are enzymes. French chemist Anselme Payen discovered the first enzyme, diastase, in 1833, but it wasn’t until 1877 that the word enzyme was used. While it’s a compact name, it’s really a category of…
As Rosenfeld’s students graduate, awards and future plans celebrate excellence Brittney Marshall, a graduating Biological Sciences major, and mentor Cheryl Rosenfeld. Marshall has done undergraduate research in Rosenfeld’s lab for three years. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Brittney Marshall, a soon-to-be-graduating senior from MU’s College of Arts…
Figuring out how a virus takes over cells could help with gene therapy Kinjal Majumder and David Pintel | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC When we catch a cold or contract the flu, we usually attribute it to picking up a virus from a friend or someone we…
Ethan Myers is a senior biochemistry major studying oil production in soybeans. | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox Preparing home-cooked meals regularly and maintaining houseplants can oftentimes be too time-consuming for stressed-out college students, but not for Ethan Myers. At Myers’ student apartment you can find a bonsai tree and a…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Through Chris Pires’ eyes, science isn’t an unconnected ideology in which scientists hold the proper way of understanding the world, it is an answer-seeking process in which humans strive to understand existence and the things around and within it. “I don’t think science is a thing, it’s a way…
A time to celebrate the thing that makes us who we are By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC In 1865, after a decade long search into patterns of inheritance, Gregor Mendel discovered how individuals receive traits from their parents. Through working with pea plants, he found that genes come in pairs and are inherited as…
The Science, Health and Environmental Journalism club at MU hosted a fake news panel on April 3. | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox What do CBD, climate change, flat earthers, and anti-vaxxers have in common? All are prevalent in the propagation of ‘fake news’ in science. Truthful and accurate reporting is…
Missouri Life Sciences Week 2019 wrapped up on Friday. It brought us a taste of science across our broad research community at Mizzou. From students presenting their hard work in labs to core facilities showing what they do to advance the work of scientists across campus, Bond LSC was bustling with energy. If you missed the…
Haritha Dhanikonda is a first-year Ph.D. student studying the evolution of RNA in Donald Burke’s lab. | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox There is no shortage of complexities to be solved on Earth, but for Haritha Dhanikonda our discoveries here can be used to further our knowledge of the celestial bodies…
MU scientists develop model to study complex pregnancy disease Here, stem cells have undergone differentiation. The green shows the hormone used to diagnose pregnancy in humans and the ovals are nuclei, some of which stain a pinkish color, representing the protein GATA2. By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Researchers have been exploring the complicated and…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC In the warm, inviting atmosphere of the Bond LSC fiscal office reside the unsung heroes that make science possible. When a new discovery is made, few look back to see who wrote the grants and secured funds that allowed the research to thrive, yet those staff members quietly fight…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Ten years ago, Lucas Woods stepped into Gary Weisman’s lab with a fresh perspective on P2 cell receptors. Now, as an experienced lab manager, Woods dives deeper into the role of these receptors in a myriad of diseases. Woods came to the Bond Life Sciences Center after graduating from…
Moving science forward through discussion By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC A casual conversation amongst friends two years ago turned into an initiative to better connect scientists doing related work across the University of Missouri campus. Hot Topic research networking was born out of informal discussions, growing into a cross-campus and cross-discipline network. “They need…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC In high school, Michael Greenlief had teachers that led his curiosity into a passion for science and problem-solving. Decades later, he is an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Missouri and director of Charles W. Gehrke Proteomics Center located in Bond Life Sciences Center. Depending on the…
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC How do plants take up and use iron? For David Mendoza, a scientist at Bond Life Sciences Center, it’s not an inconsequential question. He works to decipher the answer in an effort to better fortify the food we eat. “We need to understand how plants accumulate iron,” Mendoza said.…
Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Amith Reddy has been in academia for some time and doesn’t plan to leave anytime soon. With two master’s degrees under his belt, Reddy is only a few months away from completing his Ph.D. in plant sciences. Reddy began his secondary education career in India where he spent most of…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC As an undergraduate student, Yul Eum Song had experiences that put her on a path to help create change. Now as an experienced and educated doctoral researcher, she studies the mechanisms of retroviruses in the lab of Bond LSC’s Marc Johnson, and she continues to love science and the…
Researchers are one step closer to understanding HIV By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Usually, the human immune system is good at recognizing infected cells and then killing them, but in the case of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus has ways to hide. One of the ways is by using a viral protein…
By Danielle Pycior | Bond Life Sciences Center With eyes wide open, glued to metal tubes, researchers from across the University of Missouri’s campus are searching for answers that are unseeable to the unequipped human eye. The Molecular Cytology Core is a resource for anyone to come and further understand their research. The Core’s Imaging…
Mariah Cox | Bond LSC When Simine Vazire began teaching undergraduate research methods she focused on its difference from pseudo-science or nonscience, the value of the scientific method and the notion that science is self-correcting. However, it became harder for her to teach that lesson with a clear conscience as she began to grapple with…
Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Situated in the Bond Life Sciences Center is an almost empty research lab on the fourth floor, which to some may look like an end but is really just a new beginning. Inside you may find a few boxes of gloves, a stack of brightly colored test tube racks and…
Joint recruitment weekend welcomes prospective grad students to MU family By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC As laughter and conversation began to fill the hall with the arrival of graduate students from across the country, new relationships began to form. Entering its 10th year, the annual Graduate Life Sciences Joint Recruitment Weekend continues a unique…
Rob Riedel from Wild Ozark Ginseng Farm introduces their products at the Agroforestry Symposium on Jan. 26, 2017 | photo by Jinghong Chen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Farmers, scientists and tree experts, from field to forest, will bring their work inside this Wednesday and Thursday to hear how research can improve…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Many might agree that their sex education was not taught well in school. This poorly taught education inspired junior Julie Gauthier to look deeper medicine and sexually transmitted diseases, and it spurred her interest in science. “My high school had an uninformed sex education curriculum,” Gauthier said. “It was not based in science…
Ph.D. dissertation wraps up student career. By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Ending your career as a student is a whirlwind of emotion. Ph.D. student Ben Spears soon will be saying his final goodbyes to his lab after he gave his final presentation earlier this month. Spears spent the past six years in Walter Gassmann’s…
By Roger Meissen, Bond LSC Science and invention are both about discovering the possibilities in something. Those possibilities can create something new that improves the lives of people and advances our understanding of the world. It’s no surprise that Gary Stacey, a Bond Life Sciences Center primary investigator, is being recognized this year as one…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC “Eccentric” is generally a word you do not want to use for a future boss. But that’s what led Shawn Abrahams to the Chris Pires’ lab at Bond LSC. Abrahams first met Pires at the Botany 2013 conference in New Orleans. “If you have ever met Chris before you…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Juggling research, teaching, collaborative meetings, grant writing, and training postdocs and students is no problem for Trupti Joshi. That array of responsibilities is just part of the job for a Bond LSC researcher focused on bioinformatics, an area that connects so many types of science by collecting and analyzing…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Orchids are just weird. No, like really weird, even bizarre. But sixth-year biological sciences Ph.D. student Sarah Unruh likes bizarre things. “Name me a plant rule and I can tell you how orchids have broken them,” Unruh said. “Not all of them have leaves, a lot grow on top…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC You’ve probably seen TV in shows like Law & Order or CSI and not viewed them as career inspiration. But for graduate student Nikita Gudekar, all she could think about was the science behind their techniques. As a child, Gudekar thought she could use the scientific techniques to catch…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Research Assistant Professor Monir Shababi and mothers of SMARD children started out as friends on Facebook. Now, they’re friends for a lifetime. It was an unexpected turn for someone who spends most of her professional life in a lab. SMARD1 is an acronym for the rare genetic neuromuscular disease…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC When Will Costigan came to MU he knew he wanted to do research, but wasn’t sure what exactly. Costigan joined Freshman Research in Plant Sciences (FRIPS) the first moment he could his freshman year to explore his research options. “When I started, I didn’t think I was interested in…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC You could credit a high school career fair to Amanda Blythe’s early success or simply luck. Either way, Blythe was younger than most when her research was first published. “I found a program at Washington University over the summer before my senior year of high school,” Blythe said. “They…
Wes Warren (left), Bing Yang (middle) and Ron Mittler (right) recently joined Bond LSC as primary investigators. | photos by Erica Overfelt and Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC Like with any family, a new addition brings possibility and excitement. For Bond LSC, three new faculty promise to enrich research at…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Science and spaghetti are an unlikely combination. For Toni Morcos, this combination led her to research. “Growing up, my dad researched muscular dystrophy and my mom was an OB-GYN,” Morcos said. “Every night, my mom would talk about her surgeries that day then my dad would talk about this…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Boring may not be the first word that comes to mind when you think of someone’s research story. But for Juexin Wang, it was a dull job that steered him toward research. “My undergrad was in Beijing, I was studying computer science,” Wang said. “After I finished my undergrad…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Ron Mittler always thought he would be a veterinarian, until he was exposed to the lab. “I went to school to be a vet,” Mittler said. “I made the mistake of working in the lab to make money in the summer and I got hooked on research. I worked…
For scientists, studying a disease presents a puzzle looking for an answer, but there are real people behind the research that may one day cure the illnesses that turned their lives upside down. Chris Lorson and Monir Shababi work on one of these puzzles in Bond LSC. Find out more about their work and the…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC When you walk into Wes Warren’s office you may notice the Charles Darwin bobble head, or the platypus on the cover of Nature magazine or even the shelf of colorful books in the corner. At every glance, you’ll probably see a picture of a different kind of animal. Animals…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Rice ties together much of Bing Yang’s life. From his childhood in China where his father farmed the crop to more than 20 years of research on the staple, it’s more than just food. “Rice by itself is the major crop in the world,” said Yang, one of Bond…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC When Brittany Cruzan does her laundry, she can’t stop thinking about science. “Science controls our everyday life,” Cruzan said. “Coffee, tea, the way you cut your hair, it’s all science. I’ve liked science since I was a kid. I am obsessed with knowing how things work. I don’t care…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Research is like a puzzle, and figuring out how the pieces fit together is Gilberto Perez’s favorite part of research. “In research you have to think about the steps,” Perez said. “Most likely, I’m not going to complete the puzzle in my lifetime, but it will help someone else…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Sometimes there’s a deeper meaning behind why we do the things we do. Whether it be what we study, or research, the meaning is always there. Alex Marx always knew he would go into medicine, but didn’t expect to do research. Growing up with two parents who are in…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Chaise Heim wasn’t reluctant in his pursuit of science. In high school, a program called Triple E gave him his first major exposure to his desired career in the form of an internship. That led him to David Emerich’s lab in MU’s biochemistry department where he spent a cumulative…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Being involved in research changes perspective in and out of the lab. Senior Rebecca Craigg came to college thinking science always had an answer. “When I came in as a freshman I thought everything should work,” Craigg said. “If you do an experiment you should get a result. Now,…
Senior Skyler Kramer has spent each year of college in a different lab, he currently works in the Sumner Lab at Bond LSC. | photo by Erica Overfelt, Bond LSC By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC College is a time of finding yourself and finding what you actually want to do. For senior Skyler Kramer,…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Being the youngest person in the lab has opened the eyes of this English, German and Croatian speaking undergrad. Research was not always on senior Gabriela Akrap’s mind, until Ruthie Angelovici told her to apply for REU (Research Experience for undergrads). Being accepted started two months in Angelovici’s lab…
By Roger Meissen & Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC It takes a lot to move a discovery from lab bench to an application that can provide therapeutic benefits to those suffering from disease. Bond LSC’s Chris Lorson is making moves to bridge that gap with the start of Shift Pharmaceuticals. With its formation in March…
Cheryl Rosenfeld recently worked with the FDA to study genetic effects of BPA. Her results were published in Epigenetics in July 2018. photo by Roger Meissen | Bond LSC By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC After a decade of work, Cheryl Rosenfeld is no stranger to bisphenol A (BPA), and her most recent study challenges…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC From hate to passion. One class changed senior K’Imani Davis’s mind, who is now going into her senior year working in the Anand Chandrasekhar lab at Bond LSC. “I used to actually hate science, and when I say hate, I hated it,” Davis said. “Senior year of high school…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC A chance encounter brought Katalin Toth to Mizzou. The postdoctoral fellow, first heard about MU when Gary Stacey visited University of Munich. Toth heard of a position opening up in his lab. She has now been in the Stacey Lab for six years. “I knew his work was important…
IMSD Director Brian Booton poses with the 2018 IMSD fellows. photo by Roger Meissen | Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond LSC Research at the undergraduate level offers more than meets the eye. With students from every year of their undergraduate careers working in Bond LSC, it’s a great opportunity to acquire skills and…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC David Porciani was inspired into a science career. Growing up along the Mediterranean Sea in Livorno, Italy, Porciani was fascinated with all different types of science, until he met two high school mentors. “They inspired me,” said Porciani, who now works in the Burke Lab at Bond LSC. “They…
By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC 8,124 miles. That’s how far Ph.D. student Ha Duong traveled from home to work in the Stacey Lab at Bond LSC. Duong came from her home in Vietnam where she studied plant sciences at Hanoi University of Agriculture. A chance encounter brought her to MU. “Back in my last…
Scientists are seeing changes in vocal patterns in the grandoffspring of California mice exposed to endocrine disrupting chemicals like BPA. Photo by Roger Meissen | Bond LSC Endocrine disruptors alter baby mice calls generations later By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC The sounds can seem like a mix between a bird tweet and a high-pitched…
Rowan Karvas, a Ph.D candidate at Mizzou, works in the Roberts Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Erica Overfelt, Bond LSC By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Answering the unsolved questions is a lifetime commitment for fifth year Ph.D. candidate Rowan Karvas in the Roberts Lab at Bond LSC and Laura Schulz’s lab at…
Stephanie Scott, a biochemistry major, works in the Thelen Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center Students choose colleges for a number of reasons: location, price, programs offered. Stephanie Scott was just a kid the first time she stepped onto Mizzou’s campus, and…
Andrea Ravelo, a Ph.D. candidate in Chris Pires’ lab. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center Mizzou is a family tradition for some. It’s passed down from generation to generation of Tigers as more and more family members join the lineage of “True Sons and Daughters.” Andrea…
Maria Boftsi, a Ph. D candidate, stands near her lab station in the Pintel Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond LSC Change is hard. Especially when you’re comparing weather, like Maria Boftsi, a second year Ph.D. student in the Pintel Lab at Bond LSC,…
Bond LSC Facility Manager Dana Weir observes a family of rats in one of the vivariums. Photo by Raye Allen By Madelyne Maag You’ve heard of aquariums and terrariums, but probably not of a vivarium before. These enclosed structures take on a whole new meaning when science is brought into the picture. And little do people…
Mark Schroeder, a Ph.D. candidate, works in Lloyd Sumner’s lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I like to learn how things work from the deepest level.” For most people, a television breaking or a computer shutting down is annoying at best. It means they’ll have to embark on…
Ben Spears, a Ph.D. candidate, works in the Gassmann Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because science is like solving a puzzle, and I can take any scientific question and boil the results down to chip away at much greater puzzles.” By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center…
Sam Smith, a freshman plant sciences major, works in Walter Gassmann’s lab in Bond LSC. | Photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I overcame my doubts and was able to find my place within the field.” By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center It’s no secret that science is intimidating. The test…
Graduate student Yuleum Song prepares cells for viral infection in the BL-2 hood. | Image by Jennifer Lu, Bond LSC By Madelyne Maag | Bond Life Sciences Center Viruses can be nasty things and scientists have to take precautions. You might think of researchers in floor-length lab coats, safety goggles, and plastic gloves or even the…
Garren Powell is a freshman involved in research through the Freshman Research in Plant Sciences (FRIPS) program. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because research helps fulfill the curiosity I have for learning about the world around me.” By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center Some people spend their whole lives trying…
Maddie Willis, a senior biochemistry major, works in the Burke Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center Setting a routine makes everything easier. However, changes to a set routine often leads to complications. For Maddie Willis, a senior biochemistry major, that change came…
Shannon King, a Ph.D. candidate in Biochemistry from the Peck Lab in Bond LSC, gives instructions as faculty and students prepare to harvest root samples for later experiments. | photo by MJ Rogers, Roots in Drought Project By Madelyne Maag | Bond Life Sciences Center If you’ve ever sat down on a beach, then there is…
Laura Greeley, a postdoc, works in the Peck Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because I’ve been able to build upon my experiences and explore science in a new, exciting way.” High school is a weird time for most people because everyone’s…
Tyler McCubbin, a Ph.D. candidate, collaborates with the Peck Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because I am passionate about solving real world problems with creative solutions.” A lot of people get signs as a guide for the direction they’re supposed to…
Chris Zachary, a junior chemistry major, stands near his lab station in the Mendoza Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because the lessons I learn through research will help me to one day become an astronaut.” Asking kids what they want to…
Sarah Gebken, a junior biological engineering major, works in the Pires Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because I bring a unique perspective to the world of research.” They say only an engineer could figure out their way around the engineering building…
Scott Peck studies Arabidopsis and how bacteria perceive it before initiating an infection. Roger Meissen/ Bond LSC By Madelyne Maag | Bond Life Sciences Center Bacteria and disease show no mercy to any organism they can effectively attack, including plants. Yet, plants can also develop an immune response against these threats from their complex genetic…
Duolin Wang, a researcher in the Dong Xu lab in Bond LSC, works in bioinformatics. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because I want to explore the beauty of biological sequences through computational methods.” Bioinformatics is a melting pot in the world of science. As a…
Tom Quinn, director of the Molecular Interactions Core, and others demonstrate equipment for its Jan. 24 open house. | Photo by Katelyn Brown, Bond LSC By Katelyn Brown, Bond LSC For researchers, the shape of molecules gives insight into how cells, viruses and other macromolecular interactions take place. Getting a clear view of that structure…
Eric Fedosejevs, a postdoc, stands in front of his lab station in the Thelen Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I want to discover how plants decide what to store in their seeds.” The family garden doesn’t typically turn into a life-long journey of studying plants. But when…
Patrick Nittler, a Ph.D candidate in molecular plant biology at MU, stands near his lab station in the Liscum Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I push through failures knowing that eventually something will work out.” Breaking things apart and putting them back together has been engrained in…
Rohit Rao, a junior biology and psychology double major, works in the Sarafianos Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I get to apply knowledge from the classroom to my research.” There are a number of ways to get involved in research, but tennis probably doesn’t come to…
Ashten Kimble works in Walter Gassmann’s lab in Bond LSC studying plant pathogens. | Photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I am constantly learning and questioning. We try to understand life in order to improve it, but every answer brings on new questions and new areas to advance.” If you walked into Ashten…
Braden Zink, a biology major at MU, stands near his lab station in the Angelovici Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because I have learned to think critically and approach scientific unknowns in a way that will prepare me for…
Carson Broeker, a biochemistry junior at MU, works in the Angelovici lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because learning and chasing my innate curiosity about the living world with them makes me excited to work in lab each day.” Science can…
Soybeans are used to screen for genes connected to traits that resist soybean cyst nematode. Recent progress by the the Mitchum lab explores how the plants combat the parasite and how the parasite sidestep genetic protections. Samantha Kummerer | Bond Life Sciences Center It might not sound like a traditional undergraduate experience, but Elizabeth Prenger…
Suman Gurung, a Developmental Neurology Ph.D candidate, stands in front of the zebra fish he studies. Gurung works in the Chandrasekhar lab at Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center #IAmScience “because it allows me to get involved in our quest to understand how the brain…
Alexander Franz presents his research on arboviruses and mosquitoes to the Host/Pathogens Research Network. The network brings researchers from across campus together to foster cross-discipline research. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Bond LSC connects scientists in “hot topic” research By Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC An immunologist, a plant biologist and a biochemist enter a…
Madison Ortega, a junior biology major, works in the Rosenfeld lab at Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because research gives me an avenue to explore my curiosity and possibly discover something groundbreaking.” Research is all about discovering the answers to the unknown, pushing…
Proteomics Center associate director Brian Mooney holds up a sample before using a machine to collect data on its proteins. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC The Proteomics Center runs on proteins. This research core facility is like a small business and is situated in the Bond Life Sciences…
Janlo Robil, a Ph.D. candidate in Plant Developmental Genetics, admires one of his plants. Robil works in the McSteen lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center “#IAmScience because adding a small puzzle piece to the bigger picture is my source of joy.” Janlo Robil…
Chris Pires in his greenhouse in the Bond Life Sciences Center. By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC “If you told me when I was an undergrad at Berkley or when I was working at a consulting firm in San Francisco when I was 22 that I would be a professor in Missouri working on broccoli, I…
Madeline McFarland, a senior biochemistry major, works in the Burke Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC Science isn’t limited to the lab. It’s more of a mindset than a discipline, and Madeline McFarland knows this all too well. As a senior biochemistry major working in Donald Burke’s lab in Bond…
A soybean plant grows in the Bond Life Sciences Center’s greenhouse. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC. By Samantha Kummerer, Bond Life Sciences Center Every summer, MU Bond Life scientists Gary and Bing Stacey plant soybeans. In the summer of 2016, they were testing mutant crops’ tolerance to different herbicides. Among the multiple weed…
Scientist Thomas Braun speaks at Bond LSC about skeletal muscle regeneration. Braun is the director of the Max-Planck Institute that studies the heart,lungs and blood vessels.| Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Thomas Braun, a researcher with the German-based Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, visited MU for…
Makenzie Mabry, a Ph.D. candidate, works in the Pires Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC For Makenzie Mabry, every day is a new puzzle when it comes to science. That desire to solve new problems led her from wanting to be a veterinarian to considering much less cuddly focus in…
Roberts honored for breakthrough discovery in reproductive biology 30 years ago By Eleanor C. Hasenbeck | Bond Life Sciences Center In 1987, Michael Roberts published a groundbreaking discovery that changed the world of reproductive biology research. Roberts and members of his lab discovered that a type of protein, an interferon, impacted how the bodies of…
Chemical engineering students Caitlin Leeper and Rui Zhang work in Bret Ulery lab. The lab conducts innovative research combining chemical engineering with immunology.| Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC. Saturday Morning Science talks engineering our next defense By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Saturday Morning Science brings science to the people, bagels included. In an…
Kris Budd, a Ph.D. candidate in Lori Eggert’s lab, works with Bond LSC to track elephant DNA in Southeast Asia. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I have the ability to transform the fate of endangered species.” If someone had told Kris Budd that she’d be investigating elephant feces on daily basis…
A new test can show how much a zebrafish larva has eaten. This basic information could be crucial to upcoming discoveries. A zebrafish swims in its tank. Understanding how zebrafish move can give researchers insight into how certain diseases impact human motion. Photo courtesy National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. By Eleanor C.…
Lisa Caesar is a biological sciences Ph.D. candidate who works in Laura Schulz’s lab. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because education and my pursuit of learning became my ticket out of poverty and a way that I can really help others.” “Mother knows best” rings true for Gerialisa Caesar. In her…
Donald Burke-Agüero stands in his office in Bond LSC, holding a model of an RNA protein structure. Burke-Agüero studies the bio-chemical functions of RNA, and how those functions might be able to be artificially designed or replicated. | Phillip Sitter, Bond LSC By Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC “He’s a triple threat in science,” Bond Life…
Julia Brose is a senior studying biochemistry at Mizzou. She works in Chris Pires lab in Bond LSC. | Photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I really enjoy discovering and being around people who cultivate a positive learning environment.” As a freshman at Mizzou four years ago, Julia Brose knew she had a…
Marianne Emery is a Ph.D. candidate in Ruthie Angelovici’s Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because it leads to innovation that makes for a better world, which is an awesome thing to be a part of.” It’s good to have a role model, and Marianne Emery has always looked up…
Cheryl Rosenfeld, a Bond Life Sciences Center investigator and professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri. | photo by Jinghong Chen, Bond LSC What companies aren’t telling you about their merchandise By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Bisphenol A, otherwise known as BPA, is used to make plastic containers, coats the inside your metal…
Lab explores how parvo wins in tug of war with cells Kinjal Majumder and David Pintel examine the protein levels in mouse cells during MVM infection. Each black band represents the amount of viral protein in infected cells over time. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC At the start…
Vivek Shrestha, a Ph. D candidate, works in Dr. Ruthie Angelovici’s lab at Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC “#IAmScience because it provides me with a platform to make that which seems impossible possible.” Agriculture is a mainstay in Nepal, where Vivek Shrestha was born and raised. He grew up in a…
Jay Thelen Brief by Roger Meissen| Bond LSC What do lasers have to do with food allergies? Bond LSC’s Jay Thelen was recently part of a team that looked at how short laser pulses might be used to modify peptides and proteins to make foods edible for those with specific allergies. Thelen, a biochemistry professor, joined…
Ronnie LaCombe, a Ph. D candidate in biological sciences at MU, stands near her lab station in D Cornelison’s lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I feel most alive when I’m talking to people, both in and out of my field, about…
Purva Patel presents her research on iron in plants during the undergraduate research fair. Patel works in Dr. Mendoza’s lab in the Bond Life Sciences Center. By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Purva Patel grew up captivated by newspaper articles discussing a method to grow plants without soil called hydroponics. Today, she is one of the…
Jim Obergefell’s love endured through his partner’s death and all the way to the Supreme Court. Jim Obergefell speaks about winning the landmark Supreme Court case that granted equal marraige rights to same-sex couples. Obergefell received a standing ovation after his lecture. Photo by Eleanor Hasenbeck | Bond Life Sciences By Eleanor C. Hasenbeck |…
Bill McKibben explained the impact of increasing carbon emissions on the global climate and explored solutions to slowing the trend Bill McKibben responds to an audience member’s question at his lecture on Oct. 4 in Jesse Hall. The screen behind him shows demonstrators blocking an oil rig from leaving harbor. McKibben called them “kayak-tivists.” Photo…
Katy Guthrie, a Ph.D. candidate, works in Dr. Paula McSteen’s lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott, Bond LSC By Allison Scott | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I want to take the knowledge I gain and teach it to other young scientists so they share in this excitement, too.” Katy Guthrie grew up as…
Eli Finkel explains not all modern marriages are getting worse. Finkel spoke about his new book, “The All-Or-Nothing Marriage”. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC “And they lived happily ever after. Like, what the hell?” Eli Finkel exclaimed. “That’s a foolish way of thinking. Really what you’re doing is…
Charlandra Bryant reveals some of her findings on what influences African Americans’ marriage quality. Bryant spoke on the effects of health on African American couples on Saturday, Oct. 7. | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC “Race matters, even in marriage,” Charlandra Bryant said to open her talk on the…
Kory Floyd speaks about humans’ need for affection. Floyd spoke during the 13th annual Life Sciences and Society Symposium on Saturday, Oct. 7. | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Kory Floyd was stressed and having an all-around bad day, but then a coworker offered him a hug. “That hug…
Dr. Brian Hare speaks about how friendliness and natural selection are connected at the 13th annual LSSP symposium, The Science of Love. | photo by Roger Meissen Hare explains survival of the friendliest as component of natural selection By Allison Scott Dogs really are a man’s best friend if you ask Brian Hare. Our four-legged…
Dr. Larry Young opens the second day of The Science of Love. | photo by Roger Meissen Larry Young explores chemicals behind monogamy in prairie voles, humans By Allison Scott Upon first glance, it wouldn’t seem that humans and small rodents have that much in common. However, Larry Young extensively studies the prairie vole because…
Dr. Helen Fisher opens the 13th annual LSSP symposium, The Science of Love, on Friday, Oct. 6. | photo by Allison Scott Helen Fisher delves into the relationships we choose and why in our digital age By Allison Scott | Bond Life Sciences Center We might not understand what drives us to establish and maintain…
Ph.D. student Ke Gao and computer scientist Filiz Bunyak collaborate with researchers at the Bond Life Sciences Center. The pair helps advance high-throughput phenotyping by developing applications and algorithms for image analysis. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Computer scientists create applications to speed up research in the lab By Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC…
Vinit Shanbhag is a Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry and works in Michael Petris’ lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Allison Scott By Allison Scott | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I like to discover. The excitement of uncovering things that could have an impact on millions of lives is fascinating.” Vinit Shanbhag isn’t your typical student.…
By Allison Scott | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I want to focus my research on problems that exist in agriculture in undeveloped and third world countries.” Sterling Evans’ mind wasn’t focused on research when he started college, but that would soon change. The sophomore plant sciences major uncovered his interest thanks to Freshman Research in Plant…
How zebrafish gained their popularity as a model organism By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC The core of many modern discoveries in developmental biology is swimming in a tank. These are zebrafish that serve as the lab rats for Anand Chandrasekhar’s research. Dozens of tanks containing thousands of swimming fish fill the lab in the basement…
By Allison Scott | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because research allows me to challenge my understanding of the world around me and strive toward figuring out the unknown.” Paul Caldo isn’t your typical undergraduate student. As a junior, Caldo is double majoring in Biology and Psychology, which gives him a unique perspective on science as a whole.…
Researchers Jeffrey Adamovicz, Bret Ulery, and Dong Xu work together to develop a vaccine in a novel way. The trio received a Bond Life Sciences Center seed grant to fund their interdisciplinary research. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC By Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC What happens when a chemical engineer, a computer scientist, and…
Anna Gres studies HIV capsid protein using X-ray crystallography. She recently finished her five-year research project at the Bond Life Sciences Center. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC Gres reflects on the dissertation in HIV research By: Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Ph.D. candidate Anna Gres frequently described her success at the Bond Life Sciences…
Rebecca Craigg, an undergraduate biology major, studies muscle regeneration in D Cornelison’s lab. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC Undergrad’s passion spurred by mice muscle regeneration research By: Samantha Kummerer | Bond LSC Uncertainty and curiosity led Rebecca Craigg to work in a lab. As a first-generation college student with an interest in science…
Melissa Mitchum, D Cornelison and Cheryl Rosenfeld (from left to right) of Bond Life Sciences Center were promoted to full professor on September 1, 2017. Three Promoted to Full Professor By MJ Rogers, Bond LSC Scientific success largely hinges on research results, and four recent promotions at Bond Life Sciences Center celebrate that achievement. Cheryl…
“#IAmScience because looking into the unknown and coming up with a plan to take a stab at answering it is so fascinating.” No one in Emilia Asante’s family works in a science field or attended graduate school. “As an immigrant from Ghana, my family was unaware of the American educational system,” she said. “So many of…
Natalie Hickerson stands next to her research poster at MU’s Undergraduate Research Forum. Hickerson, a biochemistry major, spent her summer in Dr. Hannink’s lab. By: Samantha Kummerer| Bond LSC It takes a lot of time and patience to be a scientist. This is something that first-time researcher Natalie Hickerson quickly discovered. “A lot of the…
Johanna Morrow collects leaf samples from plants in the Bond Life Sciences Center’s growth chamber. Morrow is a Ph.D. student in the Liscum lab. By Samantha Kummerer | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because learning something new is super exciting! I love that by performing research one can contribute to the collection of knowledge.” Johanna Morrow discovered…
New web-based framework helps scientists analyze and integrate data By Emily Kummerfeld | Bond LSC Large-scale data analysis on computers is not exactly what comes to mind when thinking about biological research. But these days, the potential benefit of work done in the lab or the field depends on them. That’s because often research doesn’t…
Jay Thelen, a Bond LSC researcher, next to the GC-MS machine in his lab, which tracks seed oil measurements. | photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC How to get crops to produce seeds with more oil By: MJ Rogers, Bond LSC You can’t get blood out of a stone, but Jay Thelen wants to…
Katelynn Koskie, a Ph.D candidate, works in Mannie Liscum’s lab. | Photo by Samantha Kummerer, Bond LSC By Samantha Kummerer | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I want to help unravel the mysteries of nature that will improve our futures and positively impact our planet.” Katelynn Koskie didn’t always know she loved plants. As an undergraduate,…
Beverly Agtuca was born in New York, but has family in the Philippines, a country that struggles with malnutrition and undernourishment. Her overall goal for her research is to help countries that struggle with undernourishment by increasing the agricultural productivity in those countries. “When I was little, I went on summer vacation to visit my…
Metabolomics center delves into the unknown Emily Kummerfeld | Bond LSC What do you do when you have an unknown substance and need to know what it’s made of? Or what if you know what’s in it, just not how much? Scientists turn to metabolomics to figure out what these pieces are. Lloyd W. Sumner,…
Samuel McInturf, Ph.D. candidate “#IAmScience because it’s fun. You’re paid to work with exotic materials and instruments to solve problems that drive at how life manifests.” Samuel McInturf’s father is an accountant and his mother is an HR director, but somehow he ended up falling in love with science. By the 4th grade he had…
By: Samantha Kummerer | Bond LSC It’s no secret that the 21st century continues to set records with the warmest years in earth’s history and rising carbon dioxide and sea levels. These significant changes threaten the planet’s future and already challenge farmers. Mannie Liscum, a Bond LSC investigator, said research in his lab may help…
Megan Sheridan, a Ph.D candidate in biochemistry, works in Dr. Michael Robert’s lab. | Photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because it’s extraordinary knowing that a small step towards a treatment could positively impact someone’s life down the road.” Megan Sheridan doesn’t let anything slow her down.…
Kevin Kaifer, a Ph.D candidate who works in Dr. Christian Lorson’s lab. | Photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because there are people suffering all over the world and this is where I’m most likely to make any kind of an impact.” When he came to MU…
By: Samantha Kummerer | Bond LSC When you bite into corn-on-the-cob or a burger you probably aren’t thinking about what tiny compounds are entering your body or about how they can be improved. But scientists are. Those tiny compounds are amino acids and serve as the building blocks of protein. They also play a major…
Christopher Garner, Ph.D moments before his successful dissertation defense. | Photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I believe that the collective pursuit of scientific knowledge is what moves us forward as a species.” In the time leading up to Christopher Garner’s dissertation defense, you never would…
Walter Gassmann, the new Interim Director of Bond LSC. | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because science is the best way to solve problems and help people. And the laws of nature write fascinating stories.” Walter Gassmann, the new Interim Director of Bond LSC, has been an important…
How bossy insects make submissive plants create curious growths By Samantha Kummerer | Bond LSC They are bumps on leaves, bulges in stems and almost flower-like growths from plant tissue with a striking amount of variety. They are galls. These unnatural growths garnered the curiosity of Jack Schulz for years. While he’s spent 40 years studying…
New research makes IVF four times more efficient to create pigs like this for genetics research and breeding in labs like that of Randy Prather at MU. | Photo by Nicholas Benner. Research quadruples speed and efficiency to develop embryos By Samantha Kummerer | Bond LSC What started as a serendipitous discovery is now opening…
Paige Gruenke, a Ph.D candidate in Dr. Donald Burke’s lab in Bond LSC. | Photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I am fascinated by life on a molecular level and inspired that my research could positively impact medicine.” As a graduate student in Donald Burke’s lab…
How an MU student helped start a Twitter trend and how social media is advancing science. By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC In the modern age, science isn’t a solitary endeavor. You might be a tweet away from connecting with scientists about their work, as one MU student recently proved. Dalton Ludwick, an MU…
Graduate Researcher Sarah Unruh explores the essential role of fungi in orchid germination By Emily Kummerfeld | Bond LSC Graduate Researcher Sarah Unruh | photo by Emily Kummerfeld, Bond LSC The blooms of orchids are unmistakably beautiful, and how they reproduce has fascinated biologists for centuries. But, orchids might not even exist if not for…
Kwaku Tawiah, a Ph. D candidate in biochemistry at MU, stands near his lab station in the Burke Lab in Bond LSC. | photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because of where I come from. If you look at Africa, we have some of the most dangerous…
Shannon King, a Ph.D candidate in the Biochemistry department at MU. She works in Scott Peck’s lab at Bond LSC. | Photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC. By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I plan to use my career to help develop agricultural innovations for the hard-working farmer.” Most of Shannon King’s…
Jacqueline Ihnat, one of the 12 Cherng Summer Scholars, outside Dr. Cornelison’s lab at the Bond Life Sciences Center. | Photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC Sometimes the most learning occurs outside of the classroom. For Jacqueline Ihnat, an opportunity to pursue research at the Bond Life Sciences Center this summer will give her…
Jacqueline Ihnat, one of the 12 Cherg Summer Scholars chosen from within the Honors College at MU in 2017. | Photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I am able to apply what I learn in the classroom to research that makes progress towards a better future.”…
By Jennifer Lu |Bond LSC Paula McSteen is a professor of biological sciences at MU and a researcher at the Bond Life Sciences Center. | Photograph by Jennifer Lu, Bond LSC When developmental plant geneticist Paula McSteen thinks about the specimens she studies, one word comes to mind: potential. She thought it as she stood…
Dean Bergstrom, the new building manager for Bond LSC. | Photo by Mary Jane Rogers, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I provide the world class scientists of Mizzou’s Bond Life Sciences Center with the finest facilities available.” As the new building manager for the Bond Life Sciences Center, Dean Bergstrom…
Researchers find evidence of a genetic modifier that can improve symptoms of Spinal Muscular Atrophy Chris Lorson examines axons through a microscope. Lorson’s lab recently published results that showed evidence that the protein plastin 3 affects the severity of SMA. | Photo by Eleanor Hasenbeck, Bond LSC Eleanor Hasenbeck | Bond Life Sciences Center Two…
By Jinghong Chen | Bond Life Sciences Center Painted turtle eggs were brought from a hatchery in Louisiana, candled to ensure embryo viability and then incubated at male-permissive temperatures in a bed of vermiculite. Those exposed to BPA developed deformities to testes that held female characteristics.Photo by Roger Meissen | © 2015 – MU Bond…
A partnership between MU and Gyeongsang National University in South Korea has created lasting connections By Eleanor Hasenbeck | Bond Life Sciences Center Discussion went global this week as researchers converged from Gyeongsang National University in South Korea, MU and Washington University at Bond Life Sciences Center for the sixth MU-GNU International Joint Symposium in…
Erica Majumder, a biochemistry Ph.D candidate. | photo by Morgan McOlash, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I am endlessly curious and the world needs scientific solutions to our grand challenges.” That is the attitude of someone who does her research with a purpose. Since the age of 14, Erica knew…
Neuroscientist and former Secretary of State science adviser to speak at Life Sciences Week By Eleanor C. Hasenbeck | Bond Life Sciences Frances Colón has spent the past decade representing the United States all over the world on topics ranging from climate change to the advancement of women scientists. She will reflect on that experience…
Sheryl Koenig, the Grant Proposal Manager at Bond LSC. | photo by Morgan McOlash, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I need to connect the dots. How do all the puzzle pieces fit together? Why do things do what they do? How can I apply that to other things?” For Sheryl…
By Jinghong Chen | Bond Life Sciences Center “Living things are too beautiful for there not to be a mathematics that describes them.” Thomas D. Schneider will speak Tuesday, April 11 in Bond LSC’s Monsanto Auditorium. | Photo by National Institutes of Health This is Thomas Schneider’s motto. Schneider, a research biologist at the National…
By Jinghong Chen | Bond Life Sciences Center Andrew Hanson, right, will speak Friday, April 14 in Bond LSC’s Monsanto Auditorium as the 2017 Dr. Charles W Gehrke speaker. | Photo by University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences People often think of metabolism as a perfect network. But that assumption is simply…
By Jinghong Chen | Bond Life Sciences Center Mahmoud Khalafalla, a Ph.D. student at Weisman’s lab, is isolating RNA from salivary glands of Sjögren’s syndrome mouse model to look for the expression of pro-inflammatory genes. | photo by Jinghong Chen, Bond LSC Our immune system is often the key to our health. Everyday, it works…
Marc Johnson, a virology professor at Bond LSC. | photo by Morgan McOlash, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because the mysteries of the natural world aren’t going to solve themselves.” Since the third grade, Marc Johnson never wanted to be anything else but a mad scientist. What began as experimenting with…
Jessica Whited studies the genetics behind how salamanders grow severed limbs By Eleanor Hasenbeck | Bond LSC An axolotl rests at the bottom of its tank at Menagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris. | photo by Jack Baker, Flickr It takes about two months for an axolotl to regenerate a lost limb. Humans, as you probably…
Jinghong Chen | Bond Life Sciences Center Plants on the left grow with rhizobia bacteria, one type of fixing nitrogen bacteria, in the greenhouse, while the plants on the right grow without the bacteria. | photo by Jinghong Chen, Bond LSC Since eight years old, Beverly Agtuca knew she wanted to be a scientist. A…
Lloyd Sumner, biochemistry professor and Director of the Metabolomics Center at Bond LSC. | photo by Morgan McOlash, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I have an infinite curiosity and we have some powerful toolsets that I am confident will make a difference, not just in plant biochemistry, but in many…
Scott Peck, a biochemistry professor at Bond LSC. | photo by Morgan McOlash, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because I want to discover. I want to ‘see’ – by understanding – things that others haven’t ‘seen’ before.” Every day we make decisions based off on what we encounter in the environment. Plants…
Debbie Allen, the Coordinator of Graduate Initatives at Bond LSC. | photo by Morgan McOlash, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because during their journey all graduate students deserve expertise, care and advocacy from graduate coordinators.” As Coordinator of Graduate Life Science Initiatives, Debbie Allen facilitates several activities supporting graduate recruitment, training,…
Jinghong Chen | Bond Life Sciences Center Vinit Shanbhag mixes the CRISPR plasmid DNA with cells. The lab will test whether the gene of interest has been knocked out of the cells later. | photo by Jinghong Chen, Bond LSC It might be strange to say, but in a way the Australian soil led scientist…
This screenshot of a supplemental video included in Genovese’s study shows cultured pork cells contracting in response to a neurotransmitter. | photo courtesy of the Nicholas Genovese What if you could have pork without the pig? Nicholas Genovese’s cultured meat could provide a more environmentally friendly meat By Eleanor C. Hasenbeck | MU Bond Life…
Arianna Soldati, a Ph.D candidate in volcanology at Bond LSC. | photo by Morgan McOlash, Bond LSC By Mary Jane Rogers | Bond LSC “#IAmScience because through my research, I can expand the bubble of human knowledge and I think that’s a pretty amazing thing. We don’t have a volcano, so we make our own.” Imagine…
Scientists prove parasite mimics key plant peptide to feed off roots By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC A nematode (the oblong object on the left) activates the vascular stem cell pathway in the developing nematode feeding site (syncytium) on a plant root. | photo by Xiaoli Guo, MU post-doctoral research associate When it comes to…
Nga Nguyen hopes to apply her research to increase nutrient contents in crop plants By Eleanor C. Hasenbeck | Bond LSC Nga Nguyen, a doctoral candidate in MU’s Division of Plant Sciences, observes samples of a model plant species, Arabidopsis thaliana, in the Mendoza-Cózatl lab at Bond Life Sciences Center on Feb. 7, 2017. |…
By Jinghong Chen | Bond Life Sciences Center Emily Million, a prospective biochemistry graduate student from Truman State University and Kevin Muñoz-Forti of University of Puerto Rico’s Pontifical Catholic University talk at the Graduate Life Sciences Joint Recruitment Weekend on February 4 after looking at posters about many different research programs and projects. | Roger…
MU Center for Agroforestry symposium talks medicinal plants By Jinghong Chen | Bond LSC Rob Riedel from Wild Ozark Ginseng Farm introduces their products at the agroforestry symposium on Jan. 26th, 2017 | photo by Jinghong Chen, Bond LSC Researchers, landowners and entrepreneurs converged at Bond Life Sciences Center to discuss current developments and topics…
It feels good to get recognition, especially when it comes from the White House. This week D Cornelison, a Bond Life Sciences Center researcher and associate professor of biological sciences found out she will receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The award is the highest honor bestowed by the United…
Chris Lorson (front) and Mark Hannink (back) collaborate to study the role of mitochondria in motor neuron health, particularly in relation to spinal muscular atrophy, a neuromuscular disorder | photo by Jen Lu, Bond LSC Chris Lorson, a professor of veterinary pathobiology, and Mark Hannink, a professor of biochemistry, want to find a new way…
Five faculty speakers from five different universities, along with two trainees selected based on the merits of their poster abstracts, presented on current topics in epigenetics. The daylong symposium, titled Mizzou Epigenetics, took place on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at the Bond Life Sciences Center. Kenote speaker Dr. Jean-Pierre Issa talks about epigentic drift at the…
Bond LSC scientist works with MU eye surgeon to help people suffering from autoimmune-disease Sjögren’s syndrome By Phillip Sitter | Bond LSC Dr. Carisa Petris stands in the McQuinn atrium of Bond Life Science Center. She and Bond LSC researcher Gary Weisman are using funding from a $100,000 Bond LSC grant to study the mechanisms…
Dr. Peter Ostrum spoke at Bond LSC in celebration of World One Health Day By Phillip Sitter |Bond LSC Dr. Peter Ostrum, who once played the character of Charlie Bucket in 1971’s “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” —also starring the late Gene Wilder — smiles after giving a lecture to an audience at Monsanto…
Bond LSC researchers David Mendoza (left) and Scott Peck (right) are collaborating to develop a new method for studying protein signaling pathways inside plant cells. | photo by Jennifer Lu, Bond LSC By Jennifer Lu | Bond LSC Sometimes, timing is everything. That was the case in what led to a new collaboration between the…
Efforts to understand the genome of one plant through its many genetic varieties could lead to nutritional improvements in the staple crops billions of people depend on By Phillip Sitter | Bond LSC Ruthie Angelovici stands next to some Arabidopsis thaliana samples in the basement of Bond LSC. She is leading projects to study the…
Stock image via iStock By Jennifer Lu | Bond LSC A new in-vitro fertilization technique that uses genetic material from three persons made the news last week following the announcement of the successful birth of a now five-month-old baby boy. The process allowed the mother, who had a rare mitochondrial disease known as Leigh Syndrome,…
Inter-departmental MU team aims to improve enzyme use and recovery for spectrum of industrial, medical and military applications By Phillip Sitter | Bond LSC A mostly-finished cylindrical bio-reactor site sits in a 3D printer after the printing has stopped. With a 3D printer in-house, Chung-Ho Lin said that the inter-departmental team he is part of can…
This past weekend not only ushered in Mizzou’s first home game of the season, but the return of Saturday Morning Science. The weekly lecture series connects the Columbia community with MU scientists and their research, from bio-engineering to volcanology to anthropology and linguistics. Elizabeth G. Loboa, dean of the College of Engineering, kicked off the…
NASA, NIH-funded work seeks to understand bio-chemical mechanisms of life on Earth, and among the stars By Phillip Sitter | Bond LSC Donald Burke-Agüero stands in his office in Bond LSC, holding a model of an RNA protein structure. Burke-Agüero studies the bio-chemical functions of RNA, and how those functions might be able to be…
Grand opening highlights specialty of large-scale metabolite profiling By Phillip Sitter | Bond LSC Dr. Zhentian Lei , assistant director and assistant research professor of the MU Metabolomics Center, provides an overview of an ultra high-pressure liquid chromatograph coupled to mass spectrometry for the large-scale profiling of metabolites at the University of Missouri Metabolomics Center…
Bond LSC scientist internationally recognized for work on salivary glands and autoimmune disorders By Phillip Sitter | Bond LSC You might not think too highly of spit, but you would quickly regret not having any. People with Sjögren’s syndrome suffer chronic dry mouth and eyes from an overzealous immune system that attacks salivary and tear ducts, causing…
Lorson lab publishes research on a new therapeutic path to help treat spinal muscular atrophy By Phillip Sitter | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Erkan Osman shows iImages of neuro-muscular junctions. Osman, a post-doctoral fellow in Chris Lorson’s lab, co-authored research in the journal Molecular Therapy that details work in binding a synthetic nucleic acid…
Scientists use placental cells in lab to study virus By Phillip Sitter | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Megan Sheridan, an MU grad student, removes the base solution from a demonstrated sample of stem cells that will be grown into placental cells for study of Zika virus. Within four days of exposure to the correct…
Stewart holds a different colony of anthrax in his lab. Stewart’s work with anthrax and other similar organisms focuses on understanding the tough protein shell of the bacteria’s spores that enable the pathogen to survive in soil for extended periods of time, even hundreds of years. | photo by Phillip Sitter, Bond LSC By Phillip…
Grad students present brain science, crop biology research in series kick-off By Phillip Sitter | MU Bond Life Sciences Center University of Missouri PhD student in biological sciences Nat Graham introduces the first Science on Tap CoMo event on the evening of Tuesday, June 28 at Ninth Street Public House. | photo by Phillip Sitter, Bond…
The safety behind studying deadly disease By Phillip Sitter | MU Bond Life Sciences Center George Stewart, McKee Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and Chair of Veterinary Pathobiology holds up a colony of Bacillus anthracis in his lab. The strain of anthrax he holds is non-virulent, and is therefore safe to handle under BSL-2 precautions as opposed…
By Zivile Raskauskaite | MU Bond Life Sciences Center The Mizzou Botanic Garden organized Native Pollinators Symposium in Columbia as a part of National Pollinators’ Week, which runs June 20-26. | photo by Zivile Raskauskaite, Bond LSC While walking through the A.L. Gustin Golf Course in Columbia you might be surprised by blossoms of milkweed…
Molecular Cytology Core magnifies scope of research By Phillip Sitter | MU Bond Life Sciences Center A sample is shown in the foreground that can be used in the digital light sheet microscope at MU’s Molecular Cytology Core as Anand Chandrasekhar explains how he uses it to study neuronal development in zebrafish. | photo by Roger…
Gene therapy treating the neurodegenerative disease, SMARD1, shows promising results in mice studies. Shababi uses an instrument to measure grip strength in the forelimbs of mice. Healthy mice are able to cling on with a stronger grip than SMARD1 mice. | photo by Jennifer Lu, Bond LSC Monir Shababi was confident her experiments treating a…
New outreach program teaches CAFNR students to make plant science knowledge accessible to a younger audience Written by Stephen Schmidt | Science Writer in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Although abundant light was shining through the windows, it was the quiet before the storm. Andrew Ludwig, a University of Missouri sophomore majoring in plant sciences,…
Work on HIV capsid proteins earns prestigious retrivology award Anna Gres studies HIV capsid protein using X-ray crystallography. She recently won the 2016 von Schwedler Prize, which awards her $1,200 and gives her the oppportunity to speak this spring at the Cold Spring Harbor Retrovirus Meeting, one of the largest retroviral research conferences in the world.…
By Bobby Remis | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Sanborn Field, University of Missouri | photo by Kyle Spradley In the years to come, climate change and population growth will drastically alter the world around us, impacting farmland and the way we grow food. Scott Peck, associate professor of biochemistry, studies how plants perceive and respond…
By Jennifer Lu | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Thinkstock by Getty Images Climate change is a pressing issue. Just last week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine published a report linking climate change to extreme weather conditions such as heat waves, droughts, and heavy snows and rains. Globally, 2015 was the warmest year…
How unruly data led MU scientists to discover a new microbiome By Roger Meissen | MU Bond Life Sciences Center This seminal vesicle contains a newly-discovered microbiome in mice. Some of its bacteria, like P. acnes, could lead to higher occurrences of prostate cancer. | contributed by Cheryl Rosenfeld It’s a strange place to call home,…
How food cravings and eating affects the brain By Jennifer Lu | MU Bond Life Sciences Center When it comes to cookie dough, we’re not the only ones who can’t control our cravings. Kyle Parker’s rats couldn’t resist, either, thanks to a tweak in their brain chemistry. Parker studies the neuroscience of food-based rewards. Matthew Will, associate…
Scientists explore genetic similarities between plants and mice University of Missouri PhD Candidate Daniel L. Leuchtman peers through an Arabidopsis plant. Leuchtman has been experimenting with replacing a gene in the plants immune system with a similar gene from mice. | Photograph by Justin L. Stewart/MU Bond Life Sciences Center By Justin L. Stewart |…
By Bobby Remis | MU Bond Life Sciences Center You can imagine it’s hard to distinguish yourself from the crowd when it comes to scientific papers. But, publishing quality work in a well-known journal adds value to the whole scientific world by assisting others and inspiring new science. Three Bond LSC researchers recently were recognized for…
Marc Johnson, associate professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Bond Life Sciences Center, studies viruses such as HIV. | photo by Jennifer Lu, Bond LSC Nineteen colorful foam flowers decorate the walls of Marc Johnson’s office, a memento from his lab members when they “redecorated” while he was out of town. Each…
MU freshman follows in aunt’s footsteps while exploring career options Robert Schmidt poses with one of the cats that lives at Horton Animal Hospital, where he works part-time. Schmidt, a freshman studying biochemistry at the University of Missouri, is a member of the Discovery Fellows Program where he is learning about plant genetics by working…
Plant scientist Ruthie Angelovici joins the Bond Life Sciences Center By Jennifer Lu | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Ruthie Angelovici Ruthie Angelovici clearly remembers her big eureka moment in science thus far. It didn’t happen in a laboratory. It wasn’t even her experiment. At the time, Angelovici was in college studying marine biology. She had…
Female rats struggle to find their way in BPA study from MU and the NCTR/FDA Cheryl Rosenfeld is one of 12 researchers partnering with the NCTR/FDA to study BPA Despite concerns about bisphenol A (BPA), academic and regulatory scientists have yet to reach a consensus on BPA’s safety. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences…
Scientists find how nematodes use key hormones to take over root cells Roger Meissen | MU Bond Life Sciences Center This Arabidopsis root shows how the beet cyst nematode activates cytokinin signaling in the syncytium 10 days after infection. The root fluoresces green when the TCSn gene associated with cytokinin activation…
Scientists find how nematodes use key hormones to take over root cells Roger Meissen | Bond Life Sciences Center This Arabidopsis root shows how the beet cyst nematode activates cytokinin signaling in the syncytium 10 days after infection. The root fluoresces green when the TCSn gene associated with cytokinin activation is turned on because it…
By Jennifer Lu | MU Bond Life Sciences Center For Shan-Lu Liu, thinking outside the box meant putting an antiviral protein inside HIV-infected cells, rather than into…
Cells that expressed IFITM proteins (bottom row), showed much less spread of HIV-1 compared with cells lacking the protein. | courtesy Jordan Wilkins, Liu Lab By Jennifer Lu | MU Bond Life Sciences Center For Shan-Lu Liu, thinking outside the box meant putting an antiviral protein inside HIV-infected cells, rather than into healthy ones. Liu and…
By Caleb O’Brien | MU Bond Life Sciences Center James Amos-Landgraf, assistant professor of comparative medicine and genetics at the University of Missouri, is helping develop a pig model for colon cancer using CRISPR. //photo by CALEB O’BRIEN/Bond LSC James Amos-Landgraf needed a pig. The assistant professor of comparative medicine and genetics at the…
By Caleb O’Brien | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Tommy Langdon waits for a bee to land on a flower. // photo by CALEB O’BRIEN/BondLSC Emily Fulcher came face-to-face with science while dissecting a hackberry gall: “Ewww,” she exclaimed, “it’s peeking out a little bit!” Fulcher and 12 other high school students were observing plant galls…
This immunofluorescence picture shows the brain of an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model, also known as the TgCRND8 mouse. In the picture, the amyloid beta plaques are stained green and the microglia, or immune cells of the brain, are stained red. Image courtesy of Luke Woods. By Caleb O’Brien | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Jean Camden…
Chris Pires and an international team gained insight into how Brassicales plants and butterflies genetically co-evolved over millions of years.
The next time you slather mustard on your hotdog or horseradish on your bun, thank caterpillars and brassica for that extra flavor. While these condiments might be tasty to you, the mustard oils that create their flavors are the result of millions of years of plants playing defense against pests. But at the same time,…
Stefan Sarafianos' lab figured out how to get the full picture of a key HIV protein used to construct the capsid shell surrounding the virus' genes. The journal Science recently pulished this finding.
By Caleb O’Brien | MU Bond Life Sciences Center The HIV capsid protein (shown above in an array of hexagons) plays a critical role in the virus life cycle. Bond LSC researchers recently developed the most complete model yet of this vital protein. Image by Karen Kirby and Anna Gres Seeing the whole picture can mean…
California mice exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) or ethinyl estradiol changed their parenting behavior, according to an MU Bond LSC study.
Endocrine disruptors alter parent behavior in California mice California mice exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) or ethinyl estradiol changed their parenting behavior, according to an MU Bond LSC study. | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Roger Meissen | MU Bond Life Sciences Center What if a chemical changes the way an animal parents? That…
Bond LSC researchers showed for the first time ever that a grass, Setaria viridis, can receive 100 percent of its nitrogen needs from bacteria when associated with plant root surfaces. This grass will now serve as model for research into biological nitrogen fixation that could benefit crop development.
Bond LSC researchers showed for the first time ever that a grass, Setaria viridis, can receive 100 percent of its nitrogen needs from bacteria when associated with plant root surfaces. This grass will now serve as model for research into biological nitrogen fixation that could benefit crop development. | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC…
“Fieldwork” means many things to researchers, but in the past it often meant working without easy access to communication.
Now cell phones allow my students visiting the La Selva Biological Station in the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica to remain connected.
An MU student uses his cell phone while in Costa Rica. | Photo by Jack Schultz, Bond LSC By Jack Schultz | Director of MU Bond Life Sciences Center “Fieldwork” means many things to researchers, but in the past it often meant working without easy access to communication. Now cell phones allow my students visiting the…
Gary Weisman has been investigating one criminal for the past 30 years.
And he’s certain there’s a way to prevent negative effects of the unsolved case of inflammation.
White coat, dark room. Jean Camden, a senior technician in the Weisman lab, reviews salivary gland and brain tissue samples for research on inflammation. | Photo by Paige Blankenbuehler, Bond LSC By Paige Blankenbuehler | MU Bond Life Sciences Center There’s a criminal on the loose, striking every day. Millions fall victim, but there’s still no…
Meet Matthew Salie, who works to grow chubbier plants in the lab of Bond LSC's Jay Thelen. We highlight Salie and list all poster award winners from Missouri Life Sciences Week 2015
Matthew Salie would like to see chubbier plants. “You’ve probably never really seen a fat plant before, right?” said Salie, a fourth year MU graduate student in biochemistry. “Humans, we make plenty of extra fat and store that as energy. But plants don’t really need to do that — they make just as much as they…
Bond LSC raised $600 for the Food Bank of Central and Northeast Missouri as participants in the Float Your Boat event.
Bond LSC faculty win and are nominated for Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Awards
Director Jack Schultz joins Radio Friends with Paul Pepper to talk about how we talk about science.
The environmental build-up of bisphenol A (BPA) can result in a life-changing shift for aquatic animals. For painted turtles, exposure to this chemical can disrupt sexual differentiation,, according to new research in the General and Comparative Endocrinology. Scientists at the University of Missouri have teamed up to show how low levels of certain endocrine disruptors…
Five undergraduate researchers at Bond LSC were awarded arts and sciences scholarships to help them continue their education. Congratulations to each of the winners. Hannah Baldwin/Bond LSC MU undergraduate Wade Dismukes gathers plants from a growing room in Bond LSC to prepare for an experiment about plant evolution on Thursday, April 9, 2015. Dismukes, who…
A simple virtue lies at the heart of Xuemin (Sam) Wang’s research: thrift. “A good way to think of it is how to increase output without demanding more inputs,” Wang said. Wang, the E. Desmond Lee and Family Fund endowed professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a principal investigator at the Donald Danforth…
Joya Chandra, associate professor of pediatrics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, explains the epigenetics of pediatric cancers at the 2015 MU LSSP Symposium on epigenetics on Sunday, March 15.//photo by Caleb O’Brien/Bond LSC The evolving science of epigenetics is shaking up how scientists and doctors think about cancer. At the 11th…
Roger Meissen/Bond Life Sciences Center – These soybean roots show some nematode cysts. The small, white circles are the hardened body of the nematodes and form when the nematode attaches itself to the root to create a feeding cell. Beneath a North Carolina field in 1954, a tiny worm inched its way through the soil…
What the heck is it, anyway? Epigenetics involves changes in how your genes work. In classical genetics, traits pass from generation to generation in DNA, the strands of genetic material that encode your genes. Scientists thought alterations to the DNA itself was the only way changes could pass on to subsequent generations. So say you…
LSSP Symposium highlights epigenetics of the womb and how parental stress can change genetic makeup Could a stressful day during pregnancy change the future of a developing child nestled in the womb? Experts in the epigenetic research field are saying yes. This weekend the 11th annual Life Sciences and Society Program will kick off “Epigenetic…
To introduce our 11th Annual Life Sciences and Society Program, The Epigenetics Revolution: Nature, Nurture and What Lies Ahead that runs at the University of Missouri March 13-15, we figured it would be nice to define the term epigenetics. Spoiler: It’s amazing and it could change everything. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, epigenetics is “the study of heritable changes…
Bond LSC’s Jack Schultz and Heidi Appel hold model Arabidopsis plants used in many of their experiments. Roger Meissen/Bond LSC We often think of damage on a surface level. But for plants, much of the important response to an insect bite takes place out of sight. Over minutes and hours, particular plant genes are turned…
Adeno-associated virus type 2 at 3.0 A (xie, et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002; 99:10405-10.) Courtesy David Pintel It’s an understatement to say viruses are small. But an average virus dwarfs the diminutive variety known as parvoviruses, which are among the most minuscule pathogens known to science. Tucked inside a protective…
Protein specimens are prepared here in a Bond Life Sciences lab. Bond LSC’s Mark Hannink recently identified a protein pathway could be useful in restoring mitochondrial recycling in certain cells, a problem that leads to familial Parkinson’s Disease. It’s as if your recycling man quit his job and never came back. Bags pile up to unexpected…
A mutant arabidopsis model nearing pollination. Mutant arabidopsis models under lamps in Shuqun Zhang's lab. Three-month-old mutant arabidopsis models are used to study the function of pollen. The thought of pollen dispersed throughout the air might trigger horrific memories of allergies, but the drifting dander is absolutely essential to all life. Science has long linked…
Jingyou Yu, a graduate student, does cell surface staining in Shan-Lu Liu’s virology lab. The staining illuminates cell marker expressions in experiments that deduce how viruses spread once they are contracted. | Paige Blankenbuehler News headlines seem to feverishly spread as if they were a pandemic of the brain. Ebola hemorrhagic fever has been the most…
A yellow light indicates oxidant production in the tissue of a migrating fly larva. Source: Tobias Dick, German Cancer Research Center | Illustration by Paige Blankenbuehler University of Missouri research characterizes a novel compound By Paige Blankenbuehler Your body has an invisible enemy. One that it creates all on it’s own called oxidative stress, long thought…
Shan-Lu Liu, Bond LSC scientist and associate professor in the MU School of Medicine’s Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Courtesy Justin Kelley, University of Missouri Health System. Shan-Lu Liu initially thought it was a mistake when a simple experiment kept failing. But that serendipitous accident led the Bond Life Sciences Center researcher to discover…
Carbon’s next-door neighbor on the periodic table typically receives little attention, but when it comes to corn reproduction boron fills an important role. According to University of Missouri scientists, tiny amounts of boron play a key part in the development of ears and tassels on every cornstalk. The July 2014 edition of the journal Plant…
In a second travel log from Bond LSC researcher Cheryl Rosenfeld, learn about the wildlife she encountered in Tanzania this summer. Through the North American Veterinary Community (NAVC), Rosenfeld furthered her veterinary education while encountering wildlife in their natural habitat. See more about the first leg of her trip to Rwanda here. By Cheryl Rosenfeld In the…
Graduate students Yuleam Song and Dan Salamango inoculate a bacteria culture in Johnson’s lab. The inoculation takes a small portion of a virus and multiplies the sample, allowing researchers to custom-make viruses. By Madison Knapp | Bond Life Sciences Center summer intern Modern science has found a way to turn viruses —tiny, dangerous weapons responsible…
By Paige Blankenbuehler Lauren and Claire Gibbs share contagious laughter, ambition and a charismatic sarcasm. Both are honor students at Shawnee Mission East High School in a Kansas City suburb. They also share a neuromuscular disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), designated as an “orphan disease” because it affects fewer than 200,000 people in the…
The unusual red color of the Lobelias leaves make them stand out among 200 other species that thrive in the 20-foot plant wall at the Bond Life Sciences Center | Paige Blankenbuehler Story by Madison Knapp | Bond Life Sciences summer intern A hidden treasure on the University of Missouri’s campus is a living and…
Experiments show chewing vibrations, but not wind or insect song, cause response As the cabbage butterfly caterpillar takes one crescent-shaped bite at a time from the edge of a leaf, it doesn’t go unnoticed. This tiny Arabidopsis mustard plant hears its predator loud and clear as chewing vibrations reverberate through leaves and stems, and it reacts…
Story by Madison Knapp/ Bond Life Sciences summer intern Simple actions like walking, swallowing and breathing are the result of a complex communication system between cells. When we touch something hot, our nerve cells tell us to take our hand off the object. This happens in a matter of milliseconds. This hyperspeed of communication…
Yaya Cui, an investigator in plant sciences at the Bond Life Sciences Center examines data on fast neuron soybean mutants that are represented on the SoyKB database. The most puzzling scientific mysteries may be solved at the same machine you’re likely reading this sentence. In the era of “Big Data” many significant scientific discoveries —…
New line of pigs do not reject transplants, will allow for future research on stem cell therapies Story by Nathan Hurst/MU News Bureau COLUMBIA, Mo. – One of the biggest challenges for medical researchers studying the effectiveness of stem cell therapies is that transplants or grafts of cells are often rejected by the hosts. This…
A tangled spool of yarn represents DNA, while the fingers holding the section represent the insulators just added by MU researchers to improve a scientific, screening tool. | Paige Blankenbuehler Here’s a scenario: You are trying to find a lost section of string in the world’s most massively tangled spool of yarn. Then try cutting…
Over the weekend, Bond LSC HIV researchers Stefan Sarafianos, Marc Johnson and Donald Burke-Aguero joined Trail to a Cure, Inc., a Columbia nonprofit organization that helped fund important HIV research. Since 2008, the organization has raised $74,000 for HIV/AIDS research, with some of that funding going directly to the Bond LSC providing additional hours of…
Bond LSC researcher Stefan Sarafianos stands in the LSC atrium. The virologist is an associate professor of molecular microbiology and immunology and Chancellor’s Chair of Excellence in Molecular Virology with appointments in MU’s School of Medicine and the Department of Biochemistry. Resistance is the price of success when it comes to treating HIV. Virologists at…
Powdery mildew on a cabernet sauvignon grapevine leaf. | USDA Grape genetics publications and research A princess kisses a frog and it turns into a prince, but when a scientist uses a frog to find out more information about a grapevine disease, it turns into the perfect tool narrowing in on the cause of crop…
Scott Peck, Bond LSC scientist and associate professor of biochemistry, studies Arabidopsis and how bacteria perceive it before initiating an infection. Roger Meissen/ Bond LSC Sometimes plants inadvertently roll out the red carpet for bacteria. Researchers at the University of Missouri Bond Life Sciences Center recently discovered how a plant’s own chemicals act as a…
Recently, one of our investigators, J. Chris Pires traveled to Fudan University in Shanghai and the Wuhan Vegetable Research Institute for the 19th annual Crucifer Genetic Workshop and Brassica 2014 Conference in Wuhan, China. Pires was invited to the esteemed event as the keynote speaker of the Brassica Conference. He led workshops as part of…
Made completely of cardboard and Popeye themed, Bond LSC facilities crew say this boat could be the winner of the 3rd Annual Flot Your Boat for the Food Bank Race on April 12 — BLANKENBUEHLER Every year the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources puts on a Float Your Boat for the Food Bank Race.…
Jeongmin Choi (left), Gary Stacey (center) and postdoc Kiwamu Tanaka recently discovered the first plant receptor for extracellular ATP. Choi received the 2014 Distinguished Dissertation Award for her part in this work. A former Bond LSC graduate student is being recognized for a dissertation that stands out from the crowd. Jeongmin Choi received the 2014 Distinguished…
Samuel Waters and graduate researcher Desiré Buckley review stages of embryonic development. — BLANKENBUEHLER The difference between walking and being paralyzed could be as simple as turning a light switch on and off, a culmination of years of research shows. Recently, University of Missouri Assistant Professor of biology Samuel T. Waters isolated a coding gene…
Karin Loftin, MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, Bond Life Sciences Director Jack Shultz and Tim Evans pose with Rebecca Skloot at the University of Missouri Monday evening — BLANKENBUEHLER The bridge between public knowledge and the inner-workings of the science community is one that many are reluctant to cross. Sometimes riddled with confusing terms, the…
Anthrax bacteria is a rod-shaped culture. Most common forms of transmission are through abrasions in the skin and inhalation. Imagine researchers in hazmat suits moving slowly and deliberately through a lab. One of them holds up a beaker. It’s glowing. This light — or the absence of it — could save millions of dollars…
Bond LSC scientist Anand Chandrasekhar studies the zebrafish model to learn how motor neurons develop. These adult zebrafish lay eggs used to gain insight into how motor neurons arrange themselves as embryos grow into adults. Roger Meissen/ Bond LSC Three thousand zebrafish swim circles in tanks located on the ground floor of the Bond Life…
Jeongmin Choi (left), Gary Stacey (center) and Kiwamu Tanaka recently discovered the first plant receptor for extracellular ATP using Arabidopsis plants. Roger Meissen/Bond LSC It’s the genetic equivalent to discovering a new sensory organ in plants. A team at the University of Missouri Bond Life Sciences Center found a key gene that sniffs out extracellular ATP.…
Toshihiko Ezashi (left), Danny Schust (middle), Laura Schulz (middle) and Michael Roberts (right) collaborate on new research to discover the causes of preeclampsia. Roger Meissen/ Bond LSC You can’t see the resemblance, but cells in Michael Roberts’ lab share a family tree with some newborns. Their common genetics may help explain severe, early-onset preeclampsia, an inherited…
Roots play a key role in regulating where sugar ends up in plants like tomato. Plant scientists are borrowing a tool from medicine to unravel how plants fight off an attack. The Schultz-Appel Chemical Ecology lab used PET scans to decipher how and when a plant uses resources to fight off a disease or insect. Positron…
David Mendoza-Cozatl uses Arabidopsis plants like these as a model to understand how plants transport nutrients from soil to seeds and leaves.Courtesy Randy Mertens/CAFNR Forget fruits and vegetables, seeds provide a critical part of the average person’s diet. From beans to cereal grains, understanding how genes and soil types impact nutrition could one day help…
Yan Liang and Gary Stacey research the symbiosis between legumes, like these soybeans, and nitrogen-fixing bacteria at the Bond Life Sciences Center. A silent partnership exists deep in the roots of legumes. In small, bump-like nodules on roots in crops like soybeans and alfalfa, rhizobia bacteria thrive, receiving food from these plants and, in turn,…
Division of Plant Sciences and Bond LSC investigators Jack Schultz and Heidi Appel have been awarded a grant by the National Science Foundation to unravel the mystery of how an insect pest gets the better of the world’s – and Missouri’s – most valuable fruit crop. Grape phylloxera is an insect that infests grapevine leaves…
Lefteris Michailidis received the 2013 Distinguished Dissertation Award for his work to understand EFdA, a new drug that shows promise to treat resistant HIV viruses with fewer side effects. A four-letter drug could be the next generation of AIDS treatment. EFdA, a new anti-viral drug in development, promises HIV treatment that is more effective with…
Stephanie Coontz, award-winning writer on the history of marriage, chatted with Jack Schultz, director of the Bond Life Sciences Center. Coontz presented the keynote address Friday night at Claiming Kin, MU’s 9th annual Life Sciences and Society Symposium. Check out Saturday and Sunday’s speakers on the subject of kinship athttp://lssp.missouri.edu/claimingkin/schedule. Article originally published on Decoding…
Napolean Chagnon spoke to a full house Tuesday in Monsanto Auditorium about his new book, Noble Savages. Chagnon joined MU’s Department of Anthropology as Distinguished Research Professor and Chancellor’s Chair of Excellence in 2013. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, but is most known for contributions to his genealogical research,…
Territory matters to California mice when it comes to mating. Males in this monogamous mouse species use their scent glands to mark the boundaries of their home range, making their dominance known one scent at a time to other males. Too much bisphenol A (BPA) in their environment can change that, short-circuiting their ability to…
Jack Schultz, Professor of Plant Sciences and Director of the Bond Life Sciences Center Welcome to Decoding Science, a new science blog from the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center at the University of Missouri! The Bond Center is a highly interdisciplinary research organization that promotes collaboration to address questions where different disciplines and study…