University of Missouri

Oct. 30, 2020

#IAmScience Mona Kacher

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 in an Army hospital lab. However, when she left the Army, she was encouraged by her then father-in-law to apply for a senior research position at Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. There, the lab manager asked if she knew anything about…

Oct. 28, 2020

Using improved technology to create an Immune Cell Atlas

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 to create an Immune Cell Atlas for chickens. This search browser of sorts allows people to search for cells and gene expression in chickens. “It would be a platform for researchers to have a baseline of what should be normal, and then be…

Oct. 26, 2020

Learning From History

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 cell, in animal cells was highly contested for decades. Now, the Gary Stacey lab at Bond Life Sciences Center is using that history lesson to explore ATP’s role in plant cells. Let’s say you have $100 in your pocket. As you’re…

Oct. 23, 2020

#IAmScience Karl Kerns

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. “I do like traveling just in the sense of vacation. I like having a purpose while traveling. It’s hard for me to sit back and relax and be in vacation mode,” Kerns said. This focus and determination eventually brought him to Mizzou where…

Oct. 19, 2020

Four months in, Baker lab hits the ground running and won’t be stopping anytime soon

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. But head and neck cancer patients lose those benefits when chemotherapy treatments damage their salivary glands. Olga Baker set out to research tissue regeneration for these cancer patients by collaborating with the Michael Petris and Gary Weisman labs after setting up…

Oct. 16, 2020

#IAmScience Alana Rodney

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 like, ‘Oh, my goodness. This is so cool.’” Fast forward to now and Rodney just completed her undergraduate degree in May 2019. And she’s not stopping there as she now pursues a master’s in animal science, genetics and genomics to…

Oct. 14, 2020

Regulators Classify Gene-Edited Rice Varieties with Disease Resistance as Equivalent to Conventional Varieties

Crops resist bacterial leaf blight; ruling clears path to provide smallholder farmers with a safe, affordable option for preventing destructive disease Rice farms in Vietnam. 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 to develop new varieties of disease-resistant rice that regulators in the United States and Colombia have determined are equivalent to what could be accomplished with conventional breeding. Bacterial blight can reduce rice yields by up to 70 percent, with the heaviest losses typically experienced by smallholder rice…

Oct. 12, 2020

Finding a Link between Xenoestrogens and Autism

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 get bullied or feel left out because of these behaviors. Sarabjit Kaur, a former undergraduate researcher in the Cheryl Rosenfeld lab at the Bond Life Sciences Center, witnessed this stigma firsthand growing up with a brother who is autistic. Going to college, she…

Oct. 9, 2020

#IAmScience Norma Castro-Guerrero

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 wake up every day and I am already thinking about what I need to do,” Castro-Guerrero said. “Time flies by during the day. I think that’s a…

Oct. 7, 2020

Plant vs. Pathogen

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 found his subject in the form of wild lettuce. That search can potentially help Su — a research scientist in the Walter Gassmann lab at Bond Life Sciences Center — better understand the immune system of lettuce and therefore protect it against…

Oct. 5, 2020

Influenza: How it Transmits from Birds to Pigs

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 in farm fields or swim in ponds as they travel south for the winter. What people may not realize is that some of these birds are carrying something harmful, yet invisible to the naked eye. That something is influenza A viruses that can…

Sep. 25, 2020

Beyond the Vaccine

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 if scientists could prevent the virus from entering cells altogether? Researchers at Bond Life Sciences Center are working to do just that and, so far, they’re the only ones at Mizzou on the case. For the Gary Weisman lab, that starts…