University of Missouri

Oct. 4, 2019

#IAmScience Jared Ellingsen

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 falling into place. Ellingsen began his freshman year as a humanities student at Wheaton College in Illinois, but he fell in love with chemistry after taking a required first-year course. “According to my adviser I was the first person they…

Sep. 26, 2019

#IAmScience Yuan Yuxiang

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 Chris Pires lab at Bond LSC for a year-long project that’s winding to an end. After a 20-plus hour flight from China and over 7,000 miles of traveling, Yuxiang Yuan arrived here, excited for a new adventure and the…

Sep. 24, 2019

Around the shore a million stood

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 Center. Its creative expression is the work of local artist Kerry Hirth and has a particularly unique provenance. Dean Bergstrom approached Hirth one day when she was in the administrative offices hanging some of her paintings as…

Sep. 23, 2019

Beyond the visible: building a microscope that takes a quantum leap

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, these fluorescent dots indicate something about plants that scientists research and help them see the genes, traits and molecules they study amid thousands of possibilities. To help in seeing that, a new imaging microscope will allow researchers to better pinpoint molecular interactions in…

Sep. 20, 2019

#IAmScience Kimberly Jasmer

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 guided her towards obtaining her Ph.D. and studying cancer at the University of Missouri. Learning to swim was imperative for a girl growing up on the coast in North Bend, Oregon, and she fell in love with the water. That…

Sep. 19, 2019

Strong Jaws and Sharp Teeth: Piranha research suggests evolutionary adaptations

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 they can endure long periods of prey shortages and starvation, and scientists are starting to look at the genes behind that advantage. Bond Life Science Center primary investigator Wes Warren brought…

Sep. 12, 2019

#IAmScience Liz Countee

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 it as an opportunity to joke around and enjoy the company of her awesome team. “I love being surrounded by so many other people that are extremely intelligent and passionate,” she said. “It’s such a great group of people and it’s…

Sep. 7, 2019

#IAmScience Hong An

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 about the genetic structure and the ancestral history of Brassicaceae, the mustard and cabbage family. Hong An, a postdoctoral fellow in Chris Pires lab, has spent the past three years mapping the genetic history of canola seeds, which are in the…

Sep. 5, 2019

Post-doc receives prestigious Spanish plant science award

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 challenge as she flew to Spain twice within a month’s span this summer. But the reason for those flights was a pleasant surprise. Zandalinas recently received the 2019 Sabater award given every two years at the Meeting of the Spanish Society of…

Sep. 4, 2019

University grant brings faster, cheaper genome sequencing

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 efficient means of getting there? A new genome sequencing instrument is on its way to the Bond Life Sciences Center thanks to a Tier 1 grant from the UM system’s mission to enhance the ‘well-being for Missouri, the nation and the…

Sep. 3, 2019

University funding moves cancer-targeting research forward

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 size tool. It does no good to use a large screwdriver to fix the tiny screw on your glasses.” That’s Donald Burke, Bond Life Sciences Center lead primary investigator, as he begins to explain a project looking to optimize the targeting of cancer…

Aug. 29, 2019

#IAmScience Carolyn Robinson

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 at first, and there is so much we still don’t know, even about something as simple as a virus.” As a now 3rd-year graduate student working on her Ph.D. in molecular pathogenesis and therapeutics…