University of Missouri

April 5, 2017

Sheryl Koenig #IAmScience

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 Koenig, science communication is an enormous part of her daily tasks. She works with researchers and scientists during the grant proposal process to translate technical scientific concepts into persuasive and relevant content. Why? So that those scientists can access…

April 4, 2017

National Cancer Institute researcher to speak at Life Sciences Week

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 Cancer Institute, spent most of his career understanding math and its relation with fundamental biology. His lab focuses on the DNA and RNA patterns that characterize genetic control systems; they invented the widely-used sequence logos. “In the first place, I…

April 3, 2017

Hanson to explain why broken metabolites matter at Life Sciences Week

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 not accurate. Andrew Hanson, an eminent scholar and professor at the University of Florida, describes the misunderstanding as “the power of a paradigm.” American biochemist Albert Lehninger spread the misunderstanding in his classic textbook “Biochemistry”, in which the message he…

March 23, 2017

Why self-defense turns self-attack

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 to protect us from foreign invaders such as bacteria and virus, but what happens when it attacks our own tissues? Gary Weisman, a Curator’s Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the Bond Life Sciences Center, is working to advance our understanding of…

March 22, 2017

Marc Johnson #IAmScience

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 sprouting seeds and chemistry sets has blossomed into a career in virology. Specifically, he studies the “moves and countermoves” of viral components, a few hundred thousand at time! His advice for people wondering if science is for them: “If…

March 21, 2017

Harvard researcher to speak at Life Sciences Week

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 know, don’t regenerate limbs. But, a basic understanding of how the Mexican salamander regrows limbs advance regenerative medicine in humans according to Jessica Whited, a researcher at Brigham Women’s Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Whited will…

March 17, 2017

Planting a seed for sciences

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 trip to Philippines changed Agtuca, an American-born Filipino, and inspired her passion on plants. “My grandma always told me to work in the field all day so that they can have enough food for us to eat,” Agtuca said. “The life…

March 15, 2017

Lloyd Sumner #IAmScience

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 scientific arenas.” What change you would like to see in this world because of your research? “I’m a technology junkie at heart. We are developing tools that can potentially advance many areas, and not just my own personal…

March 8, 2017

Scott Peck #IAmScience

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 do the same thing. Scott Peck, a Chicago-area native, is a biochemist who studies how plants translate information they receive about the environment (such as changes in light and temperature) into their own chemical “decisions”, also known as signal transduction.

Feb. 22, 2017

Debbie Allen #IAmScience

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, mentoring and career services. In other words, she’s been the “mama bear” to many life sciences graduate students over the years, and is passionate about student advocacy. To Debbie, while understanding the hard science her students study is important,…

Feb. 17, 2017

Art of balance

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 Michael Petris to where he is now. In certain areas of Australia, soils suffer from extremely low level of copper bioavailability, resulting in poor growth and neurological problems on sheep. Petris, a Bond LSC investigator and professor of biochemistry who was…

Feb. 15, 2017

Pork without the Pig

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 Sciences Center Scientists are one step closer to that reality. For the first time, researchers in the Roberts’ lab at Bond Life Sciences Center at MU were able to create a framework to make…