Bond LSC News, Page 47 // Bond Life Sciences Center

April 16, 2015

BPA overrides temperature to decide turtle sex

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…

April 13, 2015

Five Bond LSC undergraduates win Arts and Sciences Scholarships

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…

April 9, 2015

Life Sciences Week preview: Doing more with less

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…

March 31, 2015

Scientists dig into the epigenetics of cancer

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…

March 30, 2015

Translating soybean cyst nematode research

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…

March 12, 2015

Five things you wanted to know about epigenetics (But were afraid to ask)

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…

March 11, 2015

Don’t stress, your kids will thank 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…

March 6, 2015

Introducing the 11th Annual LSSP topic: The Epigenetic Revolution

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…

Feb. 12, 2015

Harm and response

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…

Feb. 12, 2015

Big discoveries come in little (capsid) packages

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…