University of Missouri

Nov. 10, 2021

Technique connects DNA instructions to biological architecture in space: Core collaboration maps the future

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 The brain is a unique challenge. It has billions of cells with billions of different functions, making it hard to understand what is going on underneath. MU cores now offer 10X Genomics Visium technology which allows researchers to lay genetic data…

Oct. 13, 2021

Turning Back the Clock

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 pregnant, a baby can hear the mother’s lullabies. At 30 weeks, her belly is a little over a foot large. At 40, the hospital bag is already packed and ready to go. But imagine delivering only two weeks…

Sep. 20, 2021

Finding a new direction to better corn nutrition

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 our diet, providing nutrition to countless people all over the world. But that nourishment isn’t enough to be satisfied, especially when a staple so widespread still lacks some building blocks key to balanced nutrition. Researchers have tried different reverse genetics approaches…

Aug. 5, 2021

Two SARS-CoV-2 strains cause independent infections only 19 days apart

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 | Bond LSC Like many viruses, SARS-CoV-2 continues to develop and evolve with time. As the virus evolves it can become more infectious, produce worse symptoms, and have a higher fatality rate. While people receive more treatment for…

July 23, 2021

Bringing Protection Back in Line

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 a host of diseases, including autoimmune disorders, such as type 1 diabetes.  More than 1.4 million Americans suffer from the self-harming condition of diabetes without an effective cure, but researchers Haval Shirwan and Esma Yolcu may have the…

June 24, 2021

#IAmScience Lyndon Coghill

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 Director of Informatics for the Informatics Research Core, but his job branches out much wider than just a single label. Even as an undergrad, Coghill wore many different hats.  “I was incredibly excited about the way that the MU Office of…

June 22, 2021

A feral past may help chart the future for Brassica vegetables

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 plant scientists as the modern-day Indiana Jones of biology, but University of Missouri researchers have been hot on the hunt for an evolutionary history, looking for clues to the ancestors of our gardens and grocery shelves. To find the closest wild…

May 25, 2021

New observation from Stacey lab could help advance plant engineering

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 a lock, came through a window or came through a garage. Plants are much like this, surviving with the help of their thousands of sensors that can send danger signals to the whole plant so it can react effectively. “Plants have to…

May 12, 2021

Beyond counting: computer science partnership helps speed up plant science experiments

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 plant leaf vein density analysis. Manually counting individual leaf veins and measuring their density to understand how nutrients are transported in plants can take weeks of tedious work. That’s how Janlo Robil was feeling when he was working on a maize…

April 21, 2021

Diller Costello Awarded Highly Competitive NIH Fellowship

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 years. The fellowship comes as a result of her proposal titled, “Signaling in the Microvasculature During Skeletal Muscle Regeneration.” Diller Costello’s research focuses on the coordination between muscles and blood vessels during muscle regeneration in adult mice. Diller Costello…

April 7, 2021

Defense or growth: a complicated balance

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 | Bond LSC The plant immune system isn’t active all the time. Plants must decide to either defend against disease or grow, but not simultaneously. The reason behind this process is not fully understood, and the Walter Gassmann lab at…

March 2, 2021

Genetic link in primate points to source of adaption and longevity in capuchins

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 and devised novel methods to sequence many more wild capuchin genomes. These monkeys have large brains for their small size and can live past 50. Wes Warren — Bond Life Sciences Center principal investigator — helped sequence the genome to find…