News
Oct. 14, 2019
Regulating a balance between protection and growth
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC It’s a sensitive balance between growth and defense when it comes to plants. While a built-in, passive immune system helps them survive attackers, this response halts the growth and development of the plant, something that fascinates Ben Spears in the lab of Walter Gassmann at Bond LSC. “In our lab, we try to pick apart the different signaling pathways governing these processes of growth and maintaining an immune response; we think of them as distinct processes, but, in reality, they are all interconnected,” Spears said. “If we can unlock the ability…
Oct. 11, 2019
#IAmScience Saurav Sarma
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Saurav Sarma grew up amongst tea plantations and medicinal plants in the northeastern corner of India near Tibet, a state called Assam. His day-to-day observations of the plants sparked a curiosity that eventually led him to a career looking at the chemical building blocks behind it all in the labs of Lloyd Sumner and the University of Missouri Metabolomics Center at Bond Life Sciences Center. His interest revolved around the connections between carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, which make up living systems. “How they’re connected makes all the…
Oct. 9, 2019
A passion for teaching rooted in research
Amanda Paz Herrera extends her passion for research to teaching others when teaching science. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Dry erase markers and Styrofoam molecular models are a part of Amanda Paz Herrera’s repertoire when teaching complex scientific processes to the average person. Teaching the next generation of scientists requires work and discipline, but Paz Herrera is up for the task. Paz Herrera takes her science on the road with Science on Wheels, a traveling group of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers at MU who aim to make science accessible…
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…