University of Missouri

Sep. 19, 2023

Fellowship Spotlight: Cynthia Tang

Research skills aren’t built in a day, but Cynthia Tang’s diligence brought those skills to bear as she recently received an NIH fellowship to further her budding career in science. “Receiving the F30 fellowship means that the NIH sees value in my research proposal, in my training environment at the University of Missouri, and in my potential to become an independent physician-scientist,” said Tang, who works in Henry Wan’s lab at Bond LSC. ­ The F30 predoctoral fellowship supports the research of students pursuing M.D-Ph.Ds. These awards can help Tang and others pursue their passions…

Sep. 13, 2023

Singh lab finds new protein that induces the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine and the treatment drug remdesivir

Kamal Singh (right), a principal investigator at Bond Life Sciences Center, assistant professor in the MU College of Veterinary Medicine, and the director of the Molecular Interactions Core stands next to Saathvik Kannan (left), a senior at Hickman High School and a computer programmer and researcher for the Singh lab. | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer The spikes that protrude from SARS-CoV-2 present a topography of peaks that drive one MU researcher to ask more questions. To Kamal Singh, a principal investigator at Bond Life Sciences Center, assistant professor in the MU College…

Sep. 1, 2023

#IAmScience Torin Hunter

By Sarah Kiefer The hunt for emerging coronavirus variants keeps Torin Hunter busy testing samples from sewer systems across Missouri. As a part of The Sewershed Surveillance Project, Hunter has spent the last year and a half taking each test tube and carefully filtering the samples to contribute data on how SARS-CoV-2 can be present in our communities. But Hunter started his journey in virology like many — a student trying to sift through all the different subjects and figuring out what fit him the best. He tried out clinical jobs and considered going into…

Aug. 28, 2023

Second time’s the charm: Tang and Thomas awarded NIH F30 fellowships, a first at MU

By Beni Adelstein | Bond Life Sciences Center M.D-PHD candidates Cynthia Tang and Brian Thomas share their experience applying for the NIH F30 Fellowship. | Photos by Roger Meissen Brian Thomas got the official letter in the mail Monday after months of waiting. “It’s a long time coming,” he said, “lots of patience and collaboration.” Thomas is one of two student scientists at Bond Life Sciences Center to receive F30 fellowships — officially the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) — from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this year, a first…

Aug. 25, 2023

#IAmScience Vikranth Chandrasekaran

By Sarah Kiefer With a forceful swing of his badminton racket, Vikranth Chandrasekaran propelled the shuttles across the court. A game with coworkers and friends is the perfect way to wrap up a day in the lab for the postdoctoral fellow. He’s offered to teach his colleagues the strategies of badminton at the University of Missouri Rec Center. “When I initially embarked on my journey in badminton as a beginner, I received invaluable assistance and guidance from numerous South Korean individuals who graciously taught me the proper techniques,” he said. “Now, I feel compelled to…

Aug. 17, 2023

Kranawetter receives USDA fellowship to explore plant border cells

Clayton Kranawetter, a postdoctoral fellow in the Lloyd Sumner lab at Bond LSC, recently received a USDA National Institutes of Food and Agriculture Postdoctoral Research fellowship in which he uses this mass spectrometry machine to study the significance of plant border cells. | photo by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC Some of the most fascinating things in science happen at the border where one organism interacts with its environment. That’s the case with root border cells, and Clayton Kranawetter is one individual exploring this frontier. Kranawetter recently received a $223,000, two-year…

Aug. 9, 2023

#IAmScience Alexandra Diller

By Sarah Kiefer Alexandra Diller jumped off a cliff, in a sense. Instead of taking on more clear and straightforward science, she dove into vessel regeneration and never looked back as she works on the burning question, ‘can muscles regenerate in the absence of blood vessels and vice versa?’ “Knowing how vessels grow back can one day improve treatment options and help someone who has suffered a traumatic muscle injury and I really like contributing to that, but at the same time I want to know and do more right now” said the D Cornelison…

Aug. 4, 2023

Shrinking the Target: Developing Cancer Therapies

Michaela Beedy, Brian Thomas, and Margaret Beecher work on aptamers in the lab of Donald Burke. | Photo by Beni Adelstein, Bond LSC Shrinking the Target: Developing Cancer Therapies As cancer cells multiple and spread, doctors face finding treatments that destroy tumors while doing the least amount of damage. This search for precision in cancer therapies is for good reason. It takes only a few minutes in a chemotherapy clinic to see the detriment of cancer drugs on the rest of the body. “The issue with chemotherapeutic drugs is they have a lot of off-target effects,”…

July 21, 2023

#IAmScience Elaina Sculley

By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC For Elaina Sculley, the word filter means much more than narrowing down your search results on a website. The second-year animal sciences graduate student spends her days using computer programming tools as part of her bioinformatics studies and her work in Wes Warren’s lab at Bond LSC. Her focus is on the chicken immune response because they serve as invaluable models for studying immunology due to their widespread use in both commercial breeding and scientific research. Her main objective when studying host immune response is to gain a better understanding…

July 20, 2023

Modifying factor: Researchers identify modifier of key protein in rare neurological diseases

Bond Life Sciences principal investigator and associate research professor of veterinary pathology, Monique Lorson (left) and postdoctoral fellow Gangadhar Vadla (right) worked together to identify the ABT1 modifier in the diseases, spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress (SMARD1) and Charcot Marie Tooth 2S (CMT). | Photos by Sarah Kiefer, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC It takes a keen detective to sleuth out why and how particular genetic mutations present the severe symptoms seen in neurological diseases. The labs of Chris and Monique Lorson are one step closer to…

July 10, 2023

#IAmScience Lahcen Amor

By Sarah Kiefer The ocean is a current throughout Lahcen Amor’s childhood memories. Growing up one block away from the Atlantic Ocean in Rabat-Salé- Morocco, Amor and his friends ventured into the water in search of a good time and some extra spending money. They would dive down to catch fish, seaweed and mussels, which they each dug out from the ocean floor. When they called it a day, they sold the mussels and seaweed to freezer trucks parked close by. The next stop was the movies or other fun activities to use their hard-earned…

June 30, 2023

#IAmScience Lorenzo Ceccon

By Sarah Kiefer Lorenzo Ceccon wanted a career full of methodical problems for him to try and solve. “I like science because it is a very logical thing. A + B = C,” he said. “It’s very systematic, so I guess I just like finding the answers to the questions I wonder about.” The senior biology major put his pursuit of logic to work when he joined the Dawn Cornelison lab as an undergraduate researcher at Bond LSC, but he found himself in that same reasoning mindset…