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By Sarah Kiefer Musical notes once filled Maggs X’s mind, when they were preparing to be an opera singer and showcased their voice to all who would listen. Now, instead of reading sheet music, X reads the gene expression profiles collected from the organs of Mexican cavefish. But they wouldn’t have it any other way.…
By Sarah Kiefer Thousands of cells are made into gel-emulsified droplets and are quickly surrounded in a bed of oil — all in a day’s work for Grant Zane. Grant Zane is a research specialist lead at the University of Missouri Genomics Technology Core in Bond LSC where he performs these types of experiments and…
Roman Ganta, Bond LSC principal investigator and professor in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Sarah Kiefer Most people don’t find their area of research by contracting a disease, but Roman Ganta did. When Ganta caught malaria in graduate school, the illness plagued him…
Bing Yang, a Bond Life Sciences Center researcher and MU professor of plant sciences. | Photo by Josie Heimsoth By Josie Heimsoth | Bond LSC When it comes to making better crops, CRISPR-Cas9 based gene editing have revolutionized plant science with its ability to more precisely and quickly alter plant DNA. But the technology can…
By Sarah Kiefer Arabidopsis may just look like a small, kelly-green weed to the naked eye, but this plant holds a particular importance in the lab. For first-generation college student, Clement Bagaza, it’s part of why he moved to the United States. Coming from Rwanda, Africa, he found an opportunity to study plants and experience…
Bond Life Sciences principal investigator, Laxman Gangwani. | Photo by Josie Heimsoth, Bond LSC By Josie Heimsoth | Bond LSC Laxman Gangwani had a choice to make in January of last year. His old friend, Chris Lorson had an opportunity at MU that was difficult to pass up. Gangwani and Lorson, principal investigator at Bond…
By Sarah Kiefer Whether it’s on the tennis court or in the lab, Kristyn Conrad keeps a firm grip on her plans for the future. One way she maintains her goal-oriented mindset is in the lab doing cancer research. “This type of work makes me feel amazing. I don’t know how else to describe it,…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC With a few clicks and taps on a cellphone, the timeline of a seedling of corn is preserved forever. Dario Alavez Mercado is responsible for this simple yet effective method of recording the growth of corn from seedling to maturity. “I know that only by understanding the things that…
By Sarah Kiefer | Bond LSC It may have taken almost three years, but Shin-Ichiro Agake made it back to the Prof. Gary Stacey lab. The Japanese native had his study abroad cut short in 2020, sending him packing, and a lot happened in that time. He got married, has a five-month-old baby, earned…
By Josie Heimsoth and Cara Penquite | Bond LSC David Mendoza unflinchingly faces the “black box” of plant science everyday, asking the question, ‘how do plants know if they don’t have enough nutrients?’ Mendoza’s study of micronutrients — elements vital to plant health and energy but only present in small quantities — led him to…
