University of Missouri

June 25, 2024

Two years of research create lasting impact for Nigerian visiting scholar

By Sarah Rubinstein | Bond LSC Michael Arowolo is a visiting professor in the lab of Dong Xu, a Bond LSC principal investigator. | photo by Braiden Wade, Bond LSC The African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” can especially apply in science where that village includes mentors like Dong Xu, a Bond Life Sciences Center principal investigator, who has trained hundreds of students and collaborators. Michael Arowolo, is among those mentored, having spent the past two years in Xu’s lab as a visiting scholar. In August, he will take that experience with him to…

Nov. 17, 2016

Live long and prosper: healthy mitochondria, healthy motor neurons?

Chris Lorson (front) and Mark Hannink (back) collaborate to study the role of mitochondria in motor neuron health, particularly in relation to spinal muscular atrophy, a neuromuscular disorder | photo by Jen Lu, Bond LSC Chris Lorson, a professor of veterinary pathobiology, and Mark Hannink, a professor of biochemistry, want to find a new way to help motor neurons live a long and healthy life. Their question: what’s the relationship between motor neuron sruvival and a cellular component called mitochondria? The two researchers at the Bond Life Sciences Center were awarded preliminary funding from the Bond…

May 23, 2016

One step closer from mice to men

Gene therapy treating the neurodegenerative disease, SMARD1, shows promising results in mice studies. Shababi uses an instrument to measure grip strength in the forelimbs of mice. Healthy mice are able to cling on with a stronger grip than SMARD1 mice. | photo by Jennifer Lu, Bond LSC Monir Shababi was confident her experiments treating a rare genetic disease would yield positive results before she even ran them. Scientists had success with a similar degenerative neuromuscular disease, so she had every expectation their strategy would work just as well in her mice. Monir…

March 8, 2016

Rodents of unusual appetites

How food cravings and eating affects the brain By Jennifer Lu | MU Bond Life Sciences Center When it comes to cookie dough, we’re not the only ones who can’t control our cravings. Kyle Parker’s rats couldn’t resist, either, thanks to a tweak in their brain chemistry. Parker studies the neuroscience of food-based rewards. Matthew Will, associate professor of psychological sciences at the Bond Life Sciences Center, studies the neuroscience of behaviors such as over-eating and addiction | photo by Jennifer Lu, Bond LSC “It’s like when I eat dessert after I’ve eaten an entire meal,” said Parker,…

March 1, 2016

Unmasking the unknown

Scientists explore genetic similarities between plants and mice University of Missouri PhD Candidate Daniel L. Leuchtman peers through an Arabidopsis plant. Leuchtman has been experimenting with replacing a gene in the plants immune system with a similar gene from mice. | Photograph by Justin L. Stewart/MU Bond Life Sciences Center By Justin L. Stewart | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Almost two-thirds of what makes a human a human and a fly a fly are the same, according to the NIH genome research institute. If recent research at the University of Missouri’s Bond…

Jan. 26, 2016

Bond Life Sciences Center Scientists Named to Thomson Reuters’ 2015 List of Highly Cited Researchers

By Bobby Remis | MU Bond Life Sciences Center You can imagine it’s hard to distinguish yourself from the crowd when it comes to scientific papers. But, publishing quality work in a well-known journal adds value to the whole scientific world by assisting others and inspiring new science. Three Bond LSC researchers recently were recognized for doing just that. Bond Life Sciences Center scientists Chris Pires, Shuqun Zhang and Yidong Liu are among five University of Missouri System researchers named in the 2015 Thomson Reuters’ Highly Cited Researchers list. This list spotlights the top 1 percent of papers published from nearly…

Nov. 25, 2015

You shall not pass: the basic science of blocking HIV

  Marc Johnson, associate professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Bond Life Sciences Center, studies viruses such as HIV. | photo by Jennifer Lu, Bond LSC Nineteen colorful foam flowers decorate the walls of Marc Johnson’s office, a memento from his lab members when they “redecorated” while he was out of town. Each flower is labeled in bold Sharpie with the names of viruses and viral proteins that his lab studies—MLV, RSV, Gag, Pol, to name a few. One flower stands out, marked in capital letters: H-I-V. Johnson, an associate professor of molecular microbiology…

Nov. 3, 2015

Family genes

MU freshman follows in aunt’s footsteps while exploring career options Robert Schmidt poses with one of the cats that lives at Horton Animal Hospital, where he works part-time. Schmidt, a freshman studying biochemistry at the University of Missouri, is a member of the Discovery Fellows Program where he is learning about plant genetics by working with biologist Scott Peck in the Bond Life Sciences Center. Photo by Justin L. Stewart | MU Bond Life Sciences Center By Justin L. Stewart | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Sometimes it’s socks. Another time, it was a book cover.

Oct. 21, 2015

Putting down roots

Plant scientist Ruthie Angelovici joins the Bond Life Sciences Center By Jennifer Lu | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Ruthie Angelovici Ruthie Angelovici clearly remembers her big eureka moment in science thus far. It didn’t happen in a laboratory. It wasn’t even her experiment. At the time, Angelovici was in college studying marine biology. She had spent a year going on diving trips to figure out whether two visibly different corals were polymorphs of the same species, or two separate species. A simple DNA test told her the answer in one afternoon. “That’s the day I decided…

Oct. 20, 2015

Maze Runners

Female rats struggle to find their way in BPA study from MU and the NCTR/FDA Cheryl Rosenfeld is one of 12 researchers partnering with the NCTR/FDA to study BPA Despite concerns about bisphenol A (BPA), academic and regulatory scientists have yet to reach a consensus on BPA’s safety. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Toxicology Program (NTP), the Food and Drug Administration and independent university researchers are working together to change that. Five years after the Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity, or CLARITY-BPA for short, launched, results are…

June 26, 2015

The view from the trenches: a conversation about Alzheimer’s disease

This immunofluorescence picture shows the brain of an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model, also known as the TgCRND8 mouse. In the picture, the amyloid beta plaques are stained green and the microglia, or immune cells of the brain, are stained red. Image courtesy of Luke Woods. By Caleb O’Brien | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Jean Camden and Luke Woods have an ant’s-eye view of Alzheimer’s disease. Both are bench scientists in the laboratory of Gary Weisman, a professor of biochemistry at the Bond Life Sciences Center. Jean has spent the past 12 of her 35…

May 28, 2015

Move over Arabidopsis, there’s a new model plant in town

Bond LSC researchers showed for the first time ever that a grass, Setaria viridis, can receive 100 percent of its nitrogen needs from bacteria when associated with plant root surfaces. This grass will now serve as model for research into biological nitrogen fixation that could benefit crop development. | Photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Roger Meissen | MU Bond Life Sciences Center As farmers spend billions of dollars spreading nitrogen on their fields this spring, researchers at the University of Missouri are working toward less reliance on the fertilizer. Less dependence on nitrogen could start with a…