COVID-19 // Bond Life Sciences Center

June 20, 2022

A Dual Focus: MU researcher earns $181,734 NIH grant and U.S. Public Health Service Award for COVID-19 research in the lab and on campus

By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Cynthia Tang is an M.D.-Ph.D. student in the Wan lab. Photo by Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Cynthia Tang’s academic career is marked by her propensity to multitask. From earning a major and three minors during her undergrad to making a documentary while getting lab and clinical experience, she…

March 16, 2022

Competing with COVID: Researcher suggests varying from vaccines to fight virus

COVID-19 virus particles have spike proteins, represented in red, that attach to receptors on host cells. Antivirals block the receptors on host cells so the virus cannot infect more cells. | Creative Commons Photo By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC Vaccines were the light at the end of the tunnel throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but…

Feb. 18, 2022

#IAmScience Reinier Suarez

By Cara Penquite | Bond LSC When one of Reinier Suarez’s undergraduate professors suggested he go to graduate school, he was confused. “I had never heard of a Ph.D. in my life,” Suarez said. Three years later, Suarez is a first-year graduate student studying COVID-19 variants. Suarez came to Mizzou as part of the university’s…

Feb. 2, 2022

Outlining Omicron: researchers determine key mutations in the latest COVID-19 variant

Bond LSC and UNMC scientists explain mutations unique to the Omicron variant Austin Spratt, undergraduate mathematics student in the Kamlendra Singh lab, shows protein models of the Omicron spike protein and the receptor it attaches to when infecting cells. “The genetic codes are used to identify the mutations, and then we use the structure to…

Nov. 4, 2021

#IAmScience Clayton Rushford

By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC Clayton Rushford isn’t one to complain. While in the Marc Johnson lab at the Bond Life Sciences Center, he’s the guy cheering up lab mates when experiments fail or going with the flow when he must repeat an experiment for the fifth time. As long as he’s doing science,…

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…

April 30, 2020

Treating COVID-19: Bond LSC lab explores effectiveness of remdesivir and other potential drugs

By Jerry Duggan | Bond LSC As countries hang their hopes on the drug remdesivir for battling COVID-19, recent modeling and computer-aided drug evaluation at the University of Missouri caution to keep an open mind to other drug treatments. Kamlendra Singh at MU’s Bond Life Sciences Center assessed remdesivir and several other drugs for long-term…

April 29, 2020

The Lab in Time of COVID-19

The main halls of Bond LSC are empty due to researchers being told to work from home. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC. By Lauren Hines | Bond LSC On an average day, you can find post doctorate Norman Best surrounded by corn in the greenhouse or at his bench in the McSteen lab…

April 29, 2020

Influenza & COVID-19 Research: A Campus-wide Effort

Henry Wan | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC With shelter in place orders being extended throughout the country and events being canceled, COVID-19 is a pressing issue, and influenza researchers at MU have been pivoting recently to begin studying the virus. Henry Wan, an influenza researcher and Bond…