Research
June 29, 2016
Under the hood
The safety behind studying deadly disease By Phillip Sitter | MU Bond Life Sciences Center George Stewart, McKee Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and Chair of Veterinary Pathobiology holds up a colony of Bacillus anthracis in his lab. The strain of anthrax he holds is non-virulent, and is therefore safe to handle under BSL-2 precautions as opposed to BSL-3 for virulent strains that cause disease in humans. | photo by Phillip Sitter, Bond LSC You’ve seen it before in the movies. Sweaty scientists put on their full-body, spacesuit-like get-ups to stave off a potentially extinction-level…
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…
May 2, 2016
Learning on Different Levels
New outreach program teaches CAFNR students to make plant science knowledge accessible to a younger audience Written by Stephen Schmidt | Science Writer in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Although abundant light was shining through the windows, it was the quiet before the storm. Andrew Ludwig, a University of Missouri sophomore majoring in plant sciences, surveyed the small tables and chairs spread out before him in the laboratory of the Benton STEM Elementary School on a recent Monday afternoon. He sifted through his notes. He was ready, even though it was his first time stepping foot…
April 5, 2016
Gres receives Von Schwedler Prize
Work on HIV capsid proteins earns prestigious retrivology award Anna Gres studies HIV capsid protein using X-ray crystallography. She recently won the 2016 von Schwedler Prize, which awards her $1,200 and gives her the oppportunity to speak this spring at the Cold Spring Harbor Retrovirus Meeting, one of the largest retroviral research conferences in the world. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC Science is all about structure in the work of Anna Gres. For the past four years, she’s looked closely at one HIV protein to figure out its shape in order to stop the virus.
March 30, 2016
MU Scientists Fighting World Hunger
By Bobby Remis | MU Bond Life Sciences Center Sanborn Field, University of Missouri | photo by Kyle Spradley In the years to come, climate change and population growth will drastically alter the world around us, impacting farmland and the way we grow food. Scott Peck, associate professor of biochemistry, studies how plants perceive and respond to changes in their environment. New research from an interdisciplinary team at the University of Missouri is hoping to curb the decrease in food production due to climate change by studying the roots of corn…
March 15, 2016
Seminal work
How unruly data led MU scientists to discover a new microbiome By Roger Meissen | MU Bond Life Sciences Center This seminal vesicle contains a newly-discovered microbiome in mice. Some of its bacteria, like P. acnes, could lead to higher occurrences of prostate cancer. | contributed by Cheryl Rosenfeld It’s a strange place to call home, but seminal fluid offers the perfect environment for particular types of bacteria. Researchers at MU’s Bond Life Sciences Center recently identified new bacteria that thrive here. “It’s a new microbiome that hasn’t been looked…
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…
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…