Uncategorized
Nov. 12, 2019
Exceeding the Challenge
Focus on new grants results in research funding bump On Oct. 11, 2019, as part of University of Missouri Homecoming festivities, Chancellor Alexander N. Cartwright shared about MU’s value to society during the annual State of the University address. | Contributed by MU News Bureau By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC It’s an inconvenient truth that every scientist knows; progress in research is driven by the money they receive to pursue discoveries. As MU’s Chancellor Alexander Cartwright addressed the Mizzou community in October, he announced positive gains in securing grants for future science. “Not long ago, we…
Nov. 8, 2019
#IAmScience Maddy Creach
“Science is concrete, but it isn’t rigid. Research is constantly new and fresh.” By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC For Maddy Creach, a scientific career was always the end goal, and television and books have played a part in that inspiration. When she was a kid, her “big science nerd” of a dad watched NOVA all the time with her along with dinosaur documentaries, and she could always turn to him for support in her career aspirations. That support has continued for her current dream — to work for NASA’s plant research team. Astronaut Scott…
Nov. 1, 2019
#IAmScience Sharon Pike
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Sharon Pike grew up in an era that didn’t encourage young girls to pursue fields predominantly occupied by men. Through trial and error in various careers, she eventually landed a spot as a lab technician at MU in 1985. Since then, she found her passion and voice in science, and at the age of 77, she doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon. Pike felt the limitations of being a girl, growing up in the Midwest and lacking the financial means to obtain an education beyond the undergraduate level. But,…
Oct. 24, 2019
#IamScience Paul Martin
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Two years ago, Paul Martin found his love for biology in a freshman-level non-majors course. He’s now a researcher in Walter Gassmann’s lab helping to study transcription factors that regulate a plant’s immune response to bacterial pathogens. Martin grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, near Arrowhead Stadium and has always loved sports. He recalled caring more about baseball stats in school than learning. By the time he reached high school, he loved to write and thought he could make a career out of it. …
Oct. 23, 2019
Nature’s cinema: New technique allows plant imaging in real-time
The September issue of Molecular Plant depicts a plant fluorescing in response to reactive oxygen species propogation taken by Yosef Fichman of the Mittler Lab. By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Plant biologists across the country opened their mailboxes last month to the glowing leaves of Arabidopsis on the cover of the latest issue of Molecular Plant. That cover taken by post-doctoral researcher Yosef Fichman of Bond Life Sciences Center depicts plants fluorescing in response to reactive oxygen species (ROS) propagation, a technique that allows researchers to track plant response to certain stressors. The novel approach is…
Oct. 18, 2019
#IAmScience Fernanda Amaral
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Growing up on farm in Brazil, Fernanda Amaral often wondered why her father had to treat the soil with nitrogen fertilizer between growing cycles. She questioned why the soil wasn’t enough to consistently provide crops the nutrients they needed to grow and flourish. Amaral remembers her father explaining soybeans take a lot out of the soil, leaving nothing behind for the next batch of crops. So, he needed to artificially treat the soil with chemical fertilizers to continue the harvest cycle, maintain his business and support his family.
Oct. 14, 2019
Regulating a balance between protection and growth
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC It’s a sensitive balance between growth and defense when it comes to plants. While a built-in, passive immune system helps them survive attackers, this response halts the growth and development of the plant, something that fascinates Ben Spears in the lab of Walter Gassmann at Bond LSC. “In our lab, we try to pick apart the different signaling pathways governing these processes of growth and maintaining an immune response; we think of them as distinct processes, but, in reality, they are all interconnected,” Spears said. “If we can unlock the ability…
Oct. 11, 2019
#IAmScience Saurav Sarma
By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC Saurav Sarma grew up amongst tea plantations and medicinal plants in the northeastern corner of India near Tibet, a state called Assam. His day-to-day observations of the plants sparked a curiosity that eventually led him to a career looking at the chemical building blocks behind it all in the labs of Lloyd Sumner and the University of Missouri Metabolomics Center at Bond Life Sciences Center. His interest revolved around the connections between carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, which make up living systems. “How they’re connected makes all the…
Oct. 9, 2019
A passion for teaching rooted in research
Amanda Paz Herrera extends her passion for research to teaching others when teaching science. | photo by Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC Dry erase markers and Styrofoam molecular models are a part of Amanda Paz Herrera’s repertoire when teaching complex scientific processes to the average person. Teaching the next generation of scientists requires work and discipline, but Paz Herrera is up for the task. Paz Herrera takes her science on the road with Science on Wheels, a traveling group of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers at MU who aim to make science accessible…
Oct. 4, 2019
#IAmScience Jared Ellingsen
By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC #IAmScience because I have always wanted to understand how the world works and science is a way to do that at the most foundational level. Certainty hasn’t come easy to Jared Ellingsen, but in retrospect, his path to grad school in biochemistry has involved a long series of pieces falling into place. Ellingsen began his freshman year as a humanities student at Wheaton College in Illinois, but he fell in love with chemistry after taking a required first-year course. “According to my adviser I was the first person they…
Sep. 26, 2019
#IAmScience Yuan Yuxiang
I am science because I want to breed more new elite Brassica vegetable varieties and make people more healthy. Twenty-two years is a long time to focus on a single vegetable, but Yuxiang Yuan has done just that with Chinese cabbage. That focus has led her away from her normal life in China to the Chris Pires lab at Bond LSC for a year-long project that’s winding to an end. After a 20-plus hour flight from China and over 7,000 miles of traveling, Yuxiang Yuan arrived here, excited for a new adventure and the…
Sep. 24, 2019
Around the shore a million stood
The complex title of the new painting in Bond LSC represents the nuance of its meaning. By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC It appears to simply showcase a spectrum of beautiful colors, but there is much more than meets the eye to the painting above the plant wall by Monsanto Auditorium in Bond Life Sciences Center. Its creative expression is the work of local artist Kerry Hirth and has a particularly unique provenance. Dean Bergstrom approached Hirth one day when she was in the administrative offices hanging some of her paintings as…