University of Missouri

Dec. 7, 2018

#IAmScience Shawn Abrahams

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC “Eccentric” is generally a word you do not want to use for a future boss. But that’s what led Shawn Abrahams to the Chris Pires’ lab at Bond LSC. Abrahams first met Pires at the Botany 2013 conference in New Orleans. “If you have ever met Chris before you know he is full of advice. At the time Chris told me about his expectations for grad students, how many papers you should have to be successful and that you should always be considering your 10-year plan,” Abrahams said. “I appreciated it as…

Nov. 30, 2018

#IAmScience Trupti Joshi

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Juggling research, teaching, collaborative meetings, grant writing, and training postdocs and students is no problem for Trupti Joshi. That array of responsibilities is just part of the job for a Bond LSC researcher focused on bioinformatics, an area that connects so many types of science by collecting and analyzing genetic data. “Bioinformatics is a very interdisciplinary science that marries the wet and the dry labs,” Joshi said. “It applies software tools and computational techniques from computer science, engineering, mathematics and statistics towards efficient ways to analyze, integrate and mine large-scale genomics and…

Nov. 15, 2018

#IAmScience Sarah Unruh

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Orchids are just weird. No, like really weird, even bizarre. But sixth-year biological sciences Ph.D. student Sarah Unruh likes bizarre things. “Name me a plant rule and I can tell you how orchids have broken them,” Unruh said. “Not all of them have leaves, a lot grow on top of trees and some grow underground not requiring photosynthesis, but one of weirdest characteristics is that their seeds are very small and they don’t have a lot of the nutrition to get the plant started.” That last property has led Unruh to spend…

Nov. 12, 2018

#IAmScience Nikita Gudekar

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC You’ve probably seen TV in shows like Law & Order or CSI and not viewed them as career inspiration. But for graduate student Nikita Gudekar, all she could think about was the science behind their techniques. As a child, Gudekar thought she could use the scientific techniques to catch the criminals, and as she grew up that initial goal evolved into working in the lab of Michael Petris in Bond LSC. Gudekar, originally from Mumbai, India, received her undergraduate study in Mumbai before furthering her education at Mizzou. Gudekar is now a…

Nov. 2, 2018

#IAmScience Monir Shababi

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Research Assistant Professor Monir Shababi and mothers of SMARD children started out as friends on Facebook. Now, they’re friends for a lifetime. It was an unexpected turn for someone who spends most of her professional life in a lab. SMARD1 is an acronym for the rare genetic neuromuscular disease spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress, which has been the focus of Shababi’s research for the past five years. While it shares part of its name with the better known spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), the disease-causing gene is not the same. Both diseases…

Oct. 26, 2018

#IAmScience Will Costigan

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC When Will Costigan came to MU he knew he wanted to do research, but wasn’t sure what exactly. Costigan joined Freshman Research in Plant Sciences (FRIPS) the first moment he could his freshman year to explore his research options. “When I started, I didn’t think I was interested in plants very much,” Costigan said. “But after getting some experience working in the lab, I found that plants are more important and complex than I could’ve imagined.” So, he started working in Scott Peck’s lab a year ago, earlier than many of his…

Oct. 19, 2018

#IAmScience Amanda Blythe

 By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC You could credit a high school career fair to Amanda Blythe’s early success or simply luck. Either way, Blythe was younger than most when her research was first published. “I found a program at Washington University over the summer before my senior year of high school,” Blythe said. “They gave me a research project at the med school focusing on a rare genetic bone disorder. I did a lot of genetic sequencing looking for mutations, which led me to discovering a novel mutation, and we ended up publishing the data. It was…

Oct. 15, 2018

New faculty eager to enhance collaborative mission at Bond LSC

Wes Warren (left), Bing Yang (middle) and Ron Mittler (right) recently joined Bond LSC as primary investigators. | photos by Erica Overfelt and Roger Meissen, Bond LSC By Roger Meissen | Bond LSC Like with any family, a new addition brings possibility and excitement. For Bond LSC, three new faculty promise to enrich research at the University of Missouri by working together across disciplines. Ron Mittler, Wes Warren and Bing Yang all joined Bond LSC recently to continue their research careers. Bond LSC Interim Director Walter Gassmann said these strategic hires are years in the making and represent…

Oct. 12, 2018

#IAmScience Toni Morcos

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Science and spaghetti are an unlikely combination. For Toni Morcos, this combination led her to research. “Growing up, my dad researched muscular dystrophy and my mom was an OB-GYN,” Morcos said. “Every night, my mom would talk about her surgeries that day then my dad would talk about this gene targeting thing. I would be eight years old, just eating spaghetti wondering what the heck they are talking about. And now I’m here studying biology just to understand and be a part of that dinner table conversation.” Morcos is more than just…

Oct. 4, 2018

#IAmScience Juexin Wang

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Boring may not be the first word that comes to mind when you think of someone’s research story. But for Juexin Wang, it was a dull job that steered him toward research. “My undergrad was in Beijing, I was studying computer science,” Wang said. “After I finished my undergrad I went to work in the industry for two years as a software engineer, and I realized that work was so boring to me and I wanted to discover something new.” Wang…

Sep. 30, 2018

#IAmScience Ron Mittler

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC Ron Mittler always thought he would be a veterinarian, until he was exposed to the lab. “I went to school to be a vet,” Mittler said. “I made the mistake of working in the lab to make money in the summer and I got hooked on research. I worked with plants and I realized it is the best job to have for me.” That “mistake” has turned into a career of research and teaching in academia. The latest chapter in that journey started in July when Mittler joined Bond LSC as a…

Sep. 24, 2018

MU researchers develop gene therapy vector in quest to conquer devastating childhood disease

For scientists, studying a disease presents a puzzle looking for an answer, but there are real people behind the research that may one day cure the illnesses that turned their lives upside down. Chris Lorson and Monir Shababi work on one of these puzzles in Bond LSC. Find out more about their work and the faces behind SMARD, a rare, often fatal, genetic motor neuron disease in the following story courtesy of the College of Veterinary Medicine. Monir Shababi, an assistant research professor in veterinary pathobiology, and Christian Lorson, Bond LSC principal investigator, College of Veterinary Medicine professor…