News & Announcements

Yuzhou Tang PhD Dissertation Defense

photo of Yuzhou Tang

Wednesday, April 4, 2018
2:00 PM
Life Science Laboratories Building, Room N610
Dissertation Title:  "Studies on the P. aeruginosa T3S translocon assembly: interaction of PopD with membranes"         
Advisor:  Alejandro Heuck

 

Amrita Palaria PhD Dissertation Defense

photo of Amrita Palaria

Tuesday, March 27, 2018
10:00 AM
Life Science Laboratories Building, Room N610
Dissertation Title:  "Extrinsic and intrinsic factors in liver development"
Advisor:  Kim Tremblay

 

Baskin, Fritz-Laylin Awarded Whitman Center Fellowships

Two members of the biology faculty, professor Tobias Baskin and assistant professor Lillian Fritz-Laylin, have been awarded separate Whitman Center fellowships to support research this summer at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) on Cape Cod. Read more

Thayumanavan, Minter Focus on Drug Delivery System for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Two Institute of Applied Life Sciences (IALS) researchers, organic and polymer chemist Thai Thayumanavan and professor of animal science Lisa Minter, have partnered with Anika Therapeutics Inc. of Bedford to co-develop a new product for treating the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis. Read more

Paper by Biologist Madelaine Bartlett Entered in STAT Madness

In a scientific answer to basketball’s NCAA March Madness, Boston-based STAT News has launched a bracket-style tournament, STAT Madness, “to find the best innovations in science and medicine.” A paper authored by Madelaine Bartlett, assistant professor of biology and curator of living plant collections, and her collaborator, Zachary Lippman of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York is included in the first bracket of 64 papers. Winners are determined by online voting. Read more

Pilsner’s Research Highlighted in Environmental Health Perspectives

J. Richard Pilsner, assistant professor of environmental health sciences, is among the researchers featured in an article on the burgeoning field of sperm epigenetics appearing in the February 2018 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. The focus article explores current research trends on paternal environmental exposures and how they might affect the health of his unborn children. Read more

Study Suggests Evolutionary Change in Protein Function Respects Biophysical Principles

photo of Elizabeth Vierling

Some molecular biologists who study the proteins that regulate cell operations, including Elizabeth Vierling, do not confine their research to understanding the molecules’ current roles. They also look deep into the proteins’ evolutionary past to explore what structures have allowed proteins with new functions to develop in response to new needs. Read more

Christina Chisholm PhD Dissertation Defense

photo of Christina Chisholm

Monday, March 5, 2018 
10:00 AM
Life Sciences Laboratory, room S330/S340
Dissertation Title:  "ENHANCING NANOPORE BASED BIOSENSING TECHNOLOGY USING PORE FORMING PROTEINS"
Advisor:  Min Chen

Babbitt Receives a Three-year $330,000 NSF Grant for Research

Courtney Babbitt

Courtney Babbitt, Biology, has received a three-year, $330,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to use new state-of-the-art computational, evolutionary and experimental methods to examine how natural selection has shaped gene expression in the human brain. Babbitt and colleagues will test the hypothesis that there are functional links between adaptation in the genome and changes in neural types that occurred during human evolution. Read more 

Research Identifies Plant Cell Wall Sensing Mechanism 

An international collaboration of plant researchers this week reports yet another newly discovered role for the versatile receptor kinase, FERONIA, in the model plant Arabidopsis. The researchers say it acts as a sensor in the plant cell wall to help maintain its integrity and protect the plant from environmental assaults. Read more

Pages