György “Hínár” Schrader Polczer has worked for UNC-Chapel Hill for 22 years as a technology support analyst for the Department of Biology within the UNC College of Arts and Sciences.

What brought you to Carolina?

I’m originally from Hungary and began my career in information technology in Budapest. After moving to the United States and working in other industries, I was looking to return to the field. In 1998, I was living in Michigan and saw an opening at Carolina’s biology department that fit my experience and interest.

I worked at UNC-Chapel Hill as a computer systems administrator for almost a year before moving back to Hungary to spend time with my family. In that position, I provided technical assistance and support for computers, servers, and other research equipment across the department. I returned to North Carolina 18 months later and eventually found my way back to Carolina in 2002 for the same position I held before — this time as a permanent employee.

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Lilly Papell is a senior majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry and creative writing within the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. She studies how genome organization within microscopic animals called tardigrades plays a role in how they survive the DNA-damaging environments — such as ionizing radiation and desiccation — that would kill most lifeforms. READ MORE

The Copenhaver lab has published a paper Nature Communications SCFRMF mediates degradation of the meiosis-specific recombinase DMC1 which describes how a key meiotic protein is regulated by a degradation process that ensures it is removed when no longer needed. Disruption of this targeted degradation causes fertility defects in plants.

Featuring Graduate Students Amala John and Elizabeth Smith.

Plant body plans are elaborated in response to both environmental and endogenous cues. How these inputs intersect to promote growth and development remains poorly understood. During reproductive development, central zone stem cell proliferation in inflorescence meristems is negatively regulated by the CLAVATA3 (CLV3) peptide signalling pathway. In contrast, floral primordia formation on meristem flanks requires the hormone auxin. Here we show that CLV3 signalling is also necessary for auxin-dependent floral primordia generation and that this function is partially masked by both inflorescence fasciation and heat-induced auxin biosynthesis. Stem cell regulation by CLAVATA signalling is separable from primordia formation but is also sensitized to temperature and auxin levels. In addition, we uncover a novel role for the CLV3 receptor CLAVATA1 in auxin-dependent meristem maintenance in cooler environments. As such, CLV3 signalling buffers multiple auxin-dependent shoot processes across divergent thermal environments, with opposing effects on cell proliferation in different meristem regions. READ MORE

In 2018, faculty at UMBC and four of its top-sending community colleges embarked on a project with an ambitious mission: improve students’ quantitative skills in biological contexts, and eliminate the achievement gap between transfer and direct-entry students in courses requiring these skills. The urgent need for students in the life sciences to be proficient in a range of mathematical concepts has been made clear again and again by various national reports. The project, dubbed the NEXUS Institute for Quantitative Biology (NIQB), arose to address that need. READ MORE

Congratulations to Biology doctoral student Oscar Arroyo and mentor Dan McKay for Oscar’s new HHMI Gilliam Fellowship to Advance Equity & Inclusion in Science. These awards recognize outstanding science, paired with dedicated mentorship and leadership.

Savannah Ryburn (Bruno Lab) is a PhD student in the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program within the UNC College of Arts and Sciences and a graduate student researcher within the UNC Center for Galapagos Studies. She studies the diet and ecology of sharks in the Galápagos and North Carolina by conducting DNA analyses on their fecal matter to determine what they’ve eaten down to the species level. READ MORE

Bruno lab graduate student Salome Jaramillo Gil teaching local kids in the Galápagos Islands about marine life. Salome is doing her dissertation research in the Galápagos on the feeding ecology and movement of eagle rays and scalloped hammerhead sharks.

Urban mosquito distributions are modulated by socioeconomic status and environmental traits in the USA