Congratulations to Kelly Hogan and her colleague Viji Sathy for their new book Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom. From the publisher’s website: “In a book written by and for college teachers, Kelly Hogan and Viji Sathy provide tips and advice on how to make all students feel welcome and included. They begin with a framework describing why explicit attention to structure enhances inclusiveness in both course design and interactions with and between students. Inclusive Teaching then provides practical ways to include more voices in a series of contexts: when giving instructions for group work and class activities, holding office hours, communicating with students, and more. The authors finish with an opportunity for the reader to reflect on what evidence to include in a teaching dossier that demonstrates inclusive practices.”

Check it out here! Also, be sure to take a look at their website here.

Why These Frogs Make ‘the Grossest Blunder in Sexual Preference’
Interspecies mating has long been thought of as a mistake. But in the desert, it may sometimes be the best way to breed.
By Katherine J. Wu

Congratulations to David Pfennig for his featured quotes in “Do we need a new theory of evolution?,” an article featured in The Guardian! From the article, “A new wave of scientists argues that mainstream evolutionary theory needs an urgent overhaul. Their opponents have dismissed them as misguided careerists – and the conflict may determine the future of biology.” Read the full article here.

After being named the Director of the Institute for Convergent Science just a few weeks ago, Dr. Gregory Copenhaver has been featured in an article for Innovate Carolina! In the article, Dr. Copenhaver explains how the ICS is “bringing multidisciplinary teams together to address society’s most intractable problems to benefit the citizens of North Carolina and beyond.” Check out the article here.

Congratulations to Dr. Bloom for his recent articles, both accepted and published. Dr. Bloom has two papers accepted for 2022, including “DNA damage reduces heterogeneity and coherence of chromatin motions” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and “Polymer models reveal how chromatin modification can modulate force at the kinetochore” in Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Dr. Bloom also has four recently published articles available for viewing. “Simulating Dynamic Chromosome Compaction: Methods for Bridging in Silico to In Vivo” can be found in Methods in Molecular Biology. To read the abstract for free, check out this link. Also, be on the lookout for “Mechanisms of DNA Mobilization and Sequestration Genes 2022” in Mechanisms of DNA Damage, Repair and Mutagenesis. To learn more about this article, use this link. Bloom has another article in the Journal of Cell Science called, “Shaping centromeres to resist mitotic spindle forces” which you can learn more about here. Finally, you can find “Cdc7-mediated phosphorylation of Cse4 regulates high-fidelity chromosome segregation in budding yeast” in Molecular Biology of the Cell at this link.

Great job, Dr. Bloom!

Citations:

Locatelli, M., Lawrimore, J, Lin,H., Sanaullah, S., Seitz, C., Segall, D., Kefer, P., Moreno, NS., Lietz, B., Anderson, R., Holmes, J., Yuan, C., Holzwarth, G., Bloom, K.S., Liu, J., Bonin, K. Vidi, P.A., DNA damage reduces heterogeneity and coherence of chromatin motions (2022) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA (accepted)

Lawrimore, J., de Larminat, S. Cook, D., Friedman, B., Doshi, A., Yeh, E., and Bloom K. (2022) Polymer models reveal how chromatin modification can modulate force at the kinetochore. Molecular Biology of the Cell 2022 (accepted).

He Y, Adalsteinsson D, Walker B, Lawrimore J, Forest MG, Bloom, K. (2022) Simulating Dynamic Chromosome Compaction: Methods for Bridging In Silico to In Vivo. Methods Mol Biol. 2022;2415:211-220. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1904-9_16.

Bloom, K., and Kolbin, D. (2022) Mechanisms of DNA Mobilization and Sequestration Genes 2022, 13, 352. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes13020352.

Lawrimore, J., and Bloom, K. (2022) Shaping centromeres to resist mitotic spindle forces J Cell Sci. 2022 135, jcs259532. doi:10.1242/jcs.259532.

Mishra PK, Wood H, Stanton J, Au WC, Eisenstatt JR, Boeckmann L, Sclafani RA, Weinreich M, Bloom KS, Thorpe PH, Basrai MA. Cdc7-mediated phosphorylation of Cse4 regulates high-fidelity chromosome segregation in budding yeast Mol Biol Cell. 2021 Nov 1;32(21):ar15.

UNC Biology’s Ken Lohmann was featured on an episode of Tai Asks Why, a CBC Podcast. In the episode, entitled “How do animals know where they are going,” Lohmann discusses how marine life navigate! Check out the podcast here.

Congratulations to Greg Copenhaver for being named both the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Convergent Science and the new director of the Institute for Convergent Science! According to this article, “As director of the Institute for Convergent Science, Copenhaver will bring multidisciplinary teams together to address society’s most intractable problems to benefit the citizens of North Carolina and beyond.” Congratulations, Greg!

Congratulations to Logan Brackett for winning the UNC College of Arts and Sciences 2021 Award in Management! From Interim Chair Steve Matson, “Once again, Logan Brackett has been recognized by his colleagues for his work in our department. Logan was a finalist in the University Managers Association (UMA) Manger of the Year recognition. The UMA is a university wide organization. He was honored at a virtual ceremony yesterday afternoon… We are very fortunate to have Logan working in Biology. Again, congratulations are due.” Be sure to check out the article here.

Congratulations, Logan!

A big congratulations to all our May 2022 Biology PhD graduates! This is a huge accomplishment and the department would like to extend our appreciation for all your hard work over the years. We wish you the best of luck in your next phase of life!

Meggan Alston (Willett lab)
Gina Calabrese (K. Pfennig lab)
Catherine Chen (K. Pfennig lab)
Nazli Deger (Sancar lab)
Grace Di Cecco (Hurlbert lab)
Sean James (Nimchuk lab)
Anais Monroy-Eklund (Laederach lab)
Lewis Naisbett-Jones (K. Lohmann lab)
Jonathan Rader (Hedrick lab)

Congratulations to Dr. Frank Conlon’s lab for making an important discovery implicating non-cardiac genes in congenital heart disease. From the article: “The UNC-Chapel Hill lab of Frank Conlon, PhD, and colleagues conducted experiments to show how a non-cardiac protein subunit interacts with three cardiac genes known to be mutated in patients with congenital heart disease.” Read more here.