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.
Congratulations to Dr. Amy Shaub Maddox for being named a Whitman Center Fellow. According to their website, “A diverse group of 29 scientists from universities and research institutes around the world have been named 2022 Whitman Center Fellows by the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL). These fellowships enable exceptional scientists, including Early Career Fellows, to conduct independent research at the MBL and take advantage of its unique resources and highly collaborative scientific community.” Congrats, Dr. Maddox!
Read more here.
Due to their mentors, working groups, evaluators, and most of all, their hard work and dedication, the following graduating senior Biology majors have earned the designations of Highest Honors and Honors:
Highest Honors
Ralph Alberto
Colleen Bereda
Megan Butler
Meredith Chambers
Kelly Chong
Billy Ngo
Olivia Rice
Yasharth Singh
Kelly Wan
Honors
Thidar Aye
Julia Bay
Audrey Bousquet
Henry Bryant III
Angela Chen
Carla Escobar-Tomlienovich
Rajee Ganesan
Chavely Gonzalez Ramirez
Camryn Kellogg
Sriya Kongala
Priya Kosana
Sydney Lai
Tianxiu Katherine Li
Sneha Makhijani
Ryan Merritt
Elizabeth Morton
Valerie Nguyen
Ella Patackis
Tyler Pereira
Aayush Purohit
Paloma Ruiz
Benjamin Silver
Najia Ward-Conyers
Runjie Yuan
Rebecca Zasloff
Jiyue (Jeff) Huang, a postdoc in the Copenhaver lab has published a paper in Methods in Molecular Biology: Plant Gametogenesis entitled “Identifying small RNAs and Analyzing Their Association with Gene Expression Using Isolated Arabidopsis Male Meiocytes” which describes molecular and bioinformatic procedures for examining small RNAs made by the cells undergo meiosis to produce pollen in plants.
Read more here.
On April 20th, 65 undergraduate research scholars from the Biology Department presented posters highlighting their research at our end-of-semester event. These students had completed two semesters of BIOL 395 research credit, and it was a fun afternoon celebrating their research efforts! Kudos to our undergraduate research scholars!
Congratulations to Drs. John Bruno and Margarita Brandt, of USFQ, for receiving a one million dollar grant from NSF for their research in the Galapagos islands! From the announcement: “UNC researcher Dr. John Bruno and Dr. Margarita Brandt of USFQ are partnering on a three year, one million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation to untangle the interactive roles of temperature, nutrient flux, and predation in structuring the Galapagos marine food web. The project is titled ‘Temperature Regulation of Top-Down Control in a Pacific Upwelling System’ and all work will take place at the Galapagos Science Center on San Cristobal, Galapagos. According to Brandt, ‘This new funding will allow us to understand the effect of temperature on the structure and the functioning of the Galapagos marine ecosystems.'” Congratulations!
Read more about the team and the grant here.
Congratulations to Laura Mendez, this year’s winner of the Tri-Beta Biology TA Teaching award! Every year, the Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society asks senior undergraduate biology students to nominate TAs who they believe are deserving of this award and who went above and beyond for their students. Congratulations, Laura!
Nimchuk lab graduate students Sean James and Andrew Willoughby, along with others, have published a paper in Nature Plants! The paper, which is on receptor kinase signaling, can be found here. Congratulations!
Congratulations to this year’s recipients of The Henry Van Peters Wilson Memorial fund for Marine Biology: Luke Havens, Alayna Mackiewicz, and Isabel Silva.
UNC Biology’s Dr. Bob Goldstein’s posters have been featured in the article, “‘Collecting COVID’ exhibit highlights material from library archive” from UNC’s The Well! From the article: “Bob Goldstein, James L. Peacock III Distinguished Professor of biology in the College of Arts & Sciences, created public service announcement posters that were displayed throughout Chapel Hill and Carrboro. One looks like the classic Uncle Sam ‘I want you’ poster, with a finger pointing at the viewer encouraging them to stand more than 6 feet apart. Another poster features Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, depicted above the words ‘Pray for us Saint Anthony.'”
To see some of the posters and read more, click here.