The NYTimes has a really beautiful article by Carl Zimmer about SARS-CoV-2 viral structure, and it includes some of the recent phase separation work from Amy Gladfelter’s lab, plus a video by Dr. Gladfelter’s postdoctoral student Christine Roden, and some quotes from Dr. Gladfelter.

Here’s the story:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-unveiled.html

And the recent preprint on this by Christiane Iserman, others in Amy’s lab, and collaborators:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.11.147199v1

Congratulations to the Microbiome Team in the Dangl-Grant lab led by Omri Finkel, Isai Salas Gonzalez, Gabriel Castrillo and Jonathan Conway on the publication of a paper in Nature titled ‘A single bacterial genus maintains root growth in a complex microbiome.’ This paper is a detective story that led to the discovery that a single bacterial genus acts as a multispecies regulator of the the effects of plant microbiota on root development. Variovorax are very commonly enriched in roots of various plants and directly regulate the effects of the bacterially-produced plant growth regulator auxin.

Read the paper here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2778-7

Dr. Kelly Hogan, Teaching Professor in the Department of Biology is the recipient of this year’s National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) Teaching Award! NABT awards recognize teachers for their expertise in specific subject areas, for contributions to the profession made by new teachers, and to recognize service to NABT, life science teaching, or leadership in learning communities.

Please join the department in congratulating Kelly for the incredible impact she has on her students, our department, and UNC. In Kelly’s own words, “One teacher can make a difference. One teacher can help invite more students into a discipline. One teacher can help retain a more diverse group of scientists in their discipline. One teacher can help graduate a more diverse group of scientists. It begins with an inclusive mindset around course structure and facilitation.”

Esteban Agudo, a Biology graduate student in John Bruno’s lab, has been featured in Endeavors!

From his website, Agudo is “a marine ecologist interested in exploring how environmental characteristics (i.e. temperature, structural complexity) affect reef communities. [He] believe[s] cultivating our knowledge of these relationship[s] will help us better understand both, how these systems are entangled with one another, and how each respond to current developments of global change.”

Take a moment to read about Esteban’s journey in his research here: https://endeavors.unc.edu/esteban-agudo/.

From Academia to Industry: Q&A with Cellular Analysis Specialist Dr. Rob Peterson – Sponsored by UNC oSTEM

Do you want an insider view of life after undergrad? What about graduate school? Are you curious about biology jobs outside of medicine and academia?

Join oSTEM UNC and chat with Dr. Rob Peterson, a cellular analysis specialist at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Dr. Peterson earned his PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology, worked as an Assistant Professor at UNC, ran a microscopy core facility, and now works in the microscopy industry. Join us to learn about pursuing a career in STEM!

Where: Zoom https://unc.zoom.us/j/95213680222
When: September 30th, 7:30-8:30pm

Congratulations to Dr. Zhenyu Hao (a postdoc in Dr. Darrel Stafford’s Lab), whose paper titled, “Gamma-glutamyl carboxylase mutations differentially affect the biological function of vitamin K-dependent proteins”, was recently published in the journal, Blood. In this paper, Dr. Hao evaluated how carboxylase mutations affected the biological function of proteins involved in blood coagulation, vascular calcification, and bone metabolism. Read more >>

Article link: https://ashpublications.org/blood/article/doi/10.1182/blood.2020006329/461789/Gamma-glutamyl-carboxylase-mutations

Congratulations to Celia Shiau and her lab researchers Alison Earley and Victoria Kwon and former lab members on their paper published in eLife. The article is titled “Drainage of inflammatory macromoleules from the brain to periphery targets the liver for macrophage infiltration.”

From the abstract, “Many brain pathologies are associated with liver damage, but a direct link has long remained elusive. Here, we establish a new paradigm for interrogating brain-periphery interactions by leveraging zebrafish for its unparalleled access to the intact whole animal for in vivo analysis in real time after triggering focal brain inflammation. Using traceable lipopolysaccharides (LPS), we reveal that drainage of these inflammatory macromolecules from the brain led to a strikingly robust peripheral infiltration of macrophages into the liver independent of Kupffer cells. We further demonstrate that this macrophage recruitment requires signaling from the cytokine IL-34 and Toll-like receptor adaptor MyD88, and occurs in coordination with neutrophils. These results highlight the possibility for circulation of brain-derived substances to serve as a rapid mode of communication from brain to the liver. Understanding how the brain engages the periphery at times of danger may offer new perspectives for detecting and treating brain pathologies.”

Read the full article here: https://elifesciences.org/articles/58191.

Kacy Gordon’s article, “Stem cell niche exit in C. elegans via orientation and segregation of daughter cells by a cryptic cell outside the niche,” has been featured in eLife Sciences. Congratulations, Kacy!

From the abstract, “Stem cells reside in and rely upon their niche to maintain stemness but must balance self-renewal with the production of daughters that leave the niche to differentiate. We discovered a mechanism of stem cell niche exit in the canonical C. elegans distal tip cell (DTC) germ stem cell niche mediated by previously unobserved, thin, membranous protrusions of the adjacent somatic gonad cell pair (Sh1). A disproportionate number of germ cell divisions were observed at the DTC-Sh1 interface… Because Sh1 membrane protrusions eluded detection for decades, it is possible that similar structures actively regulate niche exit in other systems.”

Read the full article here.

Congratulations to Senay Yitbarek for being chosen as one of the 2020 cohorts for the Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity (CPPFD)!

According to their website, “CPPFD is one of the oldest diversity fellowship programs for postdoctoral scholars in the nation, and it receives strong support and recognition across UNC and peer institutions. The program was launched in 1983 as part of a continuing commitment to enhance culturally diverse, intellectual community and support scholars from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in higher education. More than 190 scholars have participated to date and more than 60 faculty hires here at UNC.”

“Yitbarek’s research focuses on the community ecology of infectious diseases, with a focus on understanding how microbial interactions are shaped by host population structure. In his work, he combines experimental evolution approaches with mathematical modeling. He is also a postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and is the current president of the Black Ecologists organization within the Ecological Society of America.”

Congratulations Senay!

Congratulations to Dr. Brian Taylor for his acceptance into the 2020-2021 KEEN Faculty Learning Community Program. According to their website, the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN) “focuses on one mission: To graduate engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset (EM) so they can create personal, economic, and societal value through a lifetime of meaningful work. KEEN is a partnership of more than 45 colleges and universities across the United States. The schools in the Network are driving change within engineering education—each committing to reach all of their undergraduate engineering students with entrepreneurial mindset. KEEN specifically impacts and influences the broader engineering ecosystem and reflects the belief that networks scale impact. KEEN serves as a lab to test and showcase best practices in entrepreneurially minded learning. The Network seeks to represent the larger engineering education landscape, showing that EM benefits students regardless of institution type, size, or location. Through this collaborative network, institutions are able to work together to transform engineering education.” Congratulations Brian!