Congratuations to Xuejie Chen, a postdoc in Darrel Stafford’s Lab who recently published a paper in Blood titled “A cell-based high-throughput screen identifies drugs that cause bleeding disorders by off-targeting the vitamin K cycle.” In this study, the authors adapted a cell-based screening approach to identify several drugs from the NIH Clinical Collection drug library that caused bleeding disorders by impacting the biosynthesis of active coagulation factors. The paper also explored the mechanisms of action and prevention of drug induced bleeding disorders.

Read more here: https://ashpublications.org/blood/article-abstract/doi/10.1182/blood.2019004234/454781/A-cell-based-high-throughput-screen-identifies?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Collin Hill, undergraduate majoring in Biology and Chemistry, presented his Honors Biology Thesis which focused on the very timely topic of virology. Collin summarizes his thesis:

“In this study, we examined three potentially mutagenic nucleoside analogs, N4-beta-hydrocytidine (NHC), Favipiravir, and Ribavirin using Primer ID with next-generation sequencing (NGS) on a panel of RNA viruses in cell culture, including MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Zika virus (ZIKV), and La Crosse virus (LACV). We found that NHC exhibited antiviral and mutagenic effects in each of the three viruses, supporting that this nucleoside analog is a broad-spectrum antiviral that acts through lethal mutagenesis. Favipiravir and Ribavirin was found to exhibit moderate antiviral and mutagenic effects in LACV only. Additionally, using a MERS-CoV mouse model, we found that an NHC prodrug (EIDD-2801) also exhibited the same antiviral and mutagenic effects in vivo and also found that there was no significant findings of cytotoxicity or increases in transcriptional error rates. However, an additional study of cytotoxicity of each of the three nucleoside analogs in a cell culture of 8E5 cells found that NHC at high dosage concentrations can significantly increase the transcriptional error rate of the cells, indicating misincorporation of NHC by eukaryotic RNA polymerases. The findings of this study support that these nucleoside analogs could potentially be able to be used to treat a wide variety of RNA viral infections in humans, including newly emerged viruses that lack other forms of treatment.”

Congratulations to Dr. Brain Taylor and undergraduate Sebastion Nichols (class of 2021) for winning the Summer Award for Research-Intensive Courses (SARIC) for Undergraduate Research for Summer 2020!

The Summer Award for Research-Intensive Courses is a tuition award offered for a wide range of Maymester and Summer Session I and II courses to give students the opportunity to enroll in research-intensive courses during the summer session. The award covers in-state tuition for one three-hour research-intensive course for the student and provides a $1000 stipend for faculty teaching the mentored undergraduate research course. Read more here.

Dr. Brian Taylor‘s laboratory studies bio and bioinspired navigation and orientation. They are particularly interested in animal magnetic reception (i.e., how do animals use the earth’s magnetic field to get from point A to point B). You can follow them on Twitter: @qbeslab.

Congratulations Sebastian and Dr. Taylor!

Congratulations to Keith Sockman and Allen Hurlbert for the article on their Avian Biology class featured on the Endeavors webpage! The article lauds the associate professors for their emphasis on fieldwork as the class visits wildlife reserves across the state throughout the semester.

Keith Sockman‘s lab studies the causes and consequences of reproductive decisions. Birds are an excellent system for this topic because their decisions are often easy to observe and apply across a broad range of taxa and habitats.

Allen Hurlerbt‘s lab asks questions about the structure of ecological communities, and the processes that are responsible for determining the patterns of diversity, composition, turnover and relative abundance both within local assemblages and across the globe.

Endeavors is the online magazine of research and creative activity at UNC-Chapel Hill. Endeavors (ISSN 1933-4338) is published by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Read the article here.

Congratulations to Biology graduate student Elizabeth Moore, who has received both a Summer Research Fellowship AND a Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the Graduate School!

Elizabeth originally hails from Hillsboro, Kentucky. She graduated in the class of 2014 from Mount Holyoke College with a BA in Biology. During her Masters at the University of Cambridge, she studied the effects of temperature on the seasonal polyphenism of African butterflies. She started her PhD at the University of North Carolina in the fall of 2015. For her PhD project, she is investigating the effects of heat stress on host-parasitoid interactions, using the model system of Manduca sexta and Cotesia congregata.

Dr. Bob Goldstein is featured on UNC’s The Well for his leadership of workshops for North Carolina public school teachers. Congratulations Dr. Goldstein!

Dubbed the “Johnny Appleseed of science,” Dr. Goldstein shows teachers from across the state how to turn ten dollars of hardware-store materials and their smartphone into “a tool of scientific discovery” as microscopes.

UNC’s The Well: The Well is designed to be Carolina’s news source for faculty and staff. Employees can read the day’s top stories, learn more about projects in schools, units and departments, and see how Carolina’s employees work to uphold the University mission of research, teaching and service.

Read the article here: https://thewell.unc.edu/2020/03/30/johnny-appleseed-of-science/

The spring 2020 issue of Carolina Arts & Sciences, the magazine of UNC’s College of Arts & Sciences, is now available online at https://magazine.college.unc.edu/.

Cover story: Every summer, biologists David and Karin Pfennig conduct fieldwork on spadefoot toads. In addition to the graduate students they bring along to the Arizona desert, they have a pair of special assistants — their daughters. Read more here: https://magazine.college.unc.edu/news-article/the-frog-family/

Congratulations to Drs. David and Karin Pfennig for gracing the cover of the spring 2020 issue of the magazine!

Congratulations to our biology majors elected this year to Phi Beta Kappa!

Ashley Nicole Arensdorf
Viren Baharani
Shama Birla
Corbin Bryan
Frankie Burgos
Abigail Glaize Carey-Ewend
Christina Cobos
Lucas Christopher Collins
Peter Jonathan Compton
Sarah Marie Cook
Henry Jacob Cox
Jesse Christina Dahringer
Kent R. Dickerson
Julia Marie DiNicola
Christina Maria Rosa D’Ovidio
Trevor David Fachko
Sarah Flexman
Andrew Charles Fregenal
Jason Guo
Andrew Jacob Harvey
Jamison Kline
Emily Michele Kokush
Farhan Lakhani
Spencer Maranto
Lauren Alexis McCormick
Nicole Rose Nay
Victoria Nguyen
Maxwell Vincent Petruzzi
William Bradley Sabo
Katherine Rae Salisbury
Suvleen Kaur Singh
Joy A. Stouffer
Katherine Gray Welch
William Frederick Wiener
Samantha Mary Yi

Biology Ph.D. student Kayla Goforth has been quoted in an article for Nature World News for her work on an article with Charles P. Postelle, Jr. Distinguished Professor Kenneth Lohmann! Congratulations Kayla and Kenneth!

The referenced article was originally published in Current Biology: Current Biology a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all areas of biology, especially molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology and has been a part of Cell Press since 2001. Kayla and Kenneth’s article is titled “Odors from marine plastic debris elicit foraging behavior in sea turtles.”

Kayla is a member of Kenneth’s lab and studies the development of foraging ground fidelity in sea turtles, migration patterns of long-distance marine migrants, and geomagnetic imprinting and natal homing. Kenneth‘s research focuses on geomagnetic imprinting and natal homing in sea turtles, salmon, and other long-distance ocean migrants, use of Earth’s magnetic field in navigation by animals, the physics, neuroscience, and genes underlying magnetic field detection, neuroethology and sensory ecology, and conservation physiology, biodiversity, and Galapagos megafauna.

Read the Nature World News article HERE and the Current Biology article HERE

Biology Graduate student Catherine Chen and Biology Professor Karin Pfennig have been published in the March issue of Science Magazine! Congratulations Catherine and Karin!

Science Magazine: Science Magazine is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and one of the world’s top academic journals. Catherine and Karin’s article is titled “Female toads engaging in adaptive hybridization prefer high-quality heterospecifics as mates.”

Catherine is a member of Karin’s lab and studies hybrid behavior and the role it plays in gene flow between species, as well as the significance of multimodal signaling. Karin is a behavioral and evolutionary ecologist who blends field and laboratory work to understand sexual selection, the evolution of mate choice and their roles in hybridization, species boundaries, and the origins of new species.

Read more about the article HERE