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Biology Profs among Most Influential Scientists

Rob Jackson, Philip Benfey, Tai-ping Sun and Xinnian Dong are among the top 1 per cent of faculty whose publications are cited by other authors,according to Thomson Reuters. The study identified 3,215 researchers around the world, of whom 32 work for Duke. [more]

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In Plain English VIa: John Willis

John Willis loves figuring things out--specifically, how the wildflower Mimulus adapts to different environments.  Colonies adapt to different elevations, or degrees of drought, or soil types.  Some have even evolved to live on highly contaminated soil near a copper mine.  Which of their genes change, and do they change in many little ways or one big way?  Why do some separated groups lose the ability to reproduce with their neighbors? Are the genes that help them adapt the same ones that prevent living hybrid offspring???

 

The Willis group tests this with "tricky crosses" between different varieties.  If the copper mine variety mates with nearby types, the offspring all die.  But when one parent is crossed to a third and their viable offspring to the other parent, it produces some living offspring and some that die.  By analyzing which parts of the parents' chromosomes each type inherited, the lab can zero in on the killer gene.  Scientists assumed that the copper-tolerant gene was the killer, but Willis recently showed that a near neighbor, which "hitchhiked" with copper tolerance into the population, was guilty. 

 

The lab also uses tricky crosses to study a genetic arms race fought inside the seed, between the parents.  But that’s a different story. [more]

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Philip Benfey Featured in Current Biology!

The October 7 issue of Current Biology features an interview with Philip Benfey, describing his unconventional path to the research lab and the study of root development. Most interesting! [more]

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Connecting Undergraduates to Biology Research

CUBR is launched! The web-based program allows Biology researchers to post openings for undergraduates interested in research. These can be paid or unpaid, eligible for work-study, suitable for independent thesis research, etc. Undergraduates can enter their particulars and apply for three positions per semester in their areas of interest. Thanks to Sheila Patek for suggesting and creating this new program! Here's to rewarding research experiences all around. [more]

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Erin McKenney Receives Award

The Comparative Nutrition Society gave the Best Oral Presentation Award to Erin McKenney of the Yoder lab. Well done, Erin! [more]

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Lutzoni Lab Stands Out at International Mycological Congress

Two members of the Lutzoni Lab were honored at the quadrennial 10th International Mycological Congress, held August 3 to 8 in Bangkok, Thailand. Grad student Ko-Hsuan Chen received a best poster award. Alumna Tami McDonald received the Mason Hale Award from the International Association for Lichenology for the best Ph.D. thesis in lichenology completed in the past 2 years. Congratulations to Koko and Tami!

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Undergrad Visualizes Wound Healing in Kiehart Lab

Junior Roger Zou received a Dean's Summer Fellowship to develop computational methods that track cells of fruit fly embryos as they develop and heal. "My favorite thing about my research is the ability to learn new things independently," Zou said. Prof. Kiehart "is very good at leading me in the right direction but allowing me to be very independent . . . I’ve been able to learn a lot more and learn from my mistakes." Sounds fruitful for everyone! [more]

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Pryer Receives Durham Grit Award!

Kathleen Pryer has received the Durham Grit Award from the Herald-Sun "for her creativity and persistence" in crowd-sourcing research funding. Pryer has sought support for sequencing the genome of Azolla, a fern with great potential for cleaner and cheaper agriculture. Congratulations, Kathleen, and stick to it! [more]

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Vilgalys Named Distinguished Mycologist

The Mycological Society of America has given its Distinguished Mycologist Award to Prof. Rytas Vilgalys. This is one of the highest awards bestowed by the MSA and marks a distinguished career. Nominees are evaluated on the quality, originality, and quantity of their published research, and on to the field of mycology. Prof. Vilgalys, whose netid is fungi, shares the award with Charles W. Bacon. [more]

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Lomax Boyd Featured in Duke Today

Genetics and Genomics grad student Lomax Boyd was featured in an article published on July 1 about the Center for Documentary Studies. Lomax will receive a Certificate in Documentary Arts from the Center when he graduates later this year. We'll be expecting some exciting science documentaries, Lomax! [more]

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NIHCD Awards Funds to Baugh Lab

Prof. Ryan Baugh's Lab has received funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Development for exploratory research. The Baugh Lab will develop a forward population genetics approach in the nematode C. elegans for genome-wide identification of genes that influence life-history traits such as growth, reproduction and starvation survival. Congratulations! [more]

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Sherwood, Baugh Labs Publish in PLoS Genetics

The Sherwood lab in collaboration with the Baugh group has just published a paper in PLoS Genetics, where they have discovered new developmental checkpoints in C. elegans that reversibly arrest development at specific developmental stages in response to starvation conditions. These checkpoints have the effect of freezing not only development, but slowing the aging process. This work may also have implications in how tumor cells lie dormant and then reawaken during cancer progression. Way to make a sPLoSh! [more, alt.]

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Sophomore is a "Student Creating Knowledge"

A new series for Duke Today features sophomore Mitchell Lee, a Biology major who is doing research in Prof. Nick Buchler's lab. Lee is studying artificial gene circuits that can switch genes on and off. You can read more about his work and his experience in a Biology lab at the link! [more]

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Biomajor Wins Undergrad Poster Award

Shane Daly, a 2014 graduate, received the award for the best undergraduate poster presentation from the American Association of Anatomists. He worked with Prof. Andrea Taylor in the Department of Physical Therapy, and plans to attend medical school. [more]

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Sherwood Lab Paper in Nature Communications

The paper (June 13, 2014 issue) describes a new mechanism for basement membrane opening that has been maintained in nematodes for ~350 million years of evolution. Similar mechanisms may play a role in development and cancer, where basement membrane gaps allow the movement and exchange of cells between tissues. Great work by the Sherwood group! [more]

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Nowicki Lab Publishes in PLoS One

Rindy Anderson and Casey Klofstad teamed up with two researchers from the Fuqua School to test how a trendy vocal pattern affects job prospects. "Vocal Fry May Undermine the Success of Young Women in the Labor Market" appeared May 28th and has been viewed over 50,000 times. The study has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Telegraph (UK), and on CBS News, as well as a number of blogs. [more]

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Honors Student Corley Gibbs Featured by Huff Post

Kathleen Donohue's honors student, Corley Gibbs, has published an article in the Huffington Post. "The Role of Duplicated Genes as Plants Respond to Environment" briefly describes Corley's project and his future plans, and credits Kathleen Donohue and the Donohue Lab with making his research possible. Congratulations to Corley Gibbs and Prof. Donohue for putting Duke Biology in the headlines! [more]

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Grad Student Abbe Labella Dives Deep

Abbe LaBella (Cunningham Lab) has been visiting the sea floor courtesy of Alvin, the famous and newly refurbished deep sea submersible from Woods Hole. Alvin is helping Abbe collect mussels, tubeworms and clams from deep sea cold sinks. She and the Cunningham group will study the animals' genetics to learn how they migrate from one cold patch to another. You can read about her adventures at her blog! Just click on the link. [more]

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Dave Steinberg and Leal Group Publish in PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 19, 2014) has published grad student Dave Steinberg's paper, "Predation-associated modulation of movement-based signals by a Bahamian lizard." The paper demonstrates signal modulation in response to predation pressure. From the Leal Lab website: "In the case of this study, we had to endure tropical storms, the scorching sun, poisonwood, millions of sand-flies, and hundreds of horse-flies, in order to be prepared for the precise moment when a male Anolis sagrei would display." Congrats to Dave for enduring all and bringing home the prize! [more]

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Update on Azolla: Crowdfund Kathleen Pryer's Research!

Kathleen Pryer and her lab group have posted their Azolla genome project on the "Experiment.com" website for crowd-funding! You can participate by going to the website and searching for Azolla, or clicking on "read more" at the end of this post. Come one come all! [more]

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Pryer Promotes Study of Azolla Fern to the Public

The Globe and Mail newspaper of Toronto, Ontario, has published Prof. Kathleen Pryer's Op-Ed extolling the nitrogen-fixing virtue of the "lowly fern" azolla. It offers enormous potential for replacing the destructive and expensive use of industrial fertilizers. [more]

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Nowicki and Reynolds to lead new HHMI education grant

Biology Profs. Steve Nowicki and Julie Reynolds are the PI's on a $1.5 million grant from Howard Hughes Medical Institute to improve undergraduate science education. The award will fund work on "Student Learning and Faculty Development Communities," which aims to improve student engagement, faculty mentoring skills, and interaction between students and faculty. [more]

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ASPB Recognizes Jim Siedow

The American Society for Plant Biologists has granted its oldest award, the Charles Reid Barnes Lifetime Membership Award, to Prof. Jim Siedow. The award is given "for both his stellar research in plant biochemistry, and his service to the plant biology community." Siedow's research "helped found the field of mitochondrial bioenergetics", and he served as the ASPB's President in 1994-1995. Congratulations, Jim! [more]

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Yoder to be Next President of Society of Systematic Biologists

Prof. Anne Yoder has been chosen President of the Society of Systematic Biologists for a 3-year term beginning in 2015. The Society was founded in 1950 and publishes the journal Systematic Biology. Congratulations, Anne! [more]

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Biology Faculty Honored with Named Chairs

Two Biology professors have been awarded distinguished chairs, the highest honor given to faculty. Prof. Fred Nijhout has been named the John Franklin Crowell Professor of Biology, and Prof. Tom Mitchell-Olds has been named the Newman Ivey White Professor of Biology. Well done (and richly deserved)!

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AAAS Elects Susan Alberts!

Prof. Susan Alberts has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy was founded in 1790 and has about 4600 Fellows and 600 foreign honorary members. The 2014 class of Fellows honors 204 distinguished scholars, writers, artists, civic leaders and philanthropists. Congratulations, Susan! [more]

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Huff Post Features Broverman's WISER Project

This week the Huffington Post featured an article about the WISER girls' education project in Kenya founded by Sherryl Broverman. Written by Duke student Sofia Stafford, the article describes WISER's success in moving girls in Muhuru Bay through primary and secondary education. In the past 30 years only one girl from the community has gone to university; this year all 28 WISER graduates will attend! Well-deserved recognition for Biology's own Prof. Broverman. [more]

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Dan Skelly gets NRSA Postdoc Fellowship

The title says it all. The National Institutes of Health have awarded an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship to Dan Skelly, a postdoc in the Magwene Lab. The title of Dan's project is "Functional variation in a conserved pathway influencing cellular differentiation." Congratulations!

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Dave Sherwood Lab Publishes in JCB

Laura Kelley and Elliott Hagedorn have published a paper in the March 31 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology. Their study reveals how the actin regulatory protein cofilin coordinates dynamic F-actin turnover and membrane delivery to make functional invadopodia--specialized subcellular "drill bits" used by invasive cells to penetrate other tissues. As an added feature, this research is featured in a JCB "biobytes" podcast (March 31 edition)! Congrats to all involved. [more]

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Biograds Win NSF Pre-Docs!

Biology graduate students Aspen Reese (Wright lab), Peter Tonner (Schmid lab), and Ariana Eily (Haase lab) have been awarded NSF pre-doctoral fellowships. The fellowship provides 3 years of full support, including a stipend, institutional allowance and [drumroll, please] access to XSEDE supercomputing resources. Congratulations Aspen, Peter and Ariana! [more]

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In Plain English VIIIa: Paul Magwene

Deep in the darkest recesses of a cell something determines its fate:  How will it react to food or famine?  Should it grow and divide?  Into two identical daughter cells, or four daughters with mixed-up chromosomes?

Paul Magwene wants not only to know how a yeast cell decides to behave, but to watch it do so in real time.  He studies a signalling pathway, a series of chemical reactions which transmits signals from the exterior of the cell to the nucleus.  There it turns particular genes on or off, determining the cell's behavior.  Paul tries to match genetic variation in this pathway to different cell fates. 

Right now his lab is adapting a cool technique that will make yeast cells fluoresce when the pathway is stimulated.  If it works, they can expose cells with different versions of the pathway to different stimuli, and watch how it lights up!

Meanwhile Paul is teaching himself to play the piano.  He’s especially interested in creating music with algorithms or formal rules, just as DNA governs an organism by varying the sequence of four bases.  Is there a G-C-A-T Symphony in his future?

[more]

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In Plain English VIIIb: John Mercer

Before going to college John Mercer joined the Navy.  See the world!  Experience life!  After much training John became an Electronics Technician-Reactor, 1st Class, on a nuclear submarine.  He saw a lot of grey paint.  Then he went to college and graduate school to study biophysics, and embarked on a different kind of fantastic voyage. 

On this voyage John has descended to the level of DNA molecules and proteins, the technicians 1st class of the cell, to see how they evolve.  Many powerful techniques exist for studying proteins: determining their three-dimensional structure, analyzing their chemistry, constructing mathematical models.  You can manipulate their structure by changing some components, put the result into a yeast or bacterial cell, and sit back and watch as the generations roll by.  By putting the same line of cells in different environments, you can see if your modified protein makes any difference to the cells' ability to adapt and ultimately evolve.  John hopes one day to understand the selective pressures that cause proteins to change.

In the meantime, BEAT ARMY!

[more]

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Koelle and Rasmussen Publish Nature: News and Views

Grad Student David Rasmussen and Prof. Katia Koelle published a short review in the March 6 issue of Nature. It addresses a paper in the same issue which describes a model for predicting the mutation of the flu virus (Nature 507:57-61). [more]

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Stacy Scholle Receives Honorable Mention

Graduate student Stacy Scholle received one of three Honorable Mentions awarded by The American Naturalist for the 2013 Student Paper of the Year. The honorable mention was for her 2013 paper entitled "Viral substitution rate variation can arise from the interplay between within-host and epidemiological dynamics." Her coauthors were Rolf Ypma, Alun Lloyd, Katia Koelle. [more]

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Laurie Stevison Wins John Maynard Smith Prize!

Laurie Stevison, a 2007 graduate of the Noor Lab, has won the John Maynard Smith Prize from the European Society for Evolutionary Biology. The prize, which includes a monetary award and a 3-month fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin, is given annually to an outstanding young evolutionary biologist. Congratulations to Laurie! [more]

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Kier to Deliver Schmidt-Nielsen Lecture Today

The Schmidt-Nielsen Memorial Seminar takes place today at 6:30 pm in Room 2231 French Family Science Center. William Kier, Professor of Biology at UNC-Chapel Hill, will speak on "How Squid Grow Fast Muscle." The event honors former Prof. Kurt Schmidt-Nielsen, who taught animal physiology at Duke for many years. Sponsored by the BioMajors Union and the Department of Biology.

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Carrie Wessinger wins prestigious fellowship.

Recent Rausher lab graduate Carrie Wessinger has been awarded a Ruth Kirchstein National Research Service fellowship by the NIH. Following up on her doctoral research on the genetics of parallel evolution of flower color in hummingbird-pollinated Penstemon, she will be exploring the genetic basis of floral pollinator syndrome evolution in the laboratory of Lena Hileman at the University of Kansas. Congratulations, Carrie!

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Ryan Baugh Paper Featured by Cell

Cell features Ryan Baugh et al.'s paper "Pol II Docking and Pausing at Growth and Stress Genes in C. elegans" (10.1016/j.celrep.2014.01.008) with a podcast interview and blog mention! Baugh and colleagues show that RNA polymerase II pauses and backtracks during early elongation in C. elegans. Check it out at the link! [more]

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Congratulations to Irene Liu!

Irene Liu,a graduate student in the Nowicki Lab, has received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring. This award is given annually to two or three graduate students who have been nominated from across the whole university. The award includes a $2000 prize. Great work, Irene! [more]

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Volkan Lab Publishes in Current Biology

The Volkan Lab has published "Combinatorial Rules of Precursor Specification Underlying Olfactory Neuron Diversity" in the Dec. 16 issue of Current Biology. The paper describes how transcription factors combine to create a diversity of olfactory receptors. Watch a video of cells turning into a receptor at the link! [more]

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Five Biograds win Sigma Xi Grants!

Laura Bagge, Eleanor Caves, Brenna Forester (SoE), Katie Thomas, and T. Viehman (DUML)have been awarded Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research. The program receives approximately 2,000 applications per year and awards grants of up to $1,000 to students from all areas of the sciences and engineering. [more]

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Erin McKenney to Attend Global Young Scientists Summit

Grad student Erin McKenney will attend the Global Young Scientists Summit in Singapore from Jan. 19 to 25. The theme of the meeting is "Advancing Science, Creating Technologies for a Better World." [more]

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Bejsovec Lab Publishes in Development

Amy Bejsovec, Elizabeth Greer and Anna Chao have published "Pebble/ECT2 RhoGEF negatively regulates the Wingless/Wnt signaling pathway" in the Dec. 15 issue of Development. The editors chose to draw special attention to their work in the highlight section "In This Issue." Congratulations for a job well done! [more]

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Volkan Lab Breaks into Print!

The Dec. 18 issue of Current Biology will publish first-author Tristan Li's paper, "Combinatorial rules of precursor specification underlying olfactory neuron diversity." The paper was rated highly enough to merit a review artifcle in the same issue. Congratulations to Tristan, Pelin and all the hard workers in the Volkan Lab! [more]

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Shaw's Peatmoss Sequencing Project Approved

The Joint Genome Institute has approved a proposal by Jon Shaw and co-PI David Weston (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) to sequence the genome of a species of Sphagnum (peatmoss). JGI chose Sphagnum to be the first plant genome sequenced because of its importance to the global carbon cycle and climate change. Scientists believe peatmosses contain almost 30% of the terrestrial carbon pool because of the thick deposits of peat they form in northern wetlands. [more]

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In Plain English VIIa: Zhen-Ming Pei

Zhen-Ming Pei wants to understand how plants sense basic aspects of their environment: salt, temperature and most of all, water.  They do this with ion channels, specialized parts of cell membranes that open and close in response to environmental signals.  If water is present the corresponding channel stays closed.  When the plant lacks water, the channel opens and allows calcium to enter the cell.  There the calcium atoms bind to an array of different proteins, triggering processes which allow plants to save water. 

Identifying the genes responsible requires years of painstaking labor, generating plants with random  mutations and sorting through them to find the ones that don't have the calcium cascade.  That means that the ion channel is not working and its controlling gene has mutated.   Zhen-Ming’s lab can propagate these plants for further study.

Obviously drought- and salt-resistant crops would have great importance for agriculture.  But Zhen-Ming really wants to work on a big question: sensing processes.  The rest of the time he is happy tinkering with his car.

[more]

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In Plain English VIIb: Chantal Reid

Chantal Reid is excited about teaching “How Plants Feed and Fuel the World.”  She and Jim Siedow have taught it before, but this time is different: they've “flipped” the classroom and instituted “team-based learning.”  “You can see the students learning, it’s really exciting,” she says.  “I don’t ever want to teach another way.” 

Flipping?  Teams?  Huh? 

In a flipped class, there is no formal lecture; the students prepare by studying the assigned material beforehand.  Class begins with a test taken individually and then in teams.  The students discuss the material and debate the correct answers; the faculty are careful to make the teams roughly equal in ability so that those with more background can help the others.  Meanwhile the professors hover, ready to guide the discussion if it starts going down the wrong path.  If lots of students have the same misunderstanding, the faculty can halt the discussion and give a mini-lecture on that subject.  The teams also do projects together, such as analyzing data taken from a published paper without knowing the author's conclusions.  The students end up teaching themselves, which is pretty sweet for the faculty!

Actually, preparing short videos, study guides and tests takes a lot of time.  If she had any spare time, Chantal would use her creativity to sew all her own clothes.

[more]

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In Plain English VIb: Alec Motten

Alec Motten is excited about bioluminescence—live creatures that glow in the dark.  The lab for Organismal Diversity gives him an excuse to gather together as many of them as possible:  fireflies, sea pansies, fungi, parchment tube worms, bacteria, single-cell plankton, comb jellyfish, an embarras de richesse.  There are representatives of every kingdom except plants.  He also throws in some merely fluorescent things which require UV light to glow, like chlorophyll.??

 

Mysteries abound when it comes to why these creatures glow, as the mechanisms all evolved separately.  Firefly adults flash to attract mates (and some females to lure males of other species to become dinner), but then why does the larva glow?  Do the marine bacteria light up like a neon Diner sign, hoping the customers will carry them to new territories?  The worms bury themselves in the muddy tidal bottom; since they can’t run, perhaps they hope to frighten predators by suddenly lighting up when disturbed.  And the fungi?  They’re just weird.

 

Time cannot stale nor custom wither Nature’s infinite variety.  And Alec can’t get enough of it.

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In Plain English V.a: Vikas Bhandawat

Vikas Bhandawat chose to study the sense of smell in fruit flies because it is so much simpler than sight. Less than 10,000 neurons! But how to control the odors and map the fly's reaction? His group has devised an apparatus that traps the fly between 2 glass plates and confines the odor to one area. Vikas can then track the fly's reaction, not just whether it is attracted or repelled, but how fast it moves, how often it pauses, and its trail over the plate. Looking at Vikas' results for 2 different flies, it was striking that there was a basic pattern for each fly that remained consistent whether the fly was sensing an odor or not. One stopped frequently and ventured straight out and back, while the other stayed in motion but varied its speed, and took wide excursions to the plate's rim. Good Lord, can fruit flies actually be individuals? Yes, says Vikas; we think that we are very complex, but fruit flies are really amazing. "I wouldn't mind to be a fly. But the real question is, how much are we humans like the fly?" Vikas now works the problem from the other end with his current favorite activity: watching his 14-month-old daughter grow up. [more]

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In Plain English V.b: Sam Johnson

The great scientist Sir Isaac Newton formulated his theory of light at Cambridge University, enabling great improvements to lenses of microscopes and telescopes. It seems only fitting that Sam Johnson, who attended Cambridge simply because Newton did, should now manage Duke’s Light Microscopy Facility, making 20+ high-tech microscopes available to researchers across the university. The scopes take pictures of sea scallop eyes, human cardiac tissue, nanoprobe chips, proteins moving inside living cells, lipid layers, and everything in between, usually treated so that the interesting bit is fluorescent. The LMCF’s image analysis workstations are regularly beefed up with more computing power, the better to assemble 3-D images or stitch together a quilt of images covering a large sample. One of the latest innovations is a technique that renders objects almost transparent, so the researcher can see 8 millimeters deep into the sample. Sam also offers courses ranging from broad overviews to in-depth study over a semester. Get your head inside some cool pictures at http://microscopy.duke.edu/ ! [more]

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In Plain English, IV.a: Fred Nijhout

Animals come in all sizes, but how does one know when it’s grown to the right size? That’s been puzzling Fred Nijhout for a long time, but he thinks he has part of the answer—at least for tobacco hornworms. It’s all about oxygen deprivation. Instead of lungs, insects have branching tubes which carry air from holes in their bodies all the way down to the cellular level. The tubes’ lining is the same stuff as the exoskeleton, folded into cylinders and diving inside the animal. And like the exoskeleton, it does not grow. As the caterpillar gets bigger, it reaches a point when the tubes can’t supply enough oxygen: time to molt, big fella. The old exoskeleton cracks and falls off, taking the tubes’ lining with it and making way for a new, slightly larger system. By controlling the amount of oxygen available to the hornworms, Fred was able to control their size. But how does the no-longer-hungry caterpillar know that it’s time not just to molt but to metamorphose? Its juvenile hormones switch off. Fred originally planned to explain this in his Ph.D. thesis but it’s still a great mystery. “Hope springs eternal,” he says. [more]

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In Plain English, IV.b: Nina Tang Sherwood

Fruit flies live long enough to have degenerative diseases? Yes, and Nina Sherwood studies one that impairs the ability to walk. A defective gene affects how the cells of the nervous system talk to muscle cells: the neurons, or transmitter cells, don’t form their synapses correctly and signals don’t go through. But that’s not the whole story. It now appears that the glial cells, once thought to be merely connective tissue, over-react to the malformed synapse and do more damage trying to repair it. Under the microscope Nina can see that glia in the mutant flies are much more active, reaching out appendages towards the neurons. The good news is that if the glia are halted, the disease is much less devastating. As there is a corresponding disease in humans, this is a gratifying discovery indeed. But what draws Nina into the lab every day, day after day, is the “aesthetics of biology;” she studies biology because it is so beautiful, on every level. [more]

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In Plain English, III.b: Terry Corliss

Terry Corliss started collecting insects at age 5 and progressed to fish, reptiles and eventually microbes.  Now she leads a hard-working team in the teaching labs, seen only when they venture above ground to remove boxes (sometimes disconcertingly marked “Live Animals”) from the mailroom.  The Lab Prep Team supports 6 courses and about 1400 students each academic year.  Every semester the labs have to roll out like clockwork, and the Prep Team had better have the materials ready when the students show up.  It’s a perfect job for a microbiologist who has no favorites among all the organisms she deals with.??

Does anything ever go wrong?  Terry is cagey, but she does allow that occasionally Things Get Loose.  The slugs were easily tracked by their slime, but the tarantula cruising down the hallway was more worrisome. 

We are happy to report that heightened security is now in effect, including some carnivorous plants in the fruit fly lab.  Of course Terry gives the biggest props to the humans on her team:  Ewa, Patricia, Mark, Kathleen, Susan and Dianne!  Go, Team!

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In Plain English, III.a: Meng Chen

Meng Chen got his job by accident; that is, he accidentally discovered a mutant while he was a post-doc, and now his lab is defining a new area in the study of light signal transduction.  The pre-Socratic philosophers first observed how plants turn and grow towards light; now we know that light is the master switch that turns on or off a full third of the plant genome.  Proteins sense the color, intensity, direction and duration of light and send signals down the pathway. Eventually the signals turn on genes causing the plant to respond by changing its shape, flowering, and so on.  Scientists thought they had mapped the entire pathway but Meng's blind mutant lacks an essential component, still unknown. ??

But that accident that started it all--how did that happen?  Meng admits that he is a very messy person.  His postdoctoral colleagues actually took a photo of his supremely messy bench, framed it and added their good wishes for his future at Duke.  Perhaps being messy leads to more accident-al discoveries, in which case we should all emulate Meng.

[more]

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In Plain English

“It’s a good time to be a mycologist,” says Rytas Vilgalys. Rytas began by learning the edible and inedible mushrooms at his Muka’s (grandmother’s) side. He’s never stopped, first studying the DNA of fungi to discover how species evolved and their relationships and differences. Current genomic techniques analyze the entire genetic makeup of species and particularly how different genes coordinate with one another. “It’s a quantum leap,” Rytas says, allowing his lab to study communities of different fungi living in the soil of pine and cottonwood forests: how they live, eat, reproduce, communicate, cooperate and compete with each other and even with plants. Every aspect of the natural history of fungi is open to scrutiny in the Vilgalys Lab, where it’s all fungi all the time. [more]

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In Plain English, Pt. 2

Eric Spana just finished running “Nerd Camp”—that is, pSearch, a pre-orientation program introducing freshmen to research. All day for 2 weeks upperclassmen immerse the students in isolating, cloning and sequencing DNA, under Eric’s benevolent guidance. These freshmen have been selected because they want a more meaningful exposure to science; Eric remembers one student whose high school biology labs were all done online. In pSearch they have fun and form lasting friendships, and members of the first pSearch class (2009) are now enrolled in medical school, M.D.-Ph.D. programs, and veterinary school. Now Eric is getting ready for another kind of “Nerd Camp”—the DragonCon convention in Atlanta, which he will attend disguised as Bruce Banner. Just don’t make him angry. [more]

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In Plain English, II.b.: Michael Barnes

Down behind the French building, far from the mailroom and offices, the labs on upper floors and the subterranean teaching space, there is a great kingdom: the kingdom of plants. That is, the greenhouses. This is Michael Barnes’ realm, where he and his horticulturists tend thousands of plants. In some rooms the same plant marches row upon row, grown for research into natural genetic variation or how plants resist disease. But the Live Plant Collections hold 1,000 different species from all over the world, showing the kingdom’s wondrous variety. One of Michael’s most important tasks is protecting the plants from pests. “I spend a lot of time spraying pesticides, and I hate it.” So to stay out of the protective “space suit,” Michael is using organic pest control: bacteria, fungi and insects that eliminate the pests that ride into his kingdom on people’s Duke blue shirts or hatching out of dirty pots. He just released some tiny wasps that feed on thrips, sucking out their precious bodily fluids. Other beneficials actually function like the alien in “Alien,” laying their eggs in pests’ larvae. The young eat the larvae from the inside out. Brrrr! There are still situations that demand pesticides, as when introducing a beneficial fungus would contaminate the genetic material being studied. But Michael is making a dent. In his free time Michael goes white-water kayaking, most recently in the New River Gorge. “I was genuinely scared for my life, but it was exhilarating.” Don’t put any dents in yourself, Michael! To arrange a tour, visit the Live Plant Collections website. [more]

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In Plain English, Part the Second: Katia Koelle

Like many people today, Katia Koelle is fascinated by ancestry. But she's not tracing her family tree; instead, she uses genealogies of viruses like flu and sophisticated mathematics to model how these diseases transmit themselves and spread during an outbreak. “It just floors me how math can reveal fundamental patterns in biology,” she says. By analyzing viruses’ genetic heritage she can track how they have evolved, how different strains are related, and how their population has risen and fallen over time. Then she can begin to untangle how the virus's environment has pushed it to evolve, and in turn how this influences the amount of disease is around us. Katia also hopes to evolve her 18-month-old daughter's thinking about appropriate sports for women. She's taking her to the roller derby. [more]

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Manuel Leal Featured in New York Times

The New York Times of Nov. 18, 2013 published an article featuring among others the work of Manuel Leal on reptilian intelligence, including video of a very dashing green anole solving the problem of uncorking a tube to get his dinner. The research shows that reptiles can exhibit behavioral flexibility and learning, including learning from the example of others or social learning. Congratulations, Manuel, for this well-deserved recognition! [more]

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Holiday Food Drive! December 9 through 16

Biology's traditional holiday food drive begins on Monday the 9th and continues through the Holiday Social on Dec. 16th. Please contribute non-perishable food for those in need. You will find collection bins in the BioSci mailroom and the French atrium (no glass containers, please). On the 17th the food will be delivered to Urban Ministries and the Durham Tech food pantry.

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Online Course Garners Worldwide Attention

Mohamed Noor's Coursera class on Genetics and Evolution drew some 30,000 students--and a little over 2000 even finished all the assignments! Students formed discussion groups in Portuguese, Russian, Norwegian, Greek and gave Noor loads of helpful feedback. Australian Russell Myers developed an iPhone app gor generating test questions that Noor will continue to use in his Duke classes. Read all about it at Duke Today. [more]

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Grad students win Science Outreach funding

Jenn Coughlan, Katie Thomas and Maggie Warner have received two Science Student Education Outreach grants to fund activities at Lowe's Grove Middle School in Durham. The grants will support work with the 6th and 8th grades, presenting "Vision Field Day" and "Food fight: plant defense compounds" as part of a continuing partnership with the school, which serves an at-risk population. The lessons developed will be available to other graduate students doing outreach work. Three cheers for Jenn, Kate and Maggie!

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Vilgalys and Bonito Score!

The Joint Genome Institute has accepted a proposal from Rytas Vilgalys and Greg Bonito to study "Comparative genomics of early diverging terrestrial fungi and their bacterial endosymbionts." The study will obtain genome sequences from 25 early-diverging plant-associated fungi and their endosymbiotic bacterial partners.

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Durham County Appreciates the Department of Biology!

The Durham County Board of Commissioners has awarded a certificate of appreciation to the department. Last summer Greenhouse Supervisor Michael Barnes mentored a student intern sponsored by the county in the Durham YouthWork Internship Program. The program provides an opportunity for secondary students to learn good work skills and for employers to develop local talent. Thanks to Mike for earning this award and doing good work in our community. [more]

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Julie Reynolds Promotes Metacognition

Julie Reynolds and former Biology faculty member Paula Lemons, et al., have published a chapter in the anthology "Using Reflection and Metacognition to Improve Student Learning." Their contribution is entitled "Improving Critical-Thinking Skills in Introductory Biology Through Quality Practice and Metacognition." Practice makes perfect! [more]

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Magwene Scores Funding

Paul Magwene has received funding for his project "Causes and Consequences of Variation in cyclic AMP - Protein Kinase A Signaling in Yeast." Special congratulations in this highly competitive environment! [more]

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Lutzoni Lab Members Make Good!

Congratulations to postdocs Ester Gaya and Ryoko Oono! Ester has accepted a permanent position as Senior Researcher in Mycology, at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, London, UK. Ryoko will take up a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor in the department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at the University of California Santa Barbara on Jan. 1, 2014.

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Klopfer Wins Trent Foundation Award

The Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation has awarded Peter Klopfer and collaborator Andrew Krystal $3500 to support their research, "Does Torpor Enhance Sexual Function?" The funding will support the team's next season of field research in Madagascar, where they study a prosimian that spends half its life in hibernation. [more]

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Alberts Answers Question of Reproductive Aging

The July 29, 2013 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences contains "Reproductive aging patterns in primates reveal that humans are distinct" by Prof. Alberts et al. The paper analyzes data from seven non-human primate species to show that only human females regularly lose their fertility and cease to reproduce in midlife. This should be an evolutionary disadvantage, so much mystery remains. [more]

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Craver Appointed Examiner for Baldrige Award

Catherine Craver, Assistant Director of NESCent, has been appointed to the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The Award, created by public law in 1987, is the highest level of national recognition for performance excellence that a U.S. organization can receive. The Baldrige Program for Performance Excellence helps business, government, education and non-profit organizations improve results and achieve goals. [more]

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Report from Madagascar!

Duke Biologists are working in Tsinjoarivo, Madagascar to study the ecophysiology of the lemur, which hibernates 6 months out of the year.  Graduate student Sheena Faherty is looking at the genomic control of torpor and Postdoc Marina Blanco the environmental triggers and controls thereof, with senior Susan Hilbig assisting. Peter Klopfer and colleagues are examining the role of brain activity during hibernation, while Anne Yoder coordinates from afar.??

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Julie Reynolds Honored by Ecological Society of America

The Ecological Society of America has announced its 2013 class of fellows, including Julie Reynolds. According to the ESA, "Fellows are members who have made outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA, including, but not restricted to those that advance or apply ecological knowledge in academics, government, non-profit organizations and the broader society. They are elected for life." Congratulations, Julie! [more]

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Sherwood Lab Gets Cover of JCB

The cover of the current issue of the Journal of Cell Biology features a paper from the Sherwood Lab, "The netrin receptor DCC focuses invadopodia-driven basement membrane transmigration in vivo." The paper identifies subcellular structures called invadopodia (invasive feet), that allow cells to penetrate through extracellular matrix and invade other tissues. Kudos! [more]

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Heard on NPR: Jon Shaw

Prof. Shaw was interviewed for a story on Morning Edition about arctic mosses found under retreating glaciers by Canadian researchers. The mosses were not only green, they were still growing and flourished under cultivation in the lab. Prof. Shaw provided important background and analysis of homeowners' reactions to moss growing in their lawns. [more]

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Duke Wins NIH Grant to Promote Diversity in the Biosciences

The Biosciences Collaborative for Research Engagement (BioCoRE) will be supported by a $1.8 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). One of its leaders is Prof. Julie Reynolds, Asst. Dir. of Undergraduate Studies in Biology. One aspect will be a new freshman seminar introducing students to research opportunities and the scientific community. This award is part of an NIH initiative to promote careers in biology and medicine to underrepresented minorities. [more]

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Bonito Publishes on "Edible Ectomycorrhizal Mushrooms"

Greg Bonito, senior researcher in the Vilgalys Lab, and A. Zambonelli edited "Edible Ectomycorrhizal Mushrooms," Vol. 34 of 'Soil Biology.' The book includes recent research on the ecology, systematics, genomics, medicinal properties, and cultivation of this large family of fungi. Everything you need to get into truffle farming! [more]

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Vogel Publishes 2nd Edition of "Comparative Biomechanics"

Prof. Steve Vogel has brought out the second edition of his acclaimed textbook "Comparative Biomechanics." From a review of the first edition: "[T]his book is tremendous fun to read. Vogel writes with an effervescent sense of delight in his subject. The text is laced with wit and humor, and sprinkled with eclectic examples of nature's many marvels." [more]

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Rausher Recognized as Distinguished Professor

Prof. Mark Rausher is one of 25 Duke faculty to be awarded a distinguished professorship in May 2013. Recipients must be nominated for the honor, which recognizes the quality and the impact of the candidate's intellectual contribution as evaluated by distinguished scholars in their field. [more]

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Biology Faculty Win Arts & Sciences Research Grants

Prof. Daniele Armaleo has received funding for a project entitled "Identifying a secondary metabolite network in the lichen Cladonia grayi." Prof. Sherryl Broverman was awarded funding to start a new research project this summer in Kenya examining the link between nutrition and cognition on students in the WISER (Women's Institute of Secondary Education and Research) primary school program. Additional funding from DukeEngage will enable 10 undergraduates to participate in the study this summer.

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Jill Foster Receives Meritorious Service Award

Jill Foster, assistant to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, has been awarded the Meritorious Service Award for her work with the Biology majors and their their families. Only 16 employees across all of Duke receive this honor. Congratulations, Jill! [more]

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Alumni Distinguished Undergrad Teaching Award goes to Noor

Prof. Mohamed Noor has received the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award, the only teaching award selected by undergraduate students. Students in Biology 202 said Noor visits each of the nearly 30 lab sections and talks weekly with every student. This is the second straight year a Biology faculty member has won this award. Daniele Armaleo received the honor in 2012. [more]

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Dong Elected to American Academy of Microbiology

Prof. Xinnian Dong has been elected to Fellowship in the American Academy of Microbiology. The Academy, the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, recognizes excellence, originality, and creativity in the microbiological sciences. [more]

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Donohue wins Guggenheim, NIMBioS Fellowships

Prof. Kathleen Donohue has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis. Guggenheim Fellows "have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship;" about 200 are selected per year. The NIMBioS awards sabbatical fellowships to foster collaborations between biologists and mathematicians/computer scientists. [more, alt.]

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Biology Grad Students Win NSF Fellowships

Five Biology graduate students have won prestigious NIH pre-doctoral fellowships: Lara Linden, Joanna Rifkin, Matthew Ross, Kate Thomas and Ashley Troth. The fellowships provide a 3-year stipend and funds for educational expenses. Out of some 13,000 applicants only 2,000 received awards, or about 15%. [more]

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Green Monkeys Crush the Opposition!

The Biology-EvAnth team GREEN MONKEYS has prevailed in the Green Devil Smackdown against 42 other teams! The viridian simians demonstrated their sustainability prowess by scoring a whopping 3101 points, to the second place team's 2542. Dong Lab Manager Mindy Sponsel came in third in the individual competition. Congratualtions Mindy and all the GREEN MONKEYS!! [more]

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Julie Reynolds Publishes on Undergraduate Education

Julie Reynolds contributed 2 chapters to "Changing the Conversation about Higher Education," a collection of essays edited by Robert Thompson. The book demonstrates how to improve writing and critical thinking by integrating evidence-based research with experimentation in the classroom. [more]

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ASLO Presents 1st Early Career Award to Bernhardt

The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography has presented the first Yentsch-Schindler Early Career Award to Prof. Emily Bernhardt. The award honors an aquatic scientist within 12 years of the completion of their terminal degree, for outstanding and balanced contributions to research, science training, and broader societal issues. Congratulations, Emily! [more]

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ASCB Highlights Publication by Julie Reynolds et al.

The American Society for Cell Biology has published its "Highlights of Life Science Education - 2012" and chose "Writing-to-Learn in Undergraduate Science Education: A Community-Based, Conceptually Driven Approach," by Assoc. DUS Julie Reynolds as its feature essay. This issue selects the best articles from the previous year of CBE Life Science Education. [more]

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Nijhout/Reed team publishes on Acetominophen toxicity

Acetominophen is a common OTC pain killer, but overdoses cause severe liver damage and even death—50,000 ER visits and 500 deaths per year in the US. The team developed a mathematical model for the transformation of acetaminophen into a toxic metabolite and its reversal by an antidote (NAC). The model accurately predicts patient death or recovery depending on size of the overdose and time of rescue treatment. [more]

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Yoder Lab Finds Climate Change Could Threaten Lemur Health

Meredith Barrett, former UPE student, together with Prof. Yoder and other members of the lab, has published "Climate change, predictive modeling and lemur health: Assessing impacts of changing climate on health and conservation in Madagascar" in the January 2013 issue of Biological Conservation. The study shows that climate change could increase the number and spread of parasites and the diseases they carry, with ill effects on both lemurs and humans. [more]

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Duke's Aye-Ayes Inspire Composer

Composer Michael Hearst recently released "Songs for Unusual Creatures," which includes a tribute to the aye-aye. Hearst visited the Lemur Center looking for inspiration and fixed on the aye-aye, which has ears like a bat, teeth like a rodent, tail like a fox and the face of an opossum. The project also includes a video in which Hearst tours the Lemur Center while the Kronos Quartet plays "Aye-Aye," and the musicians discuss the piece. [more]

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Alberts and Donohue Elected AAAS Fellows

Susan Alberts and Kathleen Donohue have been elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Election as a Fellow of AAAS is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers. Fellows are recognized for meritorious efforts to advance science or its applications. [more]

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Dong and Noor Labs Certified Green!

The Biology Department continues to dominate the Green Labs list as two more are added at the gold level. Congratulations to the Dong and Noor labs! Out of 15 participating labs 12 belong to Biology, and of those certified Biology has 6 out of 7. Let's hear it for chlorophyll! [more]

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Michael Barnes Achieves Certification

Greenhouse Manager Michael Barnes has become a Landscape Industry Certified Manager-Interior with the Professional Landcare Network (formerly the Landscape Contractors Association of America). [more]

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Noor to Lead Society for Study of Evolution.

Mohamed Noor has been elected president of the Society for the Study of Evolution. His term as president will be for the calendar year 2014, and he'll deliver the presidential address at the conference that year in Raleigh, NC (sponsored by NESCent). If he had been elected one year earlier or later, the address would have been in Snowbird, Utah, or Brazil! C'est la vie, or should we say, E a vida.

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Leal Lab Featured on Duke News

A Duke News story and video celebrate the recent publication of "Rapid Change in the Thermal Tolerance of a Tropical Lizard" in the American Naturalist. The article is co-authored by Prof. Manuel Leal and graduate student Alex Gunderson, and demonstrates that the Puerto Rican Anolis cristatellus has adapted to Miami's colder climate in the short span of 35 generations. [more, alt.]

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Kathryn Picard Named Lead PI on DOE Award

Grad student Kathryn Picard (Lutzoni Lab) is lead PI on a Department of Energy/Joint Genome Institute project entitled "Functional genomics of the saprotrophic-symbiotrophic fungus Rhizidium phycophilum and its algal partner Bracteacoccus sp.: increasing algal biomass through symbiosis." Her research could lead to the identification of algal genes that can help increase algal biomass for biofuel applications. Prof. Lutzoni is Senior PI for the project. [more]

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Nijhout Lab is Golden!

The Nijhout Lab has joined the growing list of Biology labs that are green-certified at the Gold level. The Biology Department has a lock on Gold! [more]

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Ferns are GAGA for Lady Gaga!

Prof. Kathleen Pryer and her research team have named a new genus of 19 fern species for Lady Gaga. "We wanted to name this genus for Lady Gaga because of her fervent defense of equality and individual expression," said Pryer. The genus harbors the sequence GAGA in its genome and includes two new species, Gaga monstraparva (for Gaga's fans, known as little monsters) and Gaga germanotta (the singer's family name). Ferns rock! [more]

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Julie Reynolds Quoted in Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education features Julie Reynolds' expertise in an article about the importance of writing in developing critical thinking skills "An Old-School Notion: Writing Required," Oct. 15, 2012). As Julie told the reporter, writing "makes thinking visible" and thus allows faculty to have a greater impact on students' learning. The Chronicle also promoted her to "associate director of undergraduate education." Congratulations! [more]

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Vogel's "most accessible and wise book"

So says David Lee of Steve Vogel's "The Life of a Leaf," on the intereactions of leaves with their physical environment.  The University of Chicago Press published the book and, as a mark of their high esteem, agreed to include 47 color plates. [more]

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And the Wright Lab Makes Three!

Biology wins another Green Lab Certification as the Wright Lab achieves Gold status! All right, who's next? [more]

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Duke Biology Salutes Bob Lefkowitz!

Duke Biology congratulates Duke's own Bob Lefkowitz and his trainee, Stanford's Brian Kobilka, for their 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Go Bob, Go Duke! [more]

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Alberts Lab Brings Home the Gold!

Susan Alberts' lab became the second certified Green Lab at Duke today with a score of 92% earning them Gold status. The first certified lab was the Magwene lab, also in Biology and also earning Gold status. Our logo species, the lungless salamander and Lewis's Heartleaf, are beaming! [more]

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Mycological Society Honors Kathryn Picard

The Mycological Society of America has honored grad student Kathryn Picard for the best student paper, "Investigating early-diverging fungi from marine and estuarine habitats in North America and Europe." The paper focused on elucidating fungal diversity in historically undersampled haline environments through a combination of next-gen sequencing and environmental cloning, and using the resultant data to build more robust reference datasets for metagenomic analyses.

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Mitchell-Olds Lab Savors Spicy Mustard Flavors

The Mitchell-Olds lab and collaborators have published a study of the evolution of spicy flavors in the mustard plant, combining laboratory genomics and fieldwork (Science, Aug. 31, 2012). Populations in Colorado and Montano evolved distinctly different flavors in response to local predators. "This paper helps set the standard for studies of adaptation in the wild," says Harvard University zoologist Hopi Hoekstra. The NY Times and Scientific American also reported on the findings. Now, what kind of mustard grows outside ballparks? [more]

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Freshman Reading Inspires Thoughts of Biology

Julie Reynolds contributed a response to an art exhibit inspired by Ann Patchett's "State of Wonder," this year's freshman reading selection. She wrote, in part, "The novel speaks to a scientific truth that ecosystem health is critical to human health in ways that are both well understood and completely mysterious. There is a profound arrogance in thinking that we can precisely reproduce the complex interactions of ecosystems, when a deep humility for the countless unseen interactions is warranted." [more]

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Pryer Lab Scores Cover of Systematic Biology

Carl Rothfels is first author on "Overcoming deep roots, fast rates, and short internodes to resolve the ancient rapid radiation of eupolypod II ferns," Systematic Biology 61: 490-509.  Rothfels et al. take a "moderate data" approach to resolve the 90 million year old radiation of the Eupolypods II, a large clade containing nearly a third of extant fern species.  The cover photo of Anthyrium filix-femina was taken by Will Cook.

[GIF, PDF] [more]

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NSF Awards Grant to Julie Reynolds

Julie Reynolds is the lead PI on a 3-year collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation. Her project is “Understanding the Role of Writing in Promoting Learning and Engagement for Diverse Undergraduate Thesis Writers” and involves researchers at UNC-CH, Morgan State University (a HBCU in Baltimore) and the University of Minnesota. Outstanding, Julie!

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Magwene Lab First to be Certified Green

The Magwene Lab has achieved certification as a Green Lab at the Gold level. The process requires green practices in 5 areas: energy conservation, water conservation, hazardous chemical usage, green purchasing and recycling. Magwene's is the first lab at Duke to be certified green. Way to go, Paul and crew! Now, how about the rest of Biology? [more]

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Tami McDonald Receives Perry Prize

Tami McDonald has received the Perry Prize for the best dissertation in Plant Science, class of 2012. Her dissertation examined the observation that lichenizing fungi are not scattered randomly throughout the fungal branch of the tree of life. Tami is now a postdoc at the University of Minnesota. Congratulations, Tami! The Perry Prize is given in honor of Dr. Harold Perry, who taught in the Botany Department from 1932 to 1970.

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ACS Synthetic Biology Features Center for Systems Biology

The American Chemical Society's journal "Synthetic Biology" has published an article on the Center for Systems Biology by Jana Stone. The article describes the history of the Center and how it has successfully engaged faculty in interdisciplinary enterprise. [more]

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Xinnian Dong Featured in the Chronicle!

The Chronicle, the Independent Daily at Duke University, has published a full-page interview of Prof. Xinnian Dong, in honor of her election to the National Academy of Sciences. The article focusses on her research on immunology and pathogenesis, and is a bit technical. [more]

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Klopfer and Lemur Center Featured in Scientific American

Scientific American's blog "Brainwaves" reviews research on hibernation at the Duke Lemur Center. Prof. Peter Klopfer is studying the brain activity of the Fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur, the only primate that hibernates. Hibernating animals periodically come out of hibernation in order to sleep, but only the Fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur sleeps almost exclusively in the REM-state. But in that idle sleep what dreams may come? [more]

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Baugh Lab Publishes on Starving Worms

Colin Maxwell, Ryan Baugh and others have published "Nutritional control of mRNA isoform expression during developmental arrest and recovery in C. elegans" in Genome Research 2012 Apr 26. [Epub ahead of print]. They used mRNA sequencing to monitor the expression of alternative mRNA transcript isoforms over time as worms recover from starvation.

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Postdoctoral Fellowships in Evolutionary Biology and Related Fields

The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) is now accepting proposals for Postdoctoral Fellowships. We are looking to support innovative approaches to outstanding problems in evolutionary science. Proposals in any area of evolutionary science are welcome, but proposals in the following areas are of particular interest: Evolutionary Medicine, Synthetic Biology and Origins of Life, Evolution and the Social Sciences, and K-12 Minority Education in Evolution. Proposals are due July 10 for two-year fellowships that will begin no later than January 2013. We anticipate that award decisions will be made by first week of October. Deadline: July 10 Duration: 2 years Start date: by Jan. 2013 Location: Durham, NC [more]

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Amy Schmid Speaks at TEDx

Prof. Amy Schmid spoke on "Surviving the Outer Limits: Life in Saturated Salt" at TEDxNCSSM, an independent TED event held at the NC School of Science and Math. She gave a 20 minute talk (video at the link) about using regulatory networks to understand dynamic adaptation to extreme environmental conditions. The event at NCSSM was attended by scientists from the biotechnology community in the Triangle, high school teachers, and high school students. [more]

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Haase Lab Publishes Useful Results

Mark Chee and Steve Haase have published "New and Redesigned pRS Plasmid Shuttle Vectors for Genetic Manipulation of Saccharomycescerevisiae" in the May 1, 2012 edition of G3:Genes, Genomes, Genetics. G3 is published by the Genetics Society of America to promote rapid review and publication of useful results in all areas of genetics. [more]

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Bruce Nicklas Honored by University of Chicago

On June 9th the University of Chicago will award an honorary Doctor of Science degree to Emeritus Prof. Bruce Nicklas. The degree recognizes Prof. Nicklas' work on the motion of chromosomes during cell division, which has elucidated the chemical signals and molecular motors involved. Our hearty congratulations to Prof. Nicklas! [more]

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Xinnian Dong Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Prof. Xinnian Dong has been elected to the elite National Academy of Scineces and will be inducted at its 150th annual meeting later this year.  The National Academy was founded to "investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art" whenever called upon to do so by any department of the government.

Congratulations, Xinnian!

[more]

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Mohamed Noor Profiled in The Scientist

"Burgers and Flies:  Inspired by Darwin, Mohamed Noor has uncovered the molecular dance by which a single species becomes two."

Read the story to learn fascinating facts about our favorite fast-food addict, including how he did in college and his favorite way to unwind with his lab. 

[more]

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Jamie Baldwin Fergus wins Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellowship

Jamie Baldwin Fergus, who just completed her PhD in the Johnsen Lab, has been awarded a prestigious Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at the National Museum of Natural History. She will be working with Karen Osborn on the evolution and function of eyes in hyperiid amphipods. Congratulations!

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Courtney Fitzpatrick Featured in American Scientist

American Scientist features grad student Courtney Fitzpatrick for her photography and essays about drought in Amboseli, Kenya. This month the Horse and Buggy Press will publish her limited-edition book, Maji Moto: Dispatches from a Drought.   The Press will also exhibit her work from April 12 - June 30 (401 Foster Street).  Courtney also uses photography in her research on sexual selection in baboons. [more]

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Kathryn Picard Wins Mycological Society Fellowship

Grad student Kathryn Picard (Lutzoni lab) was awarded one of two Graduate Fellowships from the Mycological Society of America. These awards are given yearly to the two most promising graduate students in mycology, and are the most prestigious award a graduate student can receive in mycology. Congratulations! [more]

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Robin Hopkins wins prestigious NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship

Robin Hopkins, a former graduate student and current postdoc in the Rausher lab, has been awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (PRFB) in the area of Intersection of Biology with Math and Physical Sciences. She will be working with Mark Kirkpatrick at the University of Texas to develop models of the evolution of reinforcement in plants and methods for estimating the strength of divergent selection between divergent plant populations. Congrats!

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Armaleo Wins Alumni Distinguished UG Teaching Award!

Prof. Daniele Armaleo will receive the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award on Founder's Day, 2012. The winner is selected by a panel of the toughest judges on campus, 12 undergraduates, and receives an honorarium as well as a gift for the library of his/her choice. Bravissimo! [more]

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McCandlish Wins Fisher Prize

Grad student David McCandlish (Magwene and McShea labs) has been awarded the R.A. Fisher Prize by the Society for the Study of Evolution, for his paper "Visualizing Fitness Landscapes" (Evolution 65(5):1544-1558). The R. A. Fisher Prize is awarded annually by the Society for the Study of Evolution for an outstanding Ph.D. dissertation paper published in the journal Evolution during a given calendar year. David will be awarded an honorarium and will give a keynote talk at the 2012 SSE meeting in Ottawa, Ontario. [more]

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2 Biomajors Named Goldwater Scholars for 2012

Biomajors Kenneth Hoehn and Clara Starkweather have received Goldwater Scholarships for Excellence in Education. Both are pursuing interdisciplinary research, Hoehn in evolutionary biology and computer programming and Starkweather in neurobiology and music. The scholarships provide up to $7,500 for educational costs for a year. [more]

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Bio Grads win NSF Pre-doc Fellowships!

The Biology Department proudly announces that Fay-Wei Li, Katherine Toll, Margaret Wagner, Elise Knowlton and Kieran Hendricksen have all received Predoctoral Fellowships from the National Science Foundation. These prestigious fellowships provide three years of full support to enable students to work full-time on their dissertations.

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Green Labs Initiative Receives Environmental Impact Award

Today Duke's Environmental Management Action Committee presented the Environmental Impact Award to Randy Smith, in honor of the work done by the Green Labs @ Duke Group. Randy is the convener of the group, which has grown from Biology to include labs in Chemistry, Pharmacology and the Nicholas School. Green Labs conserve energy and water, Buy Green as much as possible, minimize hazardous chemicals and dispose of them properly, and recycle used equipment, packing materials, etc. [more]

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Mohamed Noor Wins Brooks Teaching Award

Mohamed Noor has won the David and Janet Vaughan Brooks Teaching Award for "truly outstanding teaching." The Award recognizes "ability to encourage intellectual excitement and curiosity..., knowledge of a field and ability to communicate it, organizational skills, mentorship of students, and commitment to excellent teaching over time." Three cheers!

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50th Anniversary of Steve Vogel's First Publication

Prof. Vogel recounts, " On March 24th I celebrate the 50th anniversary of my first scientific publication. In my 21-year-old innocence, I sent a short piece in to Nature, not knowing anything of its prestige and antiquity - lo and behold, they published it. Vogel, S. 1962. A possible role of the boundary layer in insect flight. Nature 193: 1201-1202. Again, not audacity but inexperience."

Those were the days! 

[more]

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A Core Competency in Ecology for Pre-Meds?

Julie Reynolds is among the authors of a letter to Science about reforming pre-medical education to include competence in ecology and the relationship of biodiversity and climate to human health.  Emerging zoonotic diseases, pharmaceuticals derived from natural products, and environmental factors play important roles in modern medicine. [more]

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Johnsen Lab featured in Science

The research of various current and former members of the Johnsen lab was featured (complete with many photos) in a "News Focus" article in the March 9th issue of Science magazine. The article covers a number of novel discoveries about the optical tricks various deep-sea animals play, many of which were reported for the first time at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology this January in Charleston. [more]

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Johnsen Coauthors Paper on Giant Squid Eyes

Sönke Johnsen has coauthored a paper that explains for the first time why giant squid and ichthyosaurs have eyes the size of basketballs, while the next largest eyes are only the size of softballs. It turns out that the only reason to make eyes this big is to see very large objects from a great distance underwater under dim light. In the case of giant squid, the relevant object is most likely their natural predator, the Sperm Whale. In the case of ichthyosaurs, other marine dinosaurs are the likely reason. [more]

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Birdsong Researchers Test Voter Preferences

Rindy Anderson and Susan Peters, researchers in the Nowicki lab, have published a study showing that voters prefer candidates with lower-pitched voices. Published in Proc. Royal Society B, (DOI:doi/10.1098/rspb.2012.0311), the study showed that both men and women preferred lower-pitched voices in both genders. Is biology political destiny? Stay tuned. [more]

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Brain Fried by "Philosophy of Biology," McShea Turns to Children's Lit

Prof. Dan McShea is participating in a new initiative to help faculty improve their writing. A small group of four faculty are sharing their writing under the guidance of Jennifer Ahern-Dodson of the Writing and Research Faculty Fellows program. While the others are bringing in scholarly writing McShea is working on a children's book based on bedtime stories he invented for his children. Perhaps inevitably, it does have a philosophical flavor. [more]

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Rodrigo on Team Measuring Evolution of Bacterium Infecting Birds

Prof. Allen Rodrigo is part of a team that measured a remarkably high rate of evolutionary change in Mycoplasma gallisepticum, a bacterium that has jumped from poultry to wild house finches.  The researchers also discovered that MG's own immune system was evolving rapidly to fight off viruses. [more, alt.]

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Hopkins and Rausher Publish in Science

Postdoctoral Associate Robin Hopkins and Prof. Mark Rausher have published “Butterfly behavior reduces hybridization and reinforces speciation among Phlox plants” in the March 2 issue of Science (Science [DOI:10.1126/science.1215198]). The study provides the first direct documentation of the controversial phenomenon of reinforcing selection. [more]

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Vilgalys Elected Fellow of American Academy of Microbiology

Prof. Rytas Vilgalys is one of eighty Fellows elected to the American Academy of Microbiology for 2012. Fellows are elected through a highly selective, peer-review process, based on their records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology. The Academy is an arm of the American Society of Microbiology and is responsible for professional affairs. [more]

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Leal and Colleagues Publish in Science

Prof. Manuel Leal and his collaborators have published "Founder Effects Persist Despite Adaptive Differentiation: A Field Experiment with Lizards" in Science (Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1209566). The team documented that Caribbean lizards adapt rapidly to new surroundings, yet retain some characteristics of the founding pair. [more, alt.]

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Haase Paper in Molecular Cell

Postdoc Laura Simmons Kovacs and Prof. Steve Haase have published "Cyclin-Dependent Kinases Are Regulators and Effectors of Oscillations Driven by a Transcription Factor Network" in Molecular Cell - 02 February 2012. [more]

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Shannon McDermott Wins Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching

Shannon McDermott has received the 2012 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award recognizes three graduate students "who best exemplify the characteristics of effective college teaching." The award carries a $2000 prize. [more]

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Prof. Alberts Honored for Excellence in Mentoring

Prof. Susan Alberts has been selected to receive the 2012 Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring. This award recognizes graduate faculty who exhibit a consistent record of good mentoring practices. There will be a reception in her honor on Thursday, March 29th in the Fitzpatrick Atrium from 4:30 to 6:30pm..

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Julie Noor Receives Two Grants for Bio 102 Lab Exercise

Julie Noor has obtained funding to expand a Biology 102L lab activity, which will include both an "inquiry-based" aspect (in which enrolled students conduct real research, useful to the scientific community) and a related outreach component for students at a local high school. The grants are from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and Duke's David L. Paletz Innovative Teaching Fund.

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Jackson Study Among Most Important Science News of 2011.

Discover Magazine has selected a study led by Rob Jackson as the 21st of the 100 most important science stories of 2011. The study of hydraulic fracturing confirmed that the method has caused leakage of methane into groundwater. [more]

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The Greening of Biology

The Department of Biology purchased carbon offsets from the Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative to offset over 72,000 miles of faculty travel. Our jet exhaust is cleaner now. [more]

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Julie Reynolds Elected to Office

Julie Reynolds has been elected Vice President for Education and Human Resources for the Ecological Society of America. Her term will begin in August 2012. The ESA was founded in 1915 and has some 10,000 members worldwide. It offers professional certification, publishes several scientific journals, runs educational programs and provides scientific information to Congress, the media and the public. [more]

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Xinnian Dong Honored by AAAS

The American Academy for the Advancement of Science has chosen Xinnian Dong as a Fellow for her "meritorious efforts to advance science." She is one of 142 biologists so honored in 2011. AAAS is the premier scientific society in the United States. [more]

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NESCent offers Graduate Fellowships

Graduate students are invited to apply for one-semester graduate fellowships at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, an NSF-sponsored collaboration between Duke, UNC and NC State dedicated to synthetic research in evolutionary science. Previous NESCent graduate fellows include Duke biograd Paul Durst and UNC graduate student Sarah Seiter. The next deadline is January 1. [more]

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Dan Kiehart Named AAAS Fellow

Dan Kiehart has been chosen by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science as a AAAS Fellow, in honor of his "distinguished contributions to developmental biology, particularly for the elucidation of the physical forces that drive morphogenetic movements of cells and tissues during embryogenesis.” The new class of Fellows will be inducted in February 2012. AAAS is the premier scientific society in the United States and its flagship journal Science is one of the 2 most prestigious journals in the sciences.

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NY Times Heralds Sarah Zylinski's Research

Zylinski, a postdoc in the Johnsen lab, published in Current Biology (11/22/2011)on the amazing ability of certain cephalopods to switch from transparent to dark pigment and back almost instantaneously, depending on surrounding light conditions. This helps them evade predators which hunt in different ways, making a dual camouflage scheme necessary. [more, alt.]

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Xinnian Dong Honored by AAAS

The American Academy for the Advancement of Science has named Xinnian Dong a AAAS Fellow. This year 142 Fellows were selected in the Biological Sciences. AAAS is the premier scientific society in the United States and its flagship journal Science is one of the 2 most prestigious journals in the sciences. [more]

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Nick Buchler Receives NIH Director's New Innovator Award

Buchler is one of four Duke scientists to receive the award, which recognizes researchers at the start of their career, when they may not yet have the preliminary data required to receive traditional NIH funding.  He will use his award to develop computer simulations and lab experiments in yeast to understand the extent to which the single-celled organisms' gene networks can "learn" and predict the statistical regularities of their environment. [more]

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Fred Nijhout on Team that Discovers Gene for Mimicry

An international team led by Bob Reed, formerly a postdoc in the Nijhout lab, reports in Science (26 August 2011) on the discovery of the first gene that controls mimicry in butterflies (Heliconius). This gene, called Optix, has a polymorphic regulatory region that controls multiple alternative mimicry patterns. [more]

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Carl Rothfels Co-authors Article in Science

Grad student Carl Rothfels is a co-author of "Recently Formed Polyploid Plants Diversify at Lower Rates" published in Science (DOI:10.1126/science.1207205).  A far-flung group of researchers analyzed a variety of vascular plants to corroborate the hypothesis that polyploidy is an evolutionary dead end. [more]

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Callier, Nijhout Publish in PNAS

How caterpillars know when to molt is answered in a new article by grad student Viviane Callier and Fred Nijhout (PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1106556108; also featured in ScienceShots). The caterpillar's trachea does not grow along with the other parts of the body and eventually becomes inadequate. Oxygen starvation tells the insect it's time for a new exoskeleton. [more, alt.]

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Rob Jackson and Julie Reynolds join in call-to-action

Julie Reynolds, Rob Jackson and nine other leaders within the Ecological Society of America issued a call-to-action this summer to promote Earth Stewardship. The paper, “Earth Stewardship: science for action to sustain the human-earth system” (Chapin et al 2011), was published in the open-access journal Ecosphere. [more]

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Koelle Grads Make Good at Ecological Society of America!

David Rasmussen received the 2011 E.C. Pielou prize (best grad student presentation in statistical ecology)for "Inferring the population dynamics of multi-strain pathogens from genealogies," based on Rasmussen, Ratmann, & Koelle, PLoS Computational Biology 7(8) e1002136. Stacy Scholle was awarded the 2011 Alfred J. Lotka prize (best grad student poster in theoretical ecology) for "The effect of epidemiological dynamics on viral evolutionary rates." [more]

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Prof. Justin Wright Funded by NSF, Army Corps of Engineers

The National Science Foundation has awarded Prof. Wright a 4-year grant to set up an experimental network along a latitudinal gradient across the Eastern US to determine the relative importance of climate, soils, and evolutionary history in controlling succession in abandoned agricultural fields. Prof. Wright also has a 4-year grant from the Army Corps of Engineers to develop a trait-based framework for predicting community and ecosystem responses to changes in fire frequency.

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Prof. Will Wilson in the News and Observer

The Durham News section of the Aug. 10 N & O featured Prof. Wilson's work in urban ecology. The article described both his recent book, "Constructed Climates: A Primer On Urban Environments" and his work advising the Durham City-County Planning Department's "Urban Open Space" project. Prof. Wilson hopes to educate local government and neighborhood groups about the health and environmental value of green spaces in the city. [more]

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Meredith Barrett wins Nicholas School Award

The Dean of the Nicholas School has given the Award for Outstanding PhD Student Manuscript to recent graduate Meredith Barrett (Yoder Lab). Dean Bill Chameides awarded Meredith first place for her entry: "Modeling the effects of illicit rosewood logging in Madagascar: A call for CITES designation" which was published in Science, Vol. 328. She will receive a $3,000 prize. [more]

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Robin Hopkins Wins Perry Prize

The Perry prize is awarded in honor of Prof. Harold Perry (Botany Dept. 1932-1970) for the most deserving dissertation in plant science. Robin Hopkins won the prize for her research on the process of species formation and the role of insect pollinators. Robin's research has "experimentally demonstrated the genetic basis of flower color and how shifts in petal color translate into changes in pollinator behavior, and ultimately to speciation."

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New Book from Nick Gillham

Emeritus Professor Nicholas Gillham's latest book is Genes, Chromosomes and Disease: From Simple Traits, to Complex Traits, to Personalized Medicine (FT Press, 2011).  "This readable overview covers the rise of medical genetics through the past century, and the eugenic impulses it has inspired. Nicholas Gillham reviews the linkages between genes and disease; ethnic groups’ differential susceptibility to genetic traits and disorders; personalized medicine; and crucial social and ethical issues arising from the field’s progress."  [more]

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Alumnus Dave Des Marais wins AFRI Fellowship

Dr. Dave Des Marais, an alumnus of the Rausher Lab, has won a USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative fellowship to study the ecophysiology of adaptation and adaptive plasticity in the grass/Brachypodium distachyon. He is carrying out his research at the University of Texas.

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Julie Reynolds publishes in CBE Life Sciences Education

Julie Reynolds has published a paper on methods for improving undergraduate writing about science (co-authored by Prof. Robert Thompson, Life Sciences Education 10:209-215). The paper reports on Duke Biology honors theses from 2005-2008, and shows that enrolling in the Writing in Science course significantly improved a student's chance of earning higher or highest honors. [more]

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Profs. Benfey and Dong made Howard Hughes Investigators

Profs. Philip Benfey and Xinnian Dong are among 15 plant scientists selected to become Howard Hughes Medical Institute-Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigators. HHMI says that they are among "the nation's most innovative plant scientists" and hopes that "flexible funding" will allow them to "move their research in creative new directions." The plant science program will provide about $75 million to an under-funded field over the next five years. Congratulations, Philip and Xinnian! [more]

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Dr. Dylan Burge Wins NSF Fellowship

Dylan Burge(Manos Lab)has received a 2-year International Research Fellowship from the NSF, one of 30 awarded in 2010. He will study nickel accumulation in the genus Stackhousia, a family of small flowering herbs., at the University of Sydney. [more]

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Nowicki Lab Publishes in Animal Behavior

The Nowicki Lab recently published a paper on cognition in song sparrows in Animal Behavior Vol. 81, pp. 1209-1216: "Song repertoire size in male song sparrows correlates with detour reaching, but not with other cognitive measures." Male sparrows with large song repertoires are preferred by females, but did not necessarily do better on all cognition tests. [more]

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Sherwood Lab publishes in Nature-Cell Biology

The Sherwood Lab has a new article in the current issue of Nature-Cell Biology: "Basement membrane sliding and targeted adhesion remodels tissue boundaries during uterine-vulval attachment in C. elegans" (Advanced online publication, Nature Cell Biology). Sherwood and colleagues use live-cell imaging to show that basement membrane sliding enlarges the opening of the uterus during Caenorhabditis elegans development and that integrins-based adhesion negatively regulates this sliding. [more]

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Chuck Pell and Hugh Crenshaw featured in NY Times

Chuck Pell and Hugh Crenshaw, former colleagues of Steve Wainwright, have invented a new and improved rib spreader for thoracic surgery (NY Times May 18, 2011, Science section). The article gives a detailed account of their research careers in biomechanics and previous inventions inspired by the motion of living organisms. [more]

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Will Wilson at the Regulator Bookshop, June 8 at 7pm

Will Wilson talks about his new book "Constructed Climates" at the Regulator Booksthop at 7:00 PM this Wednesday, June 8th. Wilson’s book identifies the crucially important role that urban greenness—trees, parks, gardens, parkways—plays in our well-being and in the qualities of our lives. [more]

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Michael Barnes becomes Certified Professional Horticulturalist

The American Society for Horticultural Science has announced that Greenhouse Manager Michael Barnes has fulfilled the requirements to be an ASHS Certified Professional Horticulturist (ASHS Newsletter 27/3, March 2011). Certification requires a BS or MS, documented work experience, references and passing an examination. It must be maintained through continuing education courses and re-examination every 3 years. [more]

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NSF Awards $1.7 million to Prof. Yoder for the Duke Lemur Center

The NSF has been a long-term supporter of the Lemur Center, and with this award continues its investment in the growing research programs of this unique facility. Research at the Lemur Center spans diverse biological disciplines, including genomics, virology, cognition, biomechanics, physiology, behavior, and ecology. Bio Professor Anne Yoder is the Director of the Lemure Center. [more]

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Pryer Lab Pulls Off Hat Trick!

Congratulations to Amanda Grusz, Carl Rothfels, and Erin Sigel for their success in this year's NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (DDIG) competition! These awards run from $10,000 to $15,000 and enable students to attend meetings, conduct research in specialized facilities and the field, and expand the scope of their research.

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Alberts and Morris publish in Science

Susan Alberts and Bill Morris et al. have published "Aging in the Natural World" in the March 11 issue of Science. It is available on line at DOI: 10.1126/science.1201571. The study found that comparison of aging patterns in humans with our closest relatives - primates - indicates the pace of human aging may not be as unusual as was thought, and that humans age like other primates.  It also demonstrates how important long-term studies in the wild are. [more]

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Donald E. Stone, 1930 - 2011

The Biology Department is deeply saddened by the passing of Emeritus Professor Donald E. Stone. Prof. Stone came to Duke in 1963 and served as Director of the Organization for Tropical Studies from 1976 to 1996. He also served as Chairman of the Department of Botany from 1997 to 2000. Our condolences go to his family and friends. [more]

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Dong Lab Publishes Again!

Postdoc Junqi Song of the Dong lab has published "DNA repair proteins are directly involved in regulation of gene expression during plant immune response" in the Feb. 17, 2011 edition of Cell Host & Microbe (available online). This study shows SSN2 positively regulates defense responses and DNA homologous recombination. [more]

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Serdar Tulu Wins 2010 Celldance Video Contest

Serdar Tulu, a postdoc in the Kiehart lab, has won first prize for video at Celldance, the American Society for Cell Biology's annual film and image contest. His video "Cellular Recognition" shows two epidermal cell sheets in a fruit fly (Drosphila melanogaster) embryo coming together to form a seamless epidermis. You can watch the video at the ASCB website or on Youtube. [more, alt.]

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Dong Lab Publishes in PNAS

Shui Wang of the Dong lab has published "Arabidopsis BRCA2 and RAD51 proteins are specifically involved in defense gene transcription during plant immune responses" in the Nov. 2, 2010 edition of PNAS (available online). This study provides the molecular evidence showing that the BRCA2–RAD51 complex plays a direct and specific role in transcription regulation during plant immune responses. [more]

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Dong Lab Publishes in Nature

Graduate students Wei Wang and Jinyoung Barnaby, of the Dong lab, have published "Timing of plant immune responses by a central circadian regulator" in the Feb. 3, 2011 edition of Nature (available online). The identification of novel genes involved in R-gene-mediated disease resistance reveals a key functional link between the circadian clock and plant immunity.  The New York Times highlighted this research in "To Defend Against Disease, a Plant Checks the Clock" (Feb. 2, 2011). [more, alt.]

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Carl Salk Receives Peccei Award

The award is given by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis for outstanding work during the Young Scientists Summer Program and allows the student to return to IIASA for an additional three months. [more]

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Nicholas Buchler Receives March of Dimes Grant

Nicholas Buchler has received a Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Grant from the march of Dimes. This award is designed to support young scientists just embarking on their independent research careers. The March of Dimes funds research on birth defects and infant mortality.

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Magwene Lab Publishes in PNAS

The Magwene Lab has published "Outcrossing, mitotic recombination, and life-history trade-offs shape genome evolution in Saccharomyces cerevisiae" in the Jan. 18 edition of PNAS (available online).  The study shows that many budding yeast strains have high levels of genomic heterozygosity, providing new insights into the roles that both outcrossing and mitotic recombination play in shaping the genome architecture of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. [more]

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Steve Nowicki Elected a Fellow of the AAAS

Steve Nowicki has been elected a one of 503 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for distinguished contributions to the fields of animal behavior and behavioral ecology, particularly for studies of animal signaling mechanisms and the evolution of animal communication. Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed on AAAS members by their peers. [more]

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Robin Hopkins and Mark Rausher Publish in Nature

Robin Hopkins, a former graduate student, and Mark Rausher have published a paper in Nature that is the first to identify genes involved in reinforcement, an evolutionary process that directly selects for pre-zygotic isolation. Changes in these genes in Phlox drummondii are responsible for a shift in flower color from light blue to dark red, which decreases the magnitude of interspecific hybridization with a co-occuring congener. [more]

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9th Edition of Introductory Biology Published

Pearson Education has brought out a new edition of Introductory Biology, retitled Campbell BIOLOGY in honor of the original author Neil Campbell. Rob Jackson is one of five co-authors for this, the best-selling science textbook in the country. [more]

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BBC Features Research from the Shaw Lab

The peatmoss that ate the Northwest? Visiting Scientist Eric Karlin and the Shaw lab report in Molecular Ecology that that all North American populations of the peatmoss Sphagnum subnitens, spanning a range of some 4115 km. from Oregon to the western Aleutian Islands, are a single genetic clone. This is arguably the largest terrestrial plant individual known. [more, alt.]

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Fred Nijhout and Laura Grunert publish in Science

Fred Nijhout and Laura Grunert have published a paper in Science showing how moths control correct matching of wing size to body size. Body mass can vary over a two-fold range due to variation in nutrition, but the wings do not begin to grow until after the body has stopped growing. How do the wings know how big to grow? [more]

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Postdoc Anna Keyte publishes on marsupial development

Anna Keyte (Smith Lab) has published a paper in the journal Development showing that the timeline for limb development is completely different for marsupials than mammals.  In marsupials the limbs develop early, so that the infant can crawl across the mother's belly to the pouch and teats, where its development continues. [more]

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Prof. Noor elected President of the American Genetic Assoc.

Prof. Mohamed Noor assumes the mantle of President-Elect of the American Genetic Association on Jan. 1, 2011. This gives him a year for preparation and planning before he becomes President in January 2012. The AGA publishes the Journal of Heridity and holds an annual meeting and symposium. [more]

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Grad Student Koltz Gets State Dept. Fellowship

Grad student Amanda Koltz (Wright Lab)has been awarded a fellowship to participate in the State Department's Young Leaders Dialogue Conference in Prague. She is one of 50 American and 150 European young leaders to participate. Among other subjects the conference addresses the environment and climate change. Participants can develop group projects which are eligible for funding from the State Department. [more]

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Faculty of 1000 Recommend Chee and Haase Paper

A paper by grad student Mark Chee's and Prof. Steve Haase on mitotic spindle assembly (PLoS Genetics 6(5): e1000935. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000935) has been recommended by the Faculty of 1000 Post-publication Peer Review. [more]

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Diana Fusco Nominated for Hughes Fellowship

Diana Fusco, a graduate student in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, is one of seven Duke students nominated for a Howard Hughes International Research Fellowship. If awarded the fellowship provides up to 3 years of support for dissertation research and writing. [more, alt.]

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Herbarium Unveils New Website

The Duke University Herbarium, which is housed in Biology, has a brand-new website courtesy of the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences project to redesign the overall Web environment for the College. The site has just "gone live", and you can check it out at http://herbarium.duke.edu. [more]

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Morris publishes Long-term Study in Nature

Prof. Bill Morris and his colleague Daniel Doak (U. of Wyoming) have published the results of a 6-year study of the alpine plants moss campion and alpine bistort. For at least some time, the plants are able to compensate for climate warming with faster growth. In the warmest years, however, individual plants had both lower survival and lower growth. It is likely that there is a tipping point at which populations will collapse. [more, alt.]

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Puffer and Broverman publish on HIV risk in rural Kenya

Duke Global Health Initiative postdoc Eve Puffer has published "Individual- and Family-Level Psychosocial Correlates of HIV Risk Behavior Among Youth in Rural Kenya" in the online edition of AIDS and Behavior.  Higher-risk behavior was associated with emotional problems and lower social support, suggesting that intervention programs should find ways to improve family relationships.  Puffer works with Professor of the Practice Sherryl Broverman. [more, alt.]

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McMullen publishes on Cryptogamic Herbarium Holdings

Cryptogamic Herbarium Manager Molly McMullen has published "Lichen Type Specimens in the Duke University Herbarium" in Vol. 27, #3 of Evansia, the Journal of the American Bryological and Lichenological Society.  The article describes how to access the database of lichen types as well as other information about the Herbarium and its holdings. [more]

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Benfey Lab publishes in Science

The Benfey Lab has published a research article in the Sept. 10 issue of Science. "Oscillating Gene Expression Determines Competence for Periodic Arabidopsis Root Branching" describes oscillating genes and transcriptional regulators which determine the position of lateral roots. [more]

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Whitehall Foundation awards $150,000 to Pelin Volkan

Assistant Professor Pelin Volkan has received a 3-year award from the Whitehall Foundation. The Foundation funds basic research in neurobiology by young scientists who do not have substantial funding from other sources, or more senior scientists going in a new direction.. [more]

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Grad Student Lowry publishes in PLoS September issue

David Lowry and Prof. John Willis have published a study in PLoS Biology, "A Widespread Chromosomal Inversion Polymorphism Contributes to a Major Life-History Transition, Local Adaptation, and Reproductive Isolation." Their paper shows that a chromosomal inversion plays an important role in adaptation to different habitats and the lifespan of monkeyflower plants. The study also provides evidence that rearranged portions of chromosomes could contribute to the origin of new species. [more]

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Erica Tsai and Paul Manos Publish in PNAS

Erica Tsai and Paul Manos have published a paper on the geographic distribution of Epifagus virginiana in the Sept. 28 issue of PNAS.  The paper deals with the influence of the host species on migration of the E. virginiana parasite. [more]

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Julie Reynolds and Bob Thompson Win NSF Grant

Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies Julie Reynolds and Prof. of Psychology Bob Thompson have received an NSF grant for “Understanding the role of writing in strengthening and assessing learning and engagement in undergraduate STEM education.”

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Society for Economic Botany Votes for Eubanks

Prof. Mary Eubanks has been elected President of the Society for Economic Botany for a 2-year term. The Society was founded in 1959 to encourage study of the usage of plants and the relationship between plants and people. In her Presidential Message Eubanks wrote, "Our world is in a state of dynamic flux from the pressures of climate change, population growth, environmental degradation, and resource depletion that is a serious threat to the quality of life on Earth. Members of the Society" can apply their knowledge to "the transition to a more sustainable green economy." [more]

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Bernhardt Coauthors Policy Recommendation

Prof. Emily Bernhardt coauthored a paper in the January 8 issue of Science magazine calling for an end to mountaintop mining due to overwhelming scientific evidence of significant environmental impacts. "Mountaintop Mining Consequences" reviews the scientific evidence for run-off of toxic contaminants in ground water and streams, as well as other negative impacts. [more]

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Biography of Knut Schmidt-Nielsen published

Prof. Steve Vogel has published a brief biography of former Prof. Knut Schmidt-Nielsen, on behalf of the National Academy of Science. It can be downloaded as a .pdf file from the Academy website. [more]

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McShea publishes Biology's First Law

Prof. Dan McShea and co-author Prof. Robert Brandon have published Biology's First Law, proposing that evolution has a spontaneous tendency toward greater diversity and complexity.  The "Zero-Force Evolutionary Law" provides a unifying framework for the principles of biology and is sure to stimulate a wide-ranging discussion. [more]

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Ryan Baugh Receives Ellison Foundation Award

Prof. L. Ryan Baugh has received a 4-year New Scholar award from the Ellison Medical Foundation. New Scholar awards provide support for newly independent investigators beginning in the first 3 years after their postdoctoral training,affording them time to establish their research programs before seeking ongoing funding. [more]

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Tai-ping Sun Receives IPGSA Silver Medal Award

Prof. Tai-ping Sun has received the Silver Medal Award from the International Plant Growth Substance Association. The Award recognizes "significant contributions to the study of plant growth substances." [more]

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Paul Magwene wins NSF Grant

Prof. Paul Magwene has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study "The genomics of adaptation in experimental yeast populations during short and long-term selection on invasive growth." The project is a collaboration with Prof. Cliff Zeyl of Wake Forest University, using experimental evolution and high-throughput genomic sequencing to study the process of adaptation in microbial populations on both short and long time scales. [more]

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Chen Lab Publishes in Cell

Postdocs Rafaelo Galvao and Meina Li are among the authors of a paper in the June 25 edition of Cell, "Arabidopsis HEMERA/pTAC12 initiates photomorphogenesis by phytochromes." The paper identified a key signaling component that allows plants to "see" light. [more]

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Julie Reynolds Completes Biology Scholars Program

Dr. Julie Reynolds is one of 21 biology educators who comprise the second cohort of the BSP Research Residency. The Program is a collaboration of the American Society for Microbiology and the National Science Foundation, to promote research into biology education and design of new teaching methods and assessment tools.

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Moran Receives Prize in Montpellier

Graduate student Emily Moran of the Clark Lab won the third prize for student presentations at the Frugivory and Seed Dispersal Conference in Montpellier, France (June 10-13) for a talk on "Contrasting patterns of seed dispersal in two red oak populations."  The Conference is held every five years under the sponsorship of the Association for Tropical Biology. [more]

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Benfey Lab publishes in Nature

Ros Sozzani et al. have authored a paper on how plant roots control cell division and specialization in Nature 466:128ff. Both processes have been thoroughly studied but this paper connects them through the activity of the developmental proteins SHORTROOT and SCARECROW. For more information, see Duke News for July 1, 2010. [more, alt.]

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Ryan Baugh Receives Ellison Foundation Award

The Ellison Foundation has named Prof. L. Ryan Baugh one of its New Scholars in the field of aging. New Scholar awards provide support for newly independent investigators and allow bright young scientists to staff their laboratories, collect preliminary data, and organize research programs of sufficient momentum to obtain ongoing support from other sources. New Scholar awards provide funding up to $100,000 per year for a four year period. [more, alt.]

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Grad Student Honored

Grad Student Jenny Wang (Wright Lab) has received the American Society of Limnology and Oceanograpy award for Outstanding Student Presentation for a talk on the impacts of watershed urbanization on denitrifying bacterial communities in streams.

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Sherwood publishes in Science Signaling

"In Vivo Identification of Regulators of Cell Invasion Across Basement Membranes" by David Sherwood et al. has been published in Science Signaling online (Vol. 3, Issue 120, p. ra35).  An illustration by postdoc David Matus was chosen for the cover. [more]

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Jackson Testifies before Congress

Prof. Rob Jackson testified before the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment on February 4, 2010. The subject was "Geoengineering: The Scientific Basis and Engineering Challenges." Prof. Jackson testified that some geoengineering will probably be necessary to address global climate change, but the risk of unforeseen consequences mandates a significant research effort. Federal agencies should begin work now to jump-start this effort. [more]

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New Book by Steve Vogel

Prof. Steve Vogel has published his 9th volume, "Glimpses of Creatures in their Physical Worlds: Essays on inescapable impact of the physical world on design of organisms" (Princeton University Press). "This charismatic book is a fascinating read and Vogel is exceptionally good at presenting the material so that it is accessible to a general audience. The book presents . . . a wide range of diverse examples collected in one place, displaying a lifetime's worth of accumulated knowledge and wisdom."--Amy S. Johnson, Bowdoin College

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New Paper by Julie Reynolds et al.

Dr. Julie Reynolds has published "BioTAP, the Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol: A Systematic Approach to Teaching Scientific Writing and Evaluating Undergraduate Theses" in the November issue of BioScience. The paper describes the undergraduate Thesis Assessment Protocol she developed in consultation with faculty and students of the Biology Department. The goal is to provide uniform supervision and grading of senior honors theses.

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Prof. Hunt Willard receives prestigious award.

The American Society of Human Genetics honored Prof. Huntington F. Willard with the 2009 Allan Award on Oct. 23, 2009. "Dr. Willard is an outstanding scientific leader, having made seminal findings in the understanding of chromosome structure and behavior. ... Dr. Willard leads a model organization in genetics – the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy at Duke University – as well as demonstrating the importance of outreach by teaching undergraduate courses at Duke. Hunt Willard is an outstanding example of a model 'citizen-scientist' in the human genetics field." [more]

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The Vascular Plant Herbarium

Duke Today (issue of October 2, 2009) features the Vascular Plant Herbarium and its new facilities in the Phytotron. With the help of funding from the NSF, Duke has provided a secure, climate-controlled environment for an invaluable resource of some 400,000 specimens of flowering plants from all over the world. [more]

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Nike Foundation Awards Grant to WISER

The Nike Foundation's project "The Girl Effect" has funded a study to assess the impact of WISER's primary school education programs on girls education in Kenya. The Women's Institute for Secondary Education and Research is a non-profit promoting education for girls in Muhuru Bay, Kenya, founded by Prof. Sherryl Broverman. [more]

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Barrett et al. publish Policy Forum paper in Science

Grad Student Meredith Barrett led the Yoder Lab team to publish a Policy Forum paper in Science Magazine (May 28, 2010). The paper presents the first geospatial analysis to quantify the severity of the logging crisis in Madagascar, which threatens the survival of precious rosewood trees and their forest habitat. The Duke team calls for CITES protection of the threatened trees. [more]

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Sherwood Lab paper highlighted by Nature Reviews Cancer.

The Sherwood Lab's recent paper in Science Signalling has been highlighted in Nature Reviews Cancer (advance online publidation doi:10.1038/nrc2878). [more]

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Benfey Lab publishes in Nature

Philip Benfey and Miguel Moreno-Risueno were major contributors to a multi-authored paper, "Cell signalling by microRNA165/6 directs gene dose-dependent root cell fate" in today's issue of Nature (Vol. 465, pp. 316-321). The paper received a shout-out in the News and Views section of the issue (p. 299). [more, alt.]

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Kathleen Smith Honored by AIBS

The American Institute of Biological Sciences has awarded its 2010 Outstanding Service Award to Prof. Kathleen Smith for her service as Director of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center from 2006 to 2010. NESCent is an NSF-funded international Center which facilitates synthetic research on evolution, provides researchers with state-of-the-art informatics tools, and promotes education and outreach on the subject of evolution. Smith said, "I was surprised and honored to receive this award. The achievements of NESCent over the past five years have been a team effort, and really reflect the work of many." [more]

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Chee and Haase paper in PLoS Genetics

Grad student Mark Chee and Prof. Steve Haase have published "B-Cyclin/CDKs Regulate Mitotic Spindle Assembly by Phosphorylating Kinesins-5 in Budding Yeast" in the Public Library of Science: Genetics 6(5). [more]

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Philip Benfey elected to National Academy of Sciences

The Biology Department warmly congratulates Philip Benfey on his election to the National Academy of Sciences. He joins a select group of 2,097 active members recognized by their peers for their scientific achievements. [more]

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Gwendolyn Williams receives Weyerhaeuser Fellowship

Third-year graduate student Gwendolyn Williams has received the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellowship from the Forest History Society for her project "Pine to oak: a mycorrhizal perspective on old-field succession." The fellowship provides $11,000 to a Duke grad student working on some aspect of forest history and conservation.

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Lutzoni Lab identifies new lineage of bacteria

Graduate student Brendan Hodkinson and his advisor Francois Lutzoni have recently discovered a new lineage of bacteria from the order Rhizobiales. So far, this previously-unknown lineage has been found in all examined lichens that have green-algal symbionts. See their publication "A microbiotic survey of lichen-associated bacteria reveals a new lineage from the Rhizobiales" in Symbiosis 49: 163-180 for the exciting details. [more]

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Workshops on Mosses and Liverworts

Prof. Jon Shaw and Herbarium Data Manager Blanka Shaw will lead two workshops on identification of Bryophytes this summer. "Field Identification and Ecology of Mosses and Liverworts" will take place July 26-28 at the Wrangell Mountains Center in McCarthy, AK. "Identification of Peatland Bryophytes" will take place August 5-7 at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. The workshop may be repeated August 8-10 depending on demand. For registration information contact blanka@duke.edu or shaw@duke.edu.

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NESCent wins 5-year, $25M, renewal from NSF

The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center is a scientific research center that supports cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary research in evolutionary biology. This is the second major NSF grant that NESCent has received, bringing the total funding for the Center to $40 million. The grant will enable the Center to continue its core programs in evolution research, informatics and education through 2014. [more]

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Paper by Jim Clark Recognized

Jim Clark's paper "Individuals and the variation needed for high species diversity in forest trees" (Science, Feb. 26) has been recommended 3 times for Faculty of 1000 Biology. Jonathan Chase (Washington Univ.) wrote "This study provides an elegant analysis to show an intuitively appealing, but overlooked, mechanism regarding coexistence" of species within ecological niches. [more]

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Rob Jackson to read his poetry on Earth Day, April 17

Rob Jackson reads from his new poetry book, Weekend Mischief, and talks to kids about science for Earth Day at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, Saturday April 17th at 2pm. [more]

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Gwendolyn Williams wins Weyerhaeuser Fellowship

The Forest History Society has awarded the F.K. Weyerhaeuser fellowship to Gwendolyn Williams, a third-year graduate student in the Vilgalys lab, for her project "Pine to oak: a mycorrhizal perspective on old-field succession." The fellowship provides $11,000 to support her research and is awarded annually to a Duke student working on forest and conservation history. [more]

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Help the Lemur Center win $50,000!

Vote for the Lemur Center in the Pepsi REFRESH Project! Pepsi will award $1.3 million in the month of March to the top 10 projects in categories from $5000 to $250,000. You can vote every day until April 1 for up to 10 projects. Vote early and often for lemurs!

[more]

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Rob Jackson reads from his new book of poems

Rob Jackson has published a new book of poems for children called Weekend Mischief, with illustrations by Mark Beech. Prof. Jackson will give a reading at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham on March 30 at 7PM. [more]

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Cunningham Anchors Game-changing Paper on Arthropod Phylogeny

Prof. Cliff Cunningham, along with scientists from the University of Maryland and the Natural History Museum of LA County, has published a study of arthropod DNA which has rearranged their family tree. Besides revising relationships of insects and crustaceans, e.g., the paper establishes 5 new groupings of species. Among other revelations, it is now clear that insects and millipedes/centipedes evolved from 2 separate transitions from water to land. The paper appears in Nature online, 10 February 2010. [more, alt.]

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WISER School Opens in Kenya

After five years of work and $1.5 million in fundraising, the WISER 7 acre campus for 120 high school girls in rural Kenya started classes for the first time on Feb 1. The school has a 7-acre campus and the best science lab in the region. The Women’s Institute for Secondary Education and Research was founded in 2002 by Dr. Sherryl Broverman of Duke University and Dr. Rose Odhiambo of Egerton University (Kenya). WISER’s vision is to create a replicable model for ending the cycle of gender disparity in education, health and community leadership in the global south. [more, alt.]

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Noor Lab Sweeps Dean's Mentoring Awards

Prof. Mohamed Noor and his graduate student Laurie Stevison are the winners of the 2010 Dean's Awards for Excellence in Mentoring. These competitive awards are given by committees of faculty and students to the individuals who best "embody both the letter and spirit of mentoring." Noor and Stevison will receive $2000 and $1000 awards respectively at the reception on April 15, 2010.

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WISER opens boarding school in Kenya for teenage girls

The Women's Institute for Secondary Education and Research, an NGO founded by Prof. Broverman, opens its first school in Muhuru Bay, Kenya this month. The school has a 7-acre campus, 6 classrooms, a science lab and an internet cafe, and will boost the number of girls going to high school and beyond. WISER also engages in improving primary education for girls and boys, sanitation projects, and HIV prevention. [more]

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Prof. Livingstone receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Each year, the International Paleolimnological Association bestows its "Lifetime Achievement Award" to honor a senior colleague for their career contribution to palaeolimnology. This year, our own Prof. Daniel Livingstone will receive this prestigious award at the annual meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, Dec. 15-18, 2009. Congratulations, Dan! Dan Livingstone is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Biology and came to Duke in 1956.

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Dr. Julie Reynolds expands her service roles.

Dr. Julie Reynolds, Lecturer, was recently elected to a two-year term as Chair of the Ecological Society of America’s education section. She was also chosen by the American Society for Microbiology to be one of 21 Biology Scholars in the Research Residency Program. "The Research Residency seeks biologists who have been trained in effective teaching strategies for biology education and are curious about student learning." [more, alt.]

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Prof. Koelle receives Cozzarelli Prize

Assistant Professor Katia Koelle and her collaborator Yoshi Nagao have been awarded the Cozzarelli Prize for their 2008 article in PNAS entitled 'Decreases in dengue transmission may act to increase the incidence of dengue hemorrhagic fever'. The Cozzarelli Prize is an annual award that recognizes recently published PNAS papers of outstanding scientific excellence and originality.

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JOB OPENING in Schmid Lab: Associate in Research

An associate in research position is open in the Schmid lab, which investigates the genome-wide response to environmental stress in archaea. Required: at least a BS/BA in molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, or related field; good organizational skills; 2-year time commitment. Preferred: experience with common molecular biology techniques such as PCR, cloning, and RNA extraction. Candidates with knowledge in systems biology (e.g. microarrays and bioinformatics) are strongly encouraged to apply. Duties include assisting research projects (both computational and wet lab) and lab managerial functions such as autoclaving, media and buffer preparation, and ordering. Interested candidates should send their CV and at least three references (letters and contact information) to Amy Schmid, amy.schmid@duke.edu. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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Biology Grads Moran and Hersh Receive Awards

Grad student Emily Moran has received the 2009 Amy Lutz award from the Association of Women in Science, while Michelle Hersh was given the award for Best Student Paper at the Mycological Society of America. The Amy Lutz Award is given to an outstanding female student in plant biology and includes a grant of $1000 for the student's educational expenses.

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AERGC Annual Meeting July 20 - 23 at Duke and NCSU

The Association of Educational and Research Greenhouse Curators is holding its annual meeting at Duke and NCSU from Monday, July 20th through Thursday July 23rd. About 100 participants from all over North America will tour the plant growth facilities at both universities, attend talks and workshops, and learn about cutting-edge science being done in the Triangle. Greenhouse and Phytotron Manager Marcia Kirinus is Vice-Chair of the AERGC and host of the meeting.

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Job Opening: Postdoctoral Position

The Baugh Lab has a postdoc position available to study nutritional control of development in C. elegans. A variety of projects are available that require skills in molecular biology, genetics, biochemisty and informatics. Candidates with interdisciplinary and computational skills are particularly encouraged to apply. Experience working with C. elegans is valuable but not necessary. Potential applicants should email Ryan Baugh (ryan.baugh@duke.edu) with a brief statement of interests.

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Journal of Cell Biology features Prof. David Sherwood

The Journal of Cell Biology has featured the work of Duke's David Sherwood in its "People and News" section (JCB 185/4, pp 568-9). The interview describes Sherwood's research and his infectious enthusiasm for biology, along with the mentors who have influenced his path. [more]

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Center for Global Change RFP

The Center on Global Change (CGC) is soliciting proposals from Duke faculty to establish innovative collaborations in all aspects of global change science, policy, and education. Priority will be given to activities with a clear description of scientific advancement and plans for submission of large-scale proposals to agencies or foundations. Proposals to CGC are due April 15th, 2009, with projects to begin during the FY09/10 fiscal year. Please see the attached document for details. [CGC RFP Details, PDF] [more]

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Noorfest!

Every 50 years, the Linnean Society of London has awarded a Darwin-Wallace medal to a handful of individuals for "major advances in evolutionary biology". This year, our own MOHAMED NOOR is a recipient of this prestigious honor! 

He goes to London to receive it on February 12, 2009, Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. You can see an article and video profile at: http://research.duke.edu/darwin/ Here's a .mov file of Dr. Dan Kiehart's presentation at Noorfest.

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Sherwood lab publishes on cell invasion

The laboratory of Prof. David Sherwood recently published on the mechanism of cell invasion in basement membranes in Nature Cell Biology. Their research has important implications for understanding cancer biology. Because of the significance of these results, the paper was selected for advance online publication and may be viewed at the Nature Cell Biology website. [more]

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Giant protist discovered.

Sonke Johnsen discovered -- and is the senior author of a recent Current Biology paper on -- the largest known motile protist. The deep-sea organism is a one-inch-diameter testate amoeba that moves by rolling as it eats. It leaves trails that reopen the debate about whether some of the Ediacaran fauna were actually over-sized protists and whether trace fossils in the Proterozoic can be unambiguously assigned to metazoans. This paper has been featured in Nature, The Scientist, New Scientist, Discover and the New York Times. Sonke Johnsen's "advice for potential graduate students" has also been featured in "Nature Jobs" (December 4th edition of Nature). [more]

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Postdoc position in Computational Biology

POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS in the Duke University IGSP Center for Systems Biology. The DCSB is seeking highly motivated postdoctoral candidates with experience in computational and/or mathematical approaches relevant to the understanding of the function of biological systems. Positions are available in several collaborative research groups investigating a broad range of topics in systems biology with a focus on network control. Currently, there are six projects investigating various aspects of cell cycle control, development, and network evolution (see http://www.genome.duke.edu/centers/csb/ for project summaries and faculty). All appointees will be affiliated with the Duke Center for Systems Biology, a cross-school, campus-wide academic center that is also one of the NIH-supported National Systems Biology Centers. Highly qualified candidates will compete for the DCSB Postdoctoral Fellow Award. All Fellow Awards provide stipend support for one year, with the expectation of renewal for a second year. Women and members of under-represented groups are especially encouraged to apply. U.S. citizenship is not a requirement; however, international scholars should contact us before applying because of visa restrictions. Candidates should submit a curriculum vitae, a brief summary of current research and future research interests, and reprints of 2 or 3 key publications at www.academicjobsonline.org. Applicants should also arrange for 3 letters of recommendation to be uploaded to this website. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. [more]

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Mohamed Noor wins Darwin-Wallace Medal.

The Council of the Linnean Society of London announces the awarding of 13 Darwin-Wallace Medals 2008 for "major advances in evolutionary biology since 1958." The award is presented every 50 years and commemorates the 150th reading of the joint Darwin-Wallace paper "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection" at the Linnean Society of London in 1858. The President of the Society, Professor David F Cutler, will award medals on Thursday 12th February 2009, the 200th birthday of Charles Robert Darwin, to: Professor Nick Barton FRS, Professor M W Chase FRS, FLS, Professor B C Clarke FRS, FLS, Professor Joseph Felsenstein, the late Professor Stephen Jay Gould, Professor P R Grant FRS, FLS, Dr Rosemary Grant FRS, Professor J L B Mallet FLS, Professor Lynn Margulis FLS, the late Professor John Maynard-Smith FRS, FLS, Professor Mohamed Noor, Professor H Allen Orr and Professor Linda Partridge FRS. [more]

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Research Tech Opening

Research technician wanted to participate in research in evolutionary ecology and genetics. Research will combine work in the field, laboratory, and greenhouse. Duties include plant care; preparations for molecular and biochemical work; setting up and maintenance of field and greenhouse experiments, and keeping supervisor informed of results; data collection and organization; instruction of others in basic laboratory techniques and procedures; general lab and clerical tasks; other related duties as required. Available immediately. Competitive salary and full Duke benefits. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Please send CV and names of references to Kathleen Donohue: k.donohue@duke.edu DEADLINE FOR CONSIDERATION: OCTOBER 20, 2008

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Haase Lab publishes important finding on cell cycle

Prof. Steve Haase and his collaborators have published an important discovery in the journal Nature in their paper "Global control of cell cycle transcription by coupled CDK and network oscillators," Nature advance online publication, 07 May 2008 doi:10.1038/nature06955.  Using genomic techniques, the team examined about 6,000 genes in mutant yeast cells to discover that many cell cycle activities are driven by a series of transcription factors acting one after another.  For more information follow the link to the paper. [more]

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Katia Koelle publishes on Dengue Fever

Prof. Katia Koelle and her collaborator, Prof. Yoshiro Nagao (Osaka University) recently published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 105, no. 6, pp. 2238-2243. The paper is entitled "Decreases in dengue transmission may act to increase the incidence of dengue hemorrhagic fever."

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David Sherwood has been named to the Pew Scholars Program

David Sherwood has been named to the highly selective Pew Scholars Program. The Pew program invests in early to mid-career scientists, seeks to expand foundation of biomedical knowledge & advance scientific frontiers.
Check out the Program Press Release.
Check out Dave Sherwood's Program page. [more]

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Postdoc Position in Systems biology

The Benfey Lab at Duke University is seeking a research associate with a broad range of engineering expertise and innovation experience to join our systems biology team. The successful candidate will be involved with multiple projects to design and implement high-throughput systems biology methods. Immediate duties will be in efforts to improve our novel automated imaging experimental platforms for gene expression and root architecture. The ideal candidate would have experience relating to SolidWorks drafting, microfluidic devices, stereolithography, physical-chemical micro-sensors, microscopy, image analysis and Java programming . The successful candidate is exceptionally creative and organized and must be equally effective working independently and as part of an interdisciplinary team. Applicants with a B.S. or M.S. in engineering or related fields should provide a description of their research experience and contact information for three references to: Blythe Boquist (bbooher@duke.edu). Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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Faculty position in Neural Circuits and Behavior

Neural Circuits and Behavior Position at Duke University Duke University’s Department of Biology and the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences (DIBS) seek applications for a tenure-track faculty position, within the thematic core of Neural Circuits and Behavior. We are especially interested in applicants working at the intersections between molecular neuroscience, neural circuits, and behavior using an invertebrate or non-mammalian vertebrate system. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, locomotion, sound production and communication, chemo-, photo- and phonotaxis, migratory and homing behavior, sensation and perception, sensorimotor integration, and learning and memory. DIBS is a cross-school, campus-wide, interdisciplinary Institute with a commitment to building an interactive community of brain science research and scholarship. The Department of Biology is a broad department with strengths in evolution, ecology, behavior, and cell and molecular biology. It is in close proximity to the Medical School and the School of Engineering, and there are excellent opportunities for interactions with faculty and students from other departments and programs across campus. Successful candidates must have a Ph.D. and will be expected to establish extramurally funded research, train graduate students, and actively participate in undergraduate education and research. We anticipate hiring at the Assistant Professor level but will consider outstanding individuals at a more senior level. Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, a brief summary of current and proposed research, reprints of 2 or 3 key publications and a statement of teaching interests via the web at www.academicjobsonline.org. Candidates should also arrange for three letters of recommendation to be uploaded to this website. We will begin to review candidates on Oct 1. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer; women and members of minority groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

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Faculty position in Neurobiology at a cellular/molecular level

The Department of Biology at Duke University and the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences (DIBS) seek applications for a tenure-track faculty position in neurobiology at a cellular/molecular level. We are especially interested in applicants using model invertebrate systems, or zebrafish, and genetic, molecular, developmental and/or systems level approaches to address problems of fundamental importance to neural function. DIBS is a cross-school, campus-wide, interdisciplinary Institute with a commitment to building an interactive community of brain science research and scholarship. The Department of Biology is in close proximity to the Medical School and the School of Engineering, and there are excellent opportunities for interactions with faculty and students from other departments and programs across campus. Successful candidates must have a Ph.D. and will be expected to establish extramurally funded research, train graduate students, and actively participate in undergraduate education and research. We anticipate hiring at the Assistant Professor level but will consider outstanding individuals at a more senior level. Applicants should submit a curriculum vita, a brief summary of current and proposed research, reprints of 2 or 3 key publications and a statement of teaching interests via the web at www.academicjobsonline.org. Candidates should also arrange for three letters of recommendation to be uploaded to this website. We will begin to review candidates on Oct 31. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer; women and members of minority groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

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Postdoc Positions in Systems Biology

POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS in the Duke University IGSP Center for Systems Biology. The DCSB is seeking highly motivated postdoctoral candidates with experience in experimental biology and an interest in understanding the function of biological systems. Positions are available in several collaborative research groups investigating a broad range of topics in systems biology with a focus on network control. Currently, there are six projects investigating various aspects of cell cycle control, development, and network evolution (see http://www.genome.duke.edu/centers/csb/ for project summaries and faculty). All appointees will be affiliated with the Duke Center for Systems Biology, a cross-school, campus-wide academic center that is also one of the NIH-supported National Systems Biology Centers. Highly qualified candidates will compete for the DCSB Postdoctoral Fellow Award that provides stipend support for one year, with the expectation that preliminary findings from the initial appointment will support applications for external funding in subsequent years. Women and members of under-represented groups are especially encouraged to apply. U.S. citizenship is not a requirement; however, international scholars should contact us before applying because of visa restrictions. Candidates should submit a curriculum vitae, a brief summary of current research and future research interests, and reprints of 2 or 3 key publications at www.academicjobsonline.org. Applicants should also arrange for 3 letters of recommendation to be uploaded to this website. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. [more]

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POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS in the Duke University Center for Systems Biology.

The DCSB is seeking highly motivated postdoctoral candidates with experience in experimental biology, computation, or quantitative analysis relevant for understanding the function of biological systems. Positions are available in several collaborative research groups investigating a broad range of topics in systems biology (see http://www.genome.duke.edu/centers/csb/ for project summaries). Successful candidates with computational and/or analytical expertise may choose to work with several groups. All appointees will be affiliated with the Duke Center for Systems Biology, a cross-school, campus-wide academic center that is also one of the NIH-supported National Systems Biology Centers. All DCSB Postdoctoral Associates receive salary support for one year, with the expectation of renewal for a second year. Experimentalists will use preliminary findings from the first year to support applications for external funding that could support additional years. Women and members of under-represented groups are especially encouraged to apply. U.S. citizenship is not a requirement; however, international scholars should contact us before applying because of visa restrictions. Candidates should submit a curriculum vitae, a brief summary of current research and future research interests, and reprints of 2 or 3 key publications at www.academicjobsonline.org. Applicants should also arrange for 3 letters of recommendation to be uploaded to this website. Applications received by May 31, 2008 will be guaranteed consideration. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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The Perry Prize awarded to Dr. Steven Spoel

Prof. Paul Manos, chair of the prize committee, writes "Steven is on a fast research track, publishing at least five papers during his graduate career at Duke. He has outstanding scholarly abilities and excellent command of his thesis project." Steven writes, "In their natural environment, plants are continuously exposed to very different attackers, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and herbivorous insects. Immunity against these attackers depends on various defense responses that are regulated by the plant hormones salicylate and jasmonate. Whereas salicylate is closely related to the human anti-inflammatory drug aspirin, jasmonate is a derivative of the fragrance jasmine. The work in my dissertation has uncovered that molecular communication between salicylate and jasmonate provides the plant with a means of fine-tuning its immune response specifically against the attacker encountered. Understanding the communication between such key hormones in plant immunity is essential for the development of environmental friendly crop protection strategies for, amongst others, the food and bio-fuels industry.” [more]

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Research Technician Opening

Research Technician, Biology Dept., Duke University. Great lab opportunity on a developmental genetics project in plant roots. Full time, BA/BSc and lab experience required (some molecular biology experience preferred). Duties will include plant care and basic molecular analyses. Please send cv/resume to Jaimie Van Norman: jaimie.vannorman@duke.edu Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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Opening for Imaging Tech in Light Microscopy

A position is available immediately in the Light Microscopy Core Facility at Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. The facility provides access to microscopes and image analysis resources for the entire Duke University and Medical Center campus. The position involves a broad range of responsibilities associated with assisting users with the microscopes and general running of the facility. The position is diverse and interesting and would suit a candidate eager to enhance their microscopy skills.

Responsibilities will include:

  • Training users on the various microscopes in the facility
  • Trouble-shooting imaging problems
  • Facility administration (e.g. billing and maintaining database of users)
  • Maintenance of the microscopes

Requirements - Bachelors degree in a scientific discipline, good communication skills, research experience involving microscopes (ideally MetaMorph and confocals), and good computer skills. Applications and questions can be addressed to sam.johnson@duke.edu. Review of applications will begin 1 August 2007. Further details of the facility can be viewed at http://microscopy.duke.edu

[more]

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Dave DesMarais receives Fitch Prize

Biology graduate student David DesMarais was recently awarded the Walter M. Fitch Prize by the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. The prize is given annually for the best talk by a student or postdoc at the Society's annual meeting. His talk, entitled "Gene duplication allows substrate specialization in a biosynthetic enzyme," described his work showing that escape from adaptive conflict is responsible for preserving duplicate copies of the anthocyan-pathway gene DFR.

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Biology welcomes Assistant Professor Katia Koelle

The Department of Biology welcomes Katia Koelle to the faculty this fall as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Koelle is coming to us from the University of Michigan where she earned her Ph.D. and completed a postdoc. Her research focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases using a combination of mathematical and statistical approaches to understand the processes that give rise to the dynamic and evolutionary patterns of pathogens. Dr. Koelle’s office will be room 4314 in the French Family Science Center until her new lab suite is ready in the Biological Sciences Building.

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Eric Schuettpelz wins award from Society for Systematic Biology

Graduate student Eric Schuettpelz has received the Publisher's Award from Taylor & Francis, publisher of Systematic Biology. This journal is the third-ranked in the field of Evolutionary Biology. The award is presented to the two best papers based on student research published in Systematic Biology during the previous year. The lead author must have been a student at the time the research was conducted. The award was made for: Schuettpelz, E. and K.M. Pryer. 2006. Reconciling extreme branch length differences: decoupling time and rate through the evolutionary history of filmy ferns. Systematic Biology 55: 485-502. [more]

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New Book by Prof. James Clark

Prof. James Clark, Blomquist Professor of the Environmental Sciences and Biology, has published a new textbook entitled Models for Ecological Data: An Introduction (Princeton University Press).  The book introduces students to modeling and statistics for the environmental sciences, beginning with basic maximum likelihood and progressing to Bayesian modeling and computation.

"??Clark brings emerging statistical approaches alive by putting the ecology first." -- Stephen R. Carpenter, University of Wisconsin, Madison

"Jim Clark has been able to pitch his message just right; one can see the ecological forest and the statistical, distributional, and computational trees at the same time."-- Noel Cressie, Ohio State University

[more]

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Death of Prof. Knut Schmidt-Nielsen

The Biology Department is saddened by the death of Emeritus Professor Knut Schmidt-Nielsen on January 25, 2007. Biology Chair Philip Benfey said, “The passing of Knut Schmidt-Nielsen is particularly momentous as he was one of the intellectual pillars of this department. Please join me in sending our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.” The memorial service is tentatively planned for Saturday, February 24. For additional information on Prof. Schmidt-Nielsen’s career, please see the obituary posted at the Duke News website, http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/01/schmidt-nielsen.html

Some brief comments from his colleagues follow.

Steven Vogel: The debt I owe Knut Schmidt-Nielsen will not be forgotten, even as I get over the immediate loss of his friendship, stimulation, and generosity. He is one of the two people who have most determined what science I do and how I do it.

Steve Wainwright: When I visited for my interview at Duke Zoology in 1963, Knut asked me what I would like to do at Duke. I told him I wanted to try to apply simple mechanics to biological systems. He said "It would make me very happy if you come here and do that." I floated out of his office. It was the start of biomechanics at Duke.

John Staddon: Knut's legacy marks Duke biology as of the very first rank. His lucid prose and firm adherence to the principles of science are a lesson to all.

Donald Fluke: It was a privilege to be Knut Schmidt-Nielsen’s colleague over our years together in the Department of Zoology, and especially during the years I was his department chairman, 1967 and 1969-1978. So many times during those eleven years I was down in his office discussing problems and opportunities that confronted us. He wasn’t one to waste time (once he said to me “I guess that staff meeting was justified”) but he was generous with his time spent with me, one on one, when I needed his judgment and his perspective.

Peter Klopfer: Knut's many scientific achievements were not to the exclusion of other interests. He had a strong sense of the importance of ethical standards and practices.

Bruce Nicklas: Knut chaired the faculty review of the proposal to locate Nixon's library here -- he was superb in that role (and the library was built in California).

Steve Nowicki: When Knut was preparing for the lecture he was going to give at the ceremony in Japan where he was to receive the Emperor's Prize, he made a point of asking me and another assistant professor if we would listen to a practice talk. Here was one of the most famous biologists in the world, about to receive the Emperor's Prize, asking a couple of green assistant professors to criticize his talk. I'm still not sure why he asked us to critique him, but I think it was partly the fact that Knut always was open to new ideas and looking towards the future. I also think Knut knew that asking us to watch his practice lecture would both inspire and instruct us. It certainly did.

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Postdoctoral position in Functional Genomics

Postdoc in Functional Genomics and Natural Variation A two year postdoctoral position is available in the Department of Biology at Duke University to study molecular genetics of plant defense. The applicant must have a PhD degree in molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, or a related field. Prior experience with plant biochemistry, Arabidopsis genetics, transformation, and other genomics methods is desirable.

The research project involves functional characterization of loci controlling the biochemistry of plant defense. Our laboratory is located in the French Family Science Center, a very new facility housing a number of lab groups with closely related interests. Recent work in our laboratory is summarized at: http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/Biology/faculty/tmo/publications.

Funding is available for two years beginning immediately, with the possibility of further extension. Interested applicants should email a cover letter, a brief statement of research experience, CV and names and contact information of three references to: Dr. Thomas Mitchell-Olds, tmo1@duke.edu.

Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.

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Postdoctoral position in Systems Biology

A two year postdoctoral position is available in the Department of Biology at Duke University and the newly formed Duke Center for Systems Biology.

 We seek a highly motivated postdoctoral research associate who has a strong background in statistical and computational methods. The successful candidate will help to develop quantitative models of the regulatory networks underlying complex traits in yeast. The person who fills this position will also participate in a Howard Hughes Medical Institute funded initiative to develop quantitative laboratory materials for an undergraduate biology course.

To apply for this position please send a cover letter, CV and the names and contact information for three references to: Dr. Paul Magwene, Department of Biology, Duke University, P.O. Box 91000, Durham, NC 27708. You may also email this information to paul.magwene@duke.edu.

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Prof. Pei receives USDA funding

Zhen-Ming Pei of Biology has received an award from the Department of Agriculture for a project entitled "Molecular Genetic Analysis of Ca2+Channel-Mediated Cold Sensing." Total funding will be $398,682 over 36 months.

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Prof. Jackson receives DOE funding

Robert B. Jackson of the Nicholas School has received an award from the Department of Energy for a project entitled "Southeastern Regional Center of the National Institute for Climate Change Research (Supplement)." Total funding will be $598,161 over 51 months.

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Prof. Bernhardt receives funding from NC State Government

Emily S. Bernhardt of Biology has received an award from the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources for a project entitled "Restoring Biogeochemical Functions in Degraded Urban Stream Ecosystems." Total funding will be $21,473 over 12 months.

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Prof. Sherwood receives ACS funding

David R. Sherwood of Biology has received an award from the American Cancer Society for a project entitled "Genetic Analysis of Cell-Invasive Behavior." Total funding will be $720,000 over 48 months.

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Prof. Benfey receives NSF funding.

Philip N. Benfey of Biology has received an award from the National Science Foundation for a project entitled "Arabidopsis 2010: Identifying Transcriptional Networks at Cellular Resolution." Total funding will be $4,000,000 over 48 months

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Prof. Magwene receives NSF funding

Paul Magwene of Biology has received an award from the National Science Foundation for a project entitled "Research Initiation Grant: The Effects of Genetic Variation on Gene Networks in Yeast." Total funding will be $174,858 over 24 months.

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Postdoctoral Position in Yeast Population Genetics and Genomics

A two year postdoctoral position is available in the Department of Biology at Duke University to study the effects of genetic variation on regulatory networks in yeast.

We seek a highly-motivated postdoctoral research associate who has the ability to utilize a combination of genetic and functional genomic experimental approaches to further our understanding of how variation in gene networks contributes to variation in cellular phenotypes. Prior experience in the application of techniques such as gene knockouts, allelic replacement and qPCR methods in budding yeast or related fungi is required.

To apply for this position please send a cover letter, CV and the names and contact information for three references to: Dr. Paul Magwene, Department of Biology, Duke University, P.O. Box 91000, Durham, NC 27708. You may also email this information to paul.magwene@duke.edu.

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Kai-Jung Chi appointed Assistant Professor

Kai-Jung Chi, a student of Prof. V. Louise Roth, has received an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Physics Department of National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan.  Dr. Chi received her degree in December 2005 with a thesis entitled "Functional Morphology and Biomechanics of Mammalian Footpads."

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Eric Schuettpelz gets "triple crown" at Botany 2006

Graduate student Eric Schuettpelz (Pryer Lab) walked away with three awards from the Botanical Society of America’s banquet in Chico, CA on 2 August 2006: The Lawrence Memorial Award ($2,000) is given to an outstanding doctoral candidate for travel in support of dissertation research. The award is from the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University, and will provide support for Eric’s upcoming field work in Malaysia. The Edgar T. Wherry Award ($200) is given for the best paper presented during the contributed papers session of the Pteridological Section. This award is in honor of Dr. Wherry’s many contributions to the floristics and patterns of evolution in ferns. The BSA Pteridological Section Student Travel Award ($400) supports travel to the annual meeting of the Botanical Society of America.

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Adaptive biochemical evolution in plant metabolism

Prof. Thomas Mitchell-Olds and colleagues report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Adaptive biochemical evolution in plant metabolism:

Multiple cycles of adaptive biochemical evolution have shaped enzymatic activity encoded by a plant defense gene in Arabidopsis and its relatives. Following a tandem duplication of MAM genes in Arabidopsis thaliana, the 5’ region of one copy experienced adaptive evolution altering catalytic function. Historical analysis of the gene family in related species shows repeated episodes of gene duplication, neofunctionalization, and positive selection, indicating the central importance of these processes in the evolution of plant metabolic diversity within and among species.

BENDEROTH, M., S. TEXTOR, A. J. WINDSOR, T. MITCHELL-OLDS, J. GERSHENZON, AND J. KROYMANN. 2006. Positive selection driving diversification in plant secondary metabolism. PNAS 103: 9118-9123 [more]

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Evolution of natural variation in Arabidopsis

Professor Thomas Mitchell-Olds has recently published on the evolution of natural variation in the prestigious journal Nature:

MITCHELL-OLDS, T., AND J. SCHMITT. 2006. Genetic mechanisms and evolutionary significance of natural variation in Arabidopsis. Nature 441: 947-952.

Genomic analyses of natural variation in model species are beginning to link molecular understanding of gene function with evolutionary analysis of adaptation and natural selection. At the half-way point of the Arabidopsis 2010 project, this review examines progress in understanding ecological and evolutionary significance of natural genetic variation in A. thaliana, and mechanisms of genome evolution, geographic population structure, and natural selection influencing complex trait variation.
[more]

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2006 Perry Prize Awarded to Andrea Sweigart

The Perry Prize for the best dissertation thesis in Plant Science has been awarded to Dr. Andrea Sweigart for her dissertation "Patterns of Evolutionary Divergence and the Genetics of Hybrid Sterility between Two Species of Mimulus." Dr. Sweigart was advised by Prof. John Willis. She writes, "My dissertation research investigated the genetics of reproductive isolation, with the ultimate goal being to understand the process by which new species form." She shows great promise in the area of plant genetics, and already has published several papers based on her dissertation work in top-flight journals. The Biology Department is proud to award her the Perry Prize at the start of her professional career.

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New Greenhouses for Teaching Collection

With the goal of maintaining the teaching collection of plants for use in undergraduate courses, the administration has agreed to the following:

  • The greenhouses will be built at the Sarah P Duke Gardens. These will be more or less standard greenhouses, but will meet the needs of both the Biology Department (for teaching purposes) and the Gardens (re: location and appropriateness to the Gardens Master Pan)
  • A teaching classroom and a teaching lab will be built in association with the greenhouses.
  • A staff person with responsibilities for greenhouse maintenance will be hired
  • There will be an oversight/managing committee established with representation from both the Biology Department and the Gardens
  • An ongoing budget for running the facilities, purchasing plants, maintenance etc. will be established by the department and Gardens as appropriate

The above plan is in response to the needs for such a facility. While the original plans called for location near the Biological Science building, budget issues necessitated a change. The greenhouse location at the Gardens will be convenient to the students. Courses will be scheduled through the standard University processes. Students and faculty would come to the Gardens facility for the courses to be taught there.

posted March 1, 2006

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Biology Approved for Two Open Ranked Faculty Searches

The Department of Biology at Duke University is seeking outstanding candidates for two open rank tenure track positions to begin September 2007. Deadline for applicants is November 1 2006.
See the Faculty Job Listing Here [more]

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Biology Dept. awards 8 Ph.D. degrees in May 2006

The Biology Department is proud to announce that the following students will be awarded the Ph.D. degree on Sunday, May 14:

  • Renee Duckworth: Evolutionary Ecology of Avian Behavior: From Individual Variability to Geographical Range Shifts
  •  Heath O'Brien: Phylogenetics of Heterocystous Cyanobacteria and the Evolution of Specificity and Selectivity In Cyanolichen Symbioses
  • Carla Rydholm: Population and Mating System Biology of the Common Mold Aspergillus fumigatus and its Close Relatives
  • Yuichiro Suzuki: The Evolution of a Polyphenism by Genetic Accommodation
  • Andrea Sweigart: Patterns of Evolutionary Divergence and the Genetics of Hybrid Sterility Between Two Species of Mimulus
  • Ludmila Tyler: An Analysis of Potential Negative and Positive Components of the Gibberellin Signaling Pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana
  • Mario Vallejo-Marin: The adaptive role of male flowers in the self-incompatible plant Solanum carolinense
  • Dong Wang: Genomic and Genetic Approaches Reveal Important Components of Plant Systemic Acquired Resistance

We congratulate them and look forward to learning from their future research.

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Rob Jackson publishes book of poetry for children.

Animal Mischief leads to some literary mischief in Prof. Rob Jackson’s book of poetry by the same title (published by Boyds Mill Press).  Written for and with the assistance of his 9– and 7–year–old sons, the poems are short, sweet, and suitable for children of all ages.  While amusing the reader they are still true to the reality of the animals’ lives.  The nuggets of zoological knowledge found therein are supplemented in a brief prose addendum.  Laura Jacobsen's whimsical illustrations perfectly capture the sensibility of the poems, funny, charming, and true to nature.  This book will surely appeal to and encourage children's interest in nature.

 

For more information see the Duke News story at http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2006/0 3/jacksonpoembook.html.

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Exciting genetic evidence for controversial modes of speciation formation

ORTIZ-BARRIENTOS, D., and M. A. F. NOOR, 2005 Evidence for a one-allele assortative mating locus. SCIENCE 310: 1467

This study presented the first experimental evidence for the type of genetic variation most conducive to controversial modes of speciation (such as 'sympatric speciation'). Specifically, genetic variation exists that, when it crosses the species boundary, can reduce subsequent inter-species gene flow. This work was done by Noor's first PhD student, Daniel Ortiz- Barrientos, in completion of his dissertation work.


Web link: www.science mag.org

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Shaw Awarded NSF Grant

Evolutionary Processes that Underlie Peatmoss Diversity

Peatmosses (Sphagnum) frequently dominate habitats in which they occur, forming deep peat deposits in boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Sphagnum-dominated peatlands constitute an important reservoir for global carbon, are critical to the movement of methane (CH4) and other atmospheric gases including CO, N2O, NH3, H2S, COS, and DMS, and play a prominent role in determining patterns of regional hydrology, permafrost, and biodiversity. Peatlands also provide habitat for diverse organisms including many unique plants, protists, animals, and fungi.

Prof. Jon Shaw has been awarded an NSF grant (2005-2008) to address issues related to the generation and maintenance of peatmoss biodiversity. In particular, the research will clarify species delimitation in this critically important group, evaluate the extent to which species are ecologically equivalent and hence mutually replaceable, and clarify the importance of local scale genetic processes such as hybridization in generat ing biodiversity.

The project has three major components. The first part involves a global analysis of peatmoss diversity based on DNA nucleotide sequences. The second part of the research investigates ecological, genetic, and morphological variation in a group of closely related species that are widespread in North America, Europe, and Asia. DNA fingerprinting methods are used to determine reproductive patterns in natural populations and the extent to which co-occurring species hybridize.

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Professor Jon Shaw Receives NSF PEET Grant

Evolution and Phylogeny of the Southern Hemisphere Moss Family, Daltoniaceae

NSF’s PEET Program (Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy) was created to address the impending shortage of biologists trained in the identification and classification of the world’s biodiversity. Bryophytes (the mosses) comprise one of the largest groups of land plants, yet their taxonomy and phylogenetic relationships are still in an exploratory phase. Prof. Jon Shaw received an NSF PEET grant (2005- 2010) to conduct taxonomic and phylogenetic analyses of the moss family, Daltoniaceae, and to use this research as a vehicle for training in systematic biology. The Daltoniaceae are widespread in tropical and Southern Hemisphere regions and include 14 genera and some 215 species. They occur as epiphytes on the twigs and trunks of angiosperms and tree ferns, and also in terrestrial habitats.

The project will generate species-level monographs at its core, with supporting phylogenetic analyses based on DNA sequence data. Molecular data will be gathered from all three genomic compartments; nuclear, chloroplast, and mitochondrial, in order to resolve relationships at the levels of populations, species, and genera. The project will compare alternative ways of estimating biodiversity, including species richness and various measures of molecular diversity. Patterns and rates of net diversification (speciation minus extinction) will be assessed using molecular phylogenetic data, and the effects of taxonomic sampling on the inferences gleaned from such analyses will be investigated.

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Hormonal changes can reveal genetic variation

EVOLUTION: Hidden Genetic Variation Yields Caterpillar of a Different Color, by Elizabeth Pennisi

Title: Hormonal changes can reveal genetic variation.

Description:
How can a complex trait evolve? Suzuki and Nijhout show how a complex trait called a polyphenism can evolve. Polyphenisms are adaptations in which a genome is associated with discrete alternative phenotypes in different environments. Polyphenisms have evolved multiple times in many species yet the evolutionary origins of these complex traits have been been poorly understood. In their paper, Suzuki and Nijhout demonstrated how a caterpillar that normally doesn't exhibit color polyphenism could evolve a polyphenism. A range of phenotypic variation was revealed by heat-shocking caterpillars of the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, with a mutation that lowers a developmental hormone called juvenile hormone. By selecting for increased color change in response to heat stress, the authors created caterpillars that turn either green or black depending on the temperature they experience during development. This was accompanied by a corresponding change in hormonal titers. The study demonstrates how hormones can act to mask hidden genetic variation and shows how complex traits may evolve.

Co-authors:
Yuichiro Suzuki (Graduate Student)
H. Frederik Nijhout (Faculty, Dept. of Biology)

Citation:
Evolution of a Polyphenism by Genetic Accommodation. Science 3 February 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5761, pp. 650 - 652

Web link:
http://www.sciencemag.org

Submitted by: Tiffany Chen for Yuichiro Suzuki

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The diversity and biogeography of soil bacterial communities.

This first-ever continental-scale genetic survey of soil bacteria revealed that the primary factor governing their diversity is soil pH. The neutral soils of deserts and grasslands harbor more diverse bacterial communitities than the acidic soils of tropical forests, including the Amazon. News coverage included NPR's All Things Considered, the Scripps Howard News Service, Scientific American, Discover, and many other outlets.
Co-authors: Noah Fierer - postdoctoral associate Rob Jackson - professor

Citation: Fierer, N, RB Jackson 2006 The diversity and biogeography of soil bacterial communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103:626-631

Web links:
http:// www.dukenews.duke.edu/
http://www.npr.org/

Submitted by:
Rob Jackson

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Trading water for carbon with biological carbon sequestration

Growing tree plantations to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to mitigate global warming -- so called "carbon sequestration" -- could trigger environmental changes that outweigh some of the benefits, a multi-institutional team led by Duke University suggested in a new report. Those effects include water and nutrient depletion and increased soil salinity and acidity. The paper also highlighted locations around the world where plantations could help reduce erosion and improve water quality. Media coverage of the paper included National Public Radio, New York Times, Washington Post, Business Week, Christian Science Monitor, and many other outlets.

Jackson RB, EG Jobb·gy, R Avissar, S Baidya Roy, D Barrett, CW Cook, KA Farley, DC le Maitre, BA McCarl, B Murray 2005 Trading water for carbon with biological carbon sequestration. Science 310:1944-1947

Co-authors:
Esteban Jobb·gy - postdoc, Biology
Kathleen Farley - former postdoc, Biology
Charles Cook - technician, Biology
Roni Avissar - chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Somnath Baidya Roy - postdoc, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Web link(s):
http:// www.sciencemag.org/
http:// www.dukenews.duke.edu/
http:// www.npr.org

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Moving from Genomes to Landscapes

What is the future of genetically modified (or transgenic) conifer plantations? The content of this edited volume Landscapes, Genomics and Transgenic Conifers addresses this question directly - and indirectly - using language drawn from policy, forest history, genomics, metabolism, pollen dispersal and gene flow, landscape ecology, evolution, economics, technology transfer and regulatory oversight. Although the book takes its title from a Nicholas School Leadership forum held November 17-19, 2004 at Duke University, its de novo contents move past the forumÌs deliberations. The result is a trans-disciplinary book composed of 14 chapters written by a total of 31 authors working in North America, South America, Europe and Africa. The book is written for policy experts, life scientists, government and business leaders, biotechnology writers and activists. Few decision-makers realize the unprecedented degree to which transgenic technology is now possible for forests on a commercia l scale. Only a handful of the 550 living conifer species is used for commodity value and even fewer species are being developed for transgenic plantations. Transgenic field trials started within the last decade but no transgenic pine plantations exist in 2005. But emergence of transgenic forest trees is still so recent that dialogue about the pros and cons is confined to the scientific community. And dialogue must move out into the public domain. So little opportunity remains for opening public dialogue. The pursuit of transgenic research for forest trees is principally corporate so novel forest tree phenotypes are created as a means to increase shareholder value for investor companies. And while potential benefits will accrue to shareholders, ecological risks for certain transgenic traits are likely to be shared due to long-distance gene flow and inadequate bioconfinement measures. So this is a question riddled with tension. Without public deliberation, we should expect al ienation of several interest groups. Alienation will lead to heightened clashes in the public policy arena or even radical environmental action. But how to move dialogue on transgenic forests forward? One must re- frame the issues behind transgenic conifer plantations. The goal of this volume is to provide content for public deliberations about the genetic composition of future forests. Its Section I is composed of provocative and opposing views on the question of transgenic conifer plantations. Sections II and III follow with research advances on relevant conifer genomics and ecology research, respectively. Section IV forecasts rates of technology adoption for different case studies. Finally, Section V compares the status of regulatory oversight of transgenic forest trees between Canada and the United States.


Landscapes, Genomics and Transgenic Conifer Forests (2006), Springer Publishers, Dordrecht Netherlands ISBN: 1402038682

Web link(s):
http://www.springer.com
http:// www.isb.vt.edu

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NEW Teaching and Research Plant Facility Web Site

Check out the new Teaching and Research Plant Facility web site and see what is happening in the Duke University Biology department greenhouses and phytotron.

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Professor Jon Shaw is Lead PI in Six-institution Collaborative Effort

Assembling the Green Plant Tree of Life

All life on earth depends on green plants. There is mounting evidence that liverworts (Phylum Marchantiophyta) were the first green plants to diversify on land some 500,000 million years ago, and as such they are the oldest living lineage of terrestrial organisms. This group of small green plants is remarkably diverse, and includes extremely ancient, relictual lineages as well as more recent radiations of species-rich crown group assemblages. The antiquity of liverworts and the rich biodiversity at all taxonomic levels provide an unparalleled window into early land plant diversification, including the origin and evolution of fundamental aspects of green plant life histories.

Prof. Jon Shaw is the lead PI in a six-institution collaborative effort funded (2005-2010) through the NSF’s Assembling the Tree of Life (ATOL) program to resolve phylogenetic relationships across the entire spectrum of liverwort diversity.

Three data sets are being compiled:

  1. conservative ultrastructural and plastid DNA genome characters from 18 species to resolvem deep “backbone” relationships,
  2. anatomical/developmental and mitochondrial DNA intron characters for a 100-taxon data set to resolve intermediate-depth clades, and
  3. morphological and nucleotide sequence characters to resolve relationships among a sample of 900 taxa representing all genera of liverworts.

The ultrastructural investigations will elucidate the evolutionary history of fundamental aspects of morphology, including cell division processes, apical growth of plant bodies, transfer of materials between diploid sporophytes and haploid gametophytes, spore wall characteristics, and male gamete structure. A new internet accessible “Phylogenetic Diversity Explorer” will facilitate novel approaches to global biodiversity patterns at both the molecular and phenotypic levels.

Outreach efforts of this project include accession and photographic documentation of all voucher specimens, presentation of interactive keys to liverwort genera, a workshop to facilitate secondary school teacher education, and organization of annual weekend field “forays” to promote public enthusiasm for organismal biology and phylogeny.

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Duke Sweeps 2005 Awards from the International Association of Bryology

During their August 2005 meeting, the International Association of Bryology awarded Professor Emeritus Lewis Anderson the prestigious Hedwig award for his bryological contributions during the last 25 years, and Professor Jon Shaw received the Hattori award for the “best paper or series of papers” in bryology over the last two years.

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Duke Population Research Institute Colloquium

Wednesday, January 25, 2006
BioSci 111
4:15-6:00 pm
Refreshments: provided after the Colloquium
Speakers: Hal Caswell, PhD (Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst.) and Jim Clark, PhD (Duke Dept of Biology)
Presentations: Caswell will speak about the "Demography of the North Atlantic Right Whale" and Clark's talk is on "Demographic Inference and Prediction with Bayesian Networks to Integrate Abundant, but Indirect and Mismatched Information.

Submitted by: nancy vaupel

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Sex and the Single Pine Tree


Birds do it, bees do it, pine trees do it. If you want to know more, plan to attend Claire William's lecture, Sex and the Single Pine Tree. Williams promises to change the way you look at a pine tree. In her talk she will take the audience on a pictorial journey through geological time, connecting unusual reproductive characteristics in modern conifers to pollination mechanisms in ancient seed plants. Professor William's lecture is part of the Engaging Faculty Series, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Duke University Libraries.
Tuesday, 24 January, 4:30pm, Perkins Library Rare Book Room.

For more information, send a message to:
ilene.nelson@duke.edu or call 660-5816.

The program is open to everyone.

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Fulbright Senior Specialist for the University of Chile

Summer in Chile

Genetics of Small Populations" workshop taught as part
of Chile's Darwin Initiative in the Faculty of Veterinary
Sciences. Chile is rich in endemic flora and fauna yet
its production econo my depends on introduced exotics
so this area o f population genetics research holds high
interest to many life science professionals and
grad uate students there.

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Changes in gene expression influenced the evolution of human cognition

There is considerable interest in understanding the genetic basis for the evolution of uniquely human traits. We found that genetic changes in the regulatory region of the PDYN gene may have played an important role in the evolution of the human brain. Sequence comparisons indicate that these mutations were fixed by positive selection following the divergence of humans from the other great apes, and experimental assays demonstrate that they drive increased expression of PDYN in humans. Previous work had shown that decreased levels of PDYN expression are correlated with mental health disorders in humans. Together, these finding suggest that the positively- selected mutations regulatory mutations of PDYN are part of the many genetic changes that resulted in the unique cognitive capabilities of the human brain.

Web links for More Info:
biology.plosj ournals.org
www.sciencemag.org

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The Evolution of Animal Communication: Reliability and Deception in Signaling Systems.

A new book release on how animals communicate by Searcy, W. A. and S. Nowicki. Gull chicks beg for food from their parents. Peacocks spread their tails to attract potential mates. Meerkats alert family members of the approach of predators. But are these--and other animals--sometimes dishonest? That's what William Searcy and Stephen Nowicki ask in The Evolution of Animal Communication. They take on the fascinating yet perplexing question of the dependability of animal signaling systems. The book probes such phenomena as the begging of nesting birds, alarm calls in squirrels and primates, carotenoid coloration in fish and birds, the calls of frogs and toads, and weapon displays in crustaceans. Do these signals convey accurate information about the signaler, its future behavior, or its environment? Or do they mislead receivers in a way that benefits the signaler? For example, is the begging chick really hungry as its cries indicate or is it lobbying to get more food than its brothers and sisters? Searcy and Nowicki take on these and other questions by developing clear definitions of key issues, by reviewing the most relevant empirical data and game theory models available, and by asking how well theory matches data. They find that animal communication is largely reliable--but that this basic reliability also allows the clever deceiver to flourish. Well researched and clearly written, their book provides new insight into animal communication, behavior, and evolution.

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Duke Biologist Rob Jackson to direct new DOE National Institute for Climate Change Research in the southeast,

Duke University has been chosen to administer a new U.S. Department of Energy program that will distribute about $10 million to universities and other institutions in the Southeast for climate change research during the next five years, Duke and energy department officials have announced. Duke's Center on Global Change will receive an additional $1 million to administer the center.
Web link(s):
Full Story

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Research Scientist Position in Lichenology Available

Research Scientist position in lichenology available in the Duke University Department of Biology. Ph.D. degree in Biology or other directly related scientific field or equivalent professional attainment in the systematics of lichen-forming and lichenicolous fungi required. Employee will conduct complex and independent investigations in the planning, development, and implementation of original experimental procedures in lichenology and will record and analyze data using applicable computer systems, including UNIX based systems. Will be responsible for laboratory managerial tasks. Demonstrated proficiency in identifying and conducting research on lichens and lichenicolous fungi, and a publication record demonstrating ability to contribute to the body of knowledge in the field.

Two (2) years of postdoctoral research experience as described above. Annual salary is $45,000, 40 hours per week, 8:00-5:00.

Candidates should submit detailed curriculum vitae and the names of three references to: Dr. Francois Lutzoni, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham, NC 27708-0338 by November 25, 2005.

Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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Biology Invites Applications for Assistant Professor in Ecology or Behavior

The Biology Department at Duke University invites applications for a faculty position in Ecology or Behavior at the Assistant Professor level. Applicants working in any area of Ecology or Behavior will be considered. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to, animal behavior, microbial ecology, ecology of infectious diseases, and ecological linkages between populations, communities, and ecosystems. The successful candidate must hold a Ph.D. and demonstrate the potential to build an outstanding research program, to obtain external funding commensurate with their research specialty, and to contribute to teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

To apply, please send a curriculum vitae, statements of research and teaching interests, and three representative reprints, and arrange to have three letters of recommendation sent to: Ecology/Behavior Faculty Search, Biology Department, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham, NC 27708-0338. Application materials can also be submitted electronically to ecobehavsch@duke.edu. Applications received by Nov. 15, 2005 will be guaranteed consideration.

Duke University is an Equal Opportunity /Affirmative Action employer.

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Do Linked, International Curricula in Biology Enhance Science Literacy and Engagement in Non-Science or Pre-Major Students?

This project creates an international and interactive dialog between students at Duke and at Egerton University in Kenya. Research will address how an international component, class work of humanitarian utility, and emotional connectivity to the subject all impact science education. The international focus on science and health inequalities also has the potential to increase interest in the sciences among female and minority students.

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Yoder Recieves NSF Award to Study Vertebrate Biodiversity of Madagascar

Anne Yoder has recently received a NSF grant to study the vertebrate biodiversity of the poorly known regions of western Madagascar. The award will fund a collaboration with Reed Beaman of Yale University, who specializes in the use of global positioning data for documenting biodiversity, and Steve Goodman of the Field Museum of Natural History. Goodman has long specialized in the documentation and protection of Madagascar's biota, and in recognition of his efforts, recently received a MacArthur "genius" award. Together, Yoder, Beaman, and Goodman hope to combine lab, field, and informatic tools to understand and conserve Madagascar's highly threatened biota. In parallel with their research program, the PIs will work to train and prepare Malagasy scholars for advanced research and conservation planning.

Web Links:
Steven Goodman
Yoder Lab

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Duke Biology Undergraduate, Rahul Satija, Awarded Rhodes Scholarship.

Rahul Satija is one of 32 American students this year to be awarded the oldest international fellowship by University of Oxford. Satija is a Duke senior majoring in biology and music with a minor in math. He has been carrying out research in bioinformatics, currently focused on the sea urchin genome and smallpox virus. Awarded a Goldwater Scholarship for his scientific work, he is also concertmaster for the Duke Symphony Orchestra and first violinist of a student string quartet, and holds Dukeís only music performance scholarship. He also teaches violin to inner city youth in Durham, and plays with the Duke recreational tennis club. Rahul plans to do the D.Phil. in Bioinformatics at Oxford.

For more info about the Rhodes Scholarship go to: www.rhodesscholar.org

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Biology Seeks Assistant Professor in Molecular Mechanisms

The Department of Biology at Duke University is seeking outstanding candidates for a tenure track position as Assistant Professor. Exceptional candidates at the Associate Professor level will be considered. We are interested in applicants who investigate the molecular basis of biological function within or between cells. We are particularly interested in research using systems, biochemical, genetic, or other molecular approaches to solve complex mechanistic problems. The successful candidate will be expected to develop a strong independent research program and be fully committed to the graduate and undergraduate education mission of the University.

Applicants should submit a curriculum vita, a summary of current and proposed research, a statement of teaching interests, and arrange for three letters of recommendation to be sent to: Molecular Mechanisms Search, Biology Department, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham, NC 27708- 0338. Application materials may also be submitted electronically to MolecularMechanisms2005@duke.edu. Applications received by Nov. 15, 2005 will be guaranteed consideration.

Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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Birthday Greetings!

Happy Birthday Randy! 49!

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Research Tech position in molecular biology

Research Technician (Molecular Biology), Biology Dept., Duke. Great lab opportunity on a cutting edge genomics project using plants and yeast. Full time: BA/BS and molecular biology experience required. Some media/solution prep. Send resume to Siobhan Brady: chevybra@duke.edu. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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Picnic

Departmental Picnic, October 15, Friends School, 5:00 p.m.

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Mohamed Noor Wins Brooks Teaching Award

Mohamed Noor has won the David and Janet Vaughan Brooks Teaching Award for "truly outstanding teaching" in 2011-2012. The Award recognizes the "ability to encourage intellectual excitement and curiosity in students,knowledge of a field and ability to communicate it, organizational skills and mentorship of students, and commitment to excellent teaching over time." Three cheers!

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