Archived News

Middle school students from West Liberty and Eldridge, Iowa, who participated in Project HOPE (Healthcare, Occupations, Preparation, and Exploration), traveled to the University of Iowa (UI) on Thursday, January 10, 2013, for the culmination of a six-week program that provided them with opportunities to explore health science occupations.

Project HOPE is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)-based career education program designed to connect minority and low socioeconomic middle school students to the health science professions early in their education.

The project, developed by Saba Ali, an associate professor in the UI Counseling Psychology Department, addresses the critical need to increase diversity in the American healthcare workforce and specifically works with students in rural Iowa communities with large Hispanic immigrant populations. The program is currently in place in West Liberty and Columbus Junction, two Iowa communities with large Latino populations, and four other locations in the SE region of Iowa. According to Ali, less than one percent of the healthcare workforce in Iowa is composed of minorities and only between five and nine percent nationwide.

While at UI, the group of eighth graders interacted with students in the Iowa Biosciences Advantage (IBA) program, as well as health science professionals. IBA is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and provides undergraduate students who have traditionally been underrepresented in biomedical and behavioral Ph.D. programs [e.g. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans (including Alaska natives), natives of the U.S. Pacific Islands, and individuals with disabilities or economically disadvantaged backgrounds] with research training and support to prepare them for entry into doctoral programs in the biosciences. IBA is administered in the Department of Biology and is co-directed by Dr. Lori Adams, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biology; and Dr. Vincent Rodgers, Professor of Physics & Astronomy. More information about IBA can be found at www.uiowa.edu/iba

IBA students engaged the middle school students in scientific inquiry through three, thirty-minute sessions where they were able to take part in hands-on activities developed by the IBA students. During the sessions, the middle school students identified a simple scientific question, performed an experiment, and then discussed their findings and how it related to health careers. Activities required creativity, curiosity, and use of the scientific method that exemplified the nature of science.

At one station, students competed to build the strongest bridge using toothpicks and Dots candy, which demonstrated engineering principles required to build various prosthetic devices. Another station featured an egg drop contest where the students designed packaging to protect an egg from breaking when it was dropped. This simulated the protective layers found in the body. Finally, the students created and tested homemade stethoscopes that would be effective at listening to heartbeats. IBA students explained to the eighth graders how the heart works and various measures that can be used to listen to the heart.

One West Liberty student said learning about health-related science for the day was enjoyable. “Science was fun today. I like learning about the human body and getting to actually do stuff,” the student said.

Just as the Project HOPE participants learned about science from the IBA students, the IBA students also gained new perspective from the middle school students.

“I learned a different way to approach problem-solving. They have a basic knowledge, and it’s neat to go back to the basics. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be as complex as we make it,” said IBA student Mariah Bankert.

Project HOPE is a collaboration between the UI Colleges of Education, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, Business, Engineering, Liberal Arts and Sciences (Departments of Biology, Physics and Astronomy, and School of Art and Art History), School of Urban and Regional Planning, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, and the State Hygienic Laboratory at The University of Iowa. Project HOPE was selected as one of twelve Governor Terry Branstad’s STEM Scale-Up projects in 2012-13, which will allow the program to expand into additional communities. 

For more information about Project HOPE, please contact Saba Ali (saba-ali@uiowa.edu).

Planning to apply to Graduate Schools of Biomedical Sciences?

You are invited to attend the Biomed Virtual Grad School Fair on October 25, 2012.

The Biomed Virtual Grad Fair will allow you to have your admissions questions answered by representatives from over 20 graduate institutions during this live event.

• REGISTER NOW to attent the FREE virtual fair to learn more about Graduate Schools of Biomedical Sciences programs.
• Save your valuable time by meeeting school representatives in live chate sessions online.
• Have you questions answered without ever leaving the comfort of your computer.
• Only a One-Time Registration required to meet multiple schools.

*Option to upload your CV prior to the event (CV upload not required to participate)

Virtual Fair Date: October 25, 2012

Register at http://biomed.careereco.net/students-alumni/virtual-fair-registration/

For more information:

Gayle Oliver-Path | 770.980.0088 | biomed@careereco.com

The University of Iowa Department of Biology will be hosting an information session that will provide potential students, as well as current University of Iowa students, the chance to learn about the Biology program at the University of Iowa. The information session will take place on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. in the Kollros Auditorium of the Biology Building East (BBE). 

During the event, attendees will hear from several speakers, including the departmental executive officer, Dr. Bernd Fritzsch, academic and career advisors, and representatives from the University of Iowa College of Public Health and the University of Iowa Biological Interests Organization (UI BIO), a student organization on campus. Information presented will cover a variety of topics including the requirements for a Biology degree, opportunities for research and teaching, and biology-related careers, among others. An optional lab tour will also take place after the session for those interested in seeing a research lab.

More details about the event can be viewed here, or contact Steve Kehoe with the Department of Biology: steve-kehoe@uiowa.edu, 319-335-1050.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences welcomes its 2012 class of Alumni Fellows to campus this week.

Each year, up to six CLAS alumni are honored as Alumni Fellows for their outstanding contributions to society, their professions, the College, and The University of Iowa. Each Fellow is hosted by his or her home department, where they speak to classes, meet socially with small groups of faculty and students, and make a public presentation based on his or her experiences since leaving the University. The program is made possible by funds from the UI Alumni Association Dean’s Chair in the Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Click the link below to read the brief bios of this year’s Alumni Fellows with information about the public presentations they are offering to the University and community.

Daniel F. Eberl, a professor in the Department of Biology, was a co-recipient of the Diversity Catalyst Award for his work in diversity recruitment and retention activities. The award, given annually in a number of categories by the University of Iowa Chief Diversity Office, was presented on April 12, 2012 during the 13^th Annual Diversity Catalyst Award Reception at the Sheraton Hotel in Iowa City.  Recipients of this award are chosen based on the development or implementation of an innovative program, policy, or activity that enhances diversity within the university community.

Eberl’s diversity initiatives involve recruitment of students to the Department of Genetics from institutions with large populations of underrepresented minorities. Through his work, Eberl has been able to form partnerships with these institutions and implement two important opportunities for students who attend them.  One involves providing summer research opportunities to students from these institutions. The other opportunity involves sending faculty members to give seminars and speak about the genetics program at the University of Iowa. Eberl has also sent students who attended some of these institutions as undergraduates back to their alma mater to talk about their research and experiences at the University of Iowa. The main goal of Eberl and his colleagues in their diversity initiatives is the retention and excellence of underrepresented minority students who attend the University of Iowa.

For more information about the Diversity Catalyst Award, visit

http://www.uiowa.edu/~eod/diversity/catalyst-awards/criteria.htm

Mark Lobas, a student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program and a member of Professor Joshua Weiner’s lab in the Department of Biology, was recently awarded the Publication Award for his article that was published in the March 2012 issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry.  The award, given by the Neuroscience and Genetics Graduate Program at the University of Iowa, is given to a neuroscience graduate student for the best primary research article within the past year and carries a monetary award of $500.

Lobas’ winning paper examined the existence of γ-protocadherins in the choroid plexus (CP) epithelium of mice.  The CP epithelium plays a critical role in the development and function of the brain.  Lobas et al. showed in their research that the 22-member γ-protocadherin (γ-Pcdh) family of cell adhesion molecules was found to exist at the apical membrane of the CP epithelium.  Their existence in this space is unusual because this is a location in which there is little for them to bind.  Lobas’ findings were not only surprising due to the unusual existence of the γ-protocadherins in the CP epithelium, but also due to the fact that all 22 of them are expressed at the CP epithelium, the site of the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier.  Cerebrospinal fluid plays a vital role in protecting the brain from mechanical and chemical insult. 

“The γ-protocadherins are highly expressed at the apical membrane of the choroid plexus…This is tissue sitting in empty space which means that there are adhesion molecules in an area where there is nothing for them to adhere to,” Lobas said.

In the study, researchers found that expression of the protocadherins varied among individual epithelial cells.  To determine a possible explanation for this, researchers in the study used conditional γ-protocadherin knock-outs that do not express γ-protocadherins in the CP.  As a result, they found that a shrinking of the volume of the cerebral ventricles in the brains of the mice occurred. 

Lobas said this result was especially interesting because shrinking of the cerebral ventricles is quite rare.  In fact, it is usually the opposite that occurs most often with cerebral ventricles when a defect exists.

However, this finding could have important medical implications as it would help those suffering from hydrocephalus, an excess of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain that can lead to swelling.  Currently, treatment involves the placement of a shunt in the brain, but unfortunately, a large majority of them fail after about two years.

Lobas said the next step in their research is to determine the cause of the shrinking ventricles in mice where a portion of the protocadherin has been knocked out.  He also said they are looking into the cause of the existence of the γ-protocadherins in the CP epithelium since it is such a strange location for them to be found.

Daniel Alder, a junior majoring in Biology and Environmental Sciences, is a recipient of the Stanley Undergraduate Award for International Research in the amount of $2,000. The award, made possible through the generous support of the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization, is given annually to outstanding University of Iowa undergraduates for the pursuit of learning activities in international studies that are not available on the UI campus. Awards are given to students who, in close consultation with faculty members, have developed well-conceived, small-scale research or fieldwork projects on international topics, which require travel abroad. Daniel, a member of Professor Steve Hendrix’s lab in the Department of Biology, plans to travel to the island of Roatan, Honduras for six weeks beginning at the end of May to research the impact of hunting on invasive Lionfish populations.

For more information about the Stanley Undergraduate Award for International Research, please visit

http://international.uiowa.edu/funding/stanley-undergraduate-awards-international-research

Patric Vaelli, an undergraduate senior majoring in Biology and member of John Logsdon’s lab, is the recipient of the Sanxay Prize. The Sanxay Prize is awarded annually to a University of Iowa liberal arts senior from Iowa who shows the highest promise of achievement in graduate work. Students must plan to enter a doctoral program in 2012. Graduates in December 2011, May and August 2012, are eligible for this award. Candidates must have been born in Iowa or be current permanent residents of Iowa. The prize, which carries a stipend of $1,000, may be used at the University of Iowa or at any other university in the United States or abroad. Patric is planning to attend Michigan State University starting in the Fall 2012 Semester to pursue a doctoral degree in Zoology with a specialization in Evolutionary Biology.

For more information about the Sanxay Prize, please visit www.grad.uiowa.edu/aid-youre-nominated-for/sanxay-prize

Senuri Jayatilleka and Nathan Balukoff, undergraduate seniors majoring in Biology, are among the 2012 poster award winners at the 13^th Annual Student Interdisciplinary Health Research Poster Session. The event, held by the University of Iowa Interdisciplinary Health Group on Tuesday, April 10, 2012, in the First Floor Atrium, Eckstein Medical Research Building (EMRB), provides UI students working on health-related research an opportunity to highlight their work and interact with researchers from other disciplines. Ten awards of $100 each were presented at the event.

Senuri won the award for her research on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), a disease caused by maternal alcohol use during pregnancy. Symptoms include abnormal facial features, growth deficiency, and central nervous system (CNS) problems. It is estimated that one out of every 1000 newborn children are affected with FAS and costs the U.S. about $2 million during a child’s lifetime. Senuri is an honors student in the lab of Dr. Michael Dailey, associate professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology.

Nathan, an honors student in the lab of Dr. Sarit Smolikove, assistant professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, won the award for his research on meiosis, a specialized cell division that results in the formation of gametes (sperm and eggs). Errors occurring during the cell division often results in chromosome abnormalities. In humans, these errors increase exponentially as women age, which can lead to infertility, miscarriages, and children with developmental disabilities. Despite the importance of understanding these age-dependent processes, it is not clear what mechanisms are controlling them. Nathan and the Smolikove lab are investigating the mechanism of chromosome segregation using genetic, cytological, and biochemical techniques.

For more information about the 13^th Annual Student Interdisciplinary Health Research Poster Session, please visit http://ppc.uiowa.edu/health/ihg/poster

Sarit Smolikove, assistant professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, was selected for a 2012 Iowa Center for Research by Undergraduates (ICRU) Distinguished Mentor Award. This award was created to recognize the outstanding mentoring of undergraduate students in research and creative projects at the University of Iowa. To be eligible for the award, current University of Iowa students nominate UI faculty or professional and scientific staff who have contributed significantly to the mentoring and overall support of undergraduate research. Recipients are provided funding for one ICRU Research Fellow for the 2012-2013 academic year and were recognized at the Spring Undergraduate Research Festival on March 24, 2012, in the Iowa Memorial Union. Dr. Smolikove was nominated by one of her undergraduate lab assistants, Rini Kasinathan, a third year biochemistry and microbiology major.

For more information about the ICRU Distinguished Mentor Award, please visit www.uiowa.edu/icru/icrudistinguishedmentoraward.shtml

Amy Korthank Gabaldon, a Senior Academic Advisor with the Department of Biology, is one of only ten internationally who has been selected for the 2012-2014 Class of Emerging Leaders with the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA). The purpose of the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) is to provide an intentional and focused mentoring experience to members who are interested in becoming more involved in the association.

ELP is a two-year program in which Amy will work closely with a mentor from NACADA to gain skills, experiences, and knowledge needed to move into a leadership position in the association. In this program, Ms. Korthank-Gabaldon and her mentor will develop a plan for her involvement based on Amy’s interests, expertise, and goals for the future. As an Emerging Leader, Amy will be provided $1,500 that can be used for travel and registration costs to any NACADA Regional or Annual Conference or Institute.

NACADA promotes and supports quality academic advising in institutions of higher education to enhance the educational development of students. It evolved from the first National Conference on Academic Advising in 1977 and has over 10,000 members representing all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, and several other international countries.

For more information about NACADA, please visit www.nacada.ksu.edu

University of Iowa biologists have advanced the knowledge of human neurodevelopmental disorders by finding that a lack of a particular group of cell adhesion molecules in the cerebral cortex—the outermost layer of the brain where language, thought and other higher functions take place —disrupts the formation of neural circuitry.

Andrew Garrett, former neuroscience graduate student and current postdoctoral fellow at the Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine; Dietmar Schreiner, former postdoctoral fellow currently at the University of Basel, Switzerland; Mark Lobas, current neuroscience graduate student; and Joshua A. Weiner, associate professor in the UI  College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, published their findings in the April 26 issue of the journal Neuron.

Cell adhesion is the way in which cells “hold hands”—how one cell binds itself to another cell using specific molecules that protrude from cell membranes and bind each other together. The process is necessary to form all body tissues. The UI researchers studied a clustered family of 22 genes (gamma-protocadherins) that make such cellular hand-holding possible by encoding cell adhesion molecules.

The University of Iowa Biological Interests Society (UI BIO) will hold a Plant Sale from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, May 1, on the Kautz Plaza, located on the T. Anne Cleary Walkway between Calvin Hall and the Pappajohn Business Building. In case of rain, the sale will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, May 2, at the same location.

The sale will feature herbs at a cost of $4 for a pack of six and single flowers at $3 or $5 for a pack of six.

UI BIO is dedicated to student development in the biological fields. The organization provides research opportunities, career networking, and pre-professional experiences intended to cultivate interest in biology and the surrounding community while fostering an environment of fellowship among students and faculty.

For more information, email biology-at-iowa@googlegroups.com, or find UI BIO on Facebook at www.facebook.com/UIBIO and Twitter at www.twitter.com/UIBIO.

Ed Callaway of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, Calif., will be the featured speaker at the Sixth Raymond Fong Memorial Lecture at 4 p.m. Friday, April 27, in Kollros Auditorium, Biology Building East, with refreshments preceding the event at 3:30 p.m. in the lobby.

Raymond Fong was a graduate student in the UI Department of Biological Sciences from 1986 to 1993. At the time of his death in July 1993, he was in the process of writing his thesis, “Reciprocal Interference Between the Pr and Prm Promoters of Bacteriophage Lambda.” He was awarded the Ph.D. posthumously in December 1993. Raymond was a significant positive influence on his colleagues through the quality of his research, his humanity, and his friendship.

A reception will be held at 8 p.m. at the residence of Gary Gussin, Department of Biology professor emeritus, at 316 Lee St., Iowa City.

Scientists have long used mutations in fruit flies, worms and mice as tools to identify genes associated with diseases in humans, but the path from animal to human often takes years.

But a collaboration between Baylor College of Medicine scientists studying fruit flies and Canadian human genetics researchers linked a gene that caused neurodegeneration in flies to a human disease called "autosomal recessive spastic ataxia with frequent leukoencephalopathy," or ARSAL, in a matter of months, according to a study published Tuesday in PLoS Biology.

"While the discovery of mutations in fly genes has been linked to human disease before, it has often taken many years to decades to accomplish this," Hugo Bellen, developmental biologist at Baylor College of Medicine and senior author, said in a statement.

John Manak, a biologist at the University of Iowa unaffiliated with the study, estimates that about 75 percent of genes related to human diseases and cancer are conserved in flies.

The fly model of a human disease is powerful, Manak says, "because not only can we readily do genetic screens to identify other genes in the disease pathway, but we can also start screening drugs in the fly."

Manak uses fruit fly models to study epilepsy. In a January 2011 paper published in the American Society for Human Genetics, his team reported that mutations in similar genes can cause seizures in mice, flies and humans. They also discovered that the fruit flies suffering seizures are responsive to human anti-epileptic medication.

University of Iowa assistant professor of biology Andrew Forbes has received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the origins of biodiversity.

 In particular, he will determine whether new species can be generated through interactions between a particular species of plant-eating insect and its parasites –- whether speciation of the apple-eating fly Rhagoletis pomonella has led to the creation of new diversity among its three insect parasites, Diachamsa alloeum, Diachasmimorpha mellea, and Utetes canaliculatus. 

 The broader biological question involves a foundational principle of evolutionary ecology: Can biodiversity beget biodiversity? As new species form, they may create new niches for other life forms to exploit, thereby creating a chain reaction of biodiversity.

 In addition to supporting basic research activity, the grant will fund science training, education, and research activities by Forbes and his colleagues at local, university, and international levels. This project is part of a collaboration between Forbes and professors at the University of Notre Dame and Cornell University.

 The Department of Biology is part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

How did plants and algae get their ability to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen in the presence of light, a process known as photosynthesis?

It turns out that they stole it through an activity called endosymbiosis, according to a landmark study published in the Feb. 17 issue of the journal Science.

Harsha Doddapaneni, study co-author and director of the University of Iowa¹s Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics (CCG), which contributed to the study, says the paper for the first time answers a long-standing question in the evolution of eukaryotes -- organisms whose cells have membrane walls and a nucleus. The question: How many primary endosymbioses, or biological thefts, have occurred that gave rise to the plastid, the organelle where photosynthesis takes place in algae and plants?

The answer, garnered from an analysis of the Cyanophora (an algae) genome, is just one. And it occurred more than a billion years ago when a single-celled organism captured and retained a cyanobacterium that itself had once been an independent organism.

According to lead author Debashish Bhattacharya, former UI biology professor currently at Rutgers University, ³Analysis of the Cyanophora genome provided conclusive evidence that all plastids trace their origin to a single primary endosymbiosis.² He adds that the genome also tells why the theft is very rare.

³It turns out that the first algae relied not only on the captured cyanobacterium, but also ancient endoparasites, related to modern-day Chlamydiae, that were present in the cells at the time of endosymbiosis. These latter, now silent, partners left dozens of genes in the nuclear genome of algae and plants as footprints of their past existence,² Bhattacharya says.

Highlighting the CCG¹s role in the study, Doddapaneni notes that access to ³NextGen² sequencing technologies is a fine example of how small genome centers are becoming major players by making important contributions to genome sciences. The CCG provided the 454 sequencing data for the study, and Doddapaneni also participated in the bioinformatic analyses.

The researchers say the study brings scientists one step closer to determining not only what unites all algae as plants, but also what key features make them different from one another and from the genes underlying various functions.

The complete article can be viewed at:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6070/843.full?sid=67f2ac46-e64b-4b60-95ab-a6b1a6d7872b

The research was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation.

The CCG is a research center in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology. For more information, see http://www.biology.uiowa.edu/ccg/

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Center One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500

MEDIA CONTACT: Gary Galluzzo, University News Services, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

The Department of Biology was awarded a $5,000 Assessment Innovation Grant from the Office of the Provost as part of the University of Iowa’s initiative to renew emphasis on assessment of student learning. Academic departments were invited to apply for Assessment Innovation Grants up to $5,000 to support the development of creative, practical strategies that they can use to assess how well the department is preparing students to apply their knowledge and skills in new settings and situations. Priority was given to proposals that address how their strategies can be replicated on an ongoing basis and can be applied in other departments that share similar goals.

The Department of Biology’s proposed plan is to develop an assessment tool that will measure the depth of understanding of students enrolled in introductory biology. It is important to uncover deficiencies in understanding core biological concepts as mastery of foundational knowledge acquired in introductory biology contributes to a student’s success in upper level courses. Assessment questions will be designed to uncover common biological misconceptions and to measure the depth of conceptual understanding that students achieve throughout the introductory biology course series. Results of this assessment tool will inform instructional change and serve as a baseline to measure gains in student learning as they progress through courses required for the Biology major.

The department’s proposal was submitted by Dr. Lori Adams, Biology Honors Advisor/Adjunct Assistant Professor along with assistance from Brenda Leicht, Lab Coordinator/Adjunct Assistant Professor, and Bryant McAllister, Associate Professor. Karry Jannie, a Biology graduate student and member of Dr. Joshua Weiner’s laboratory, will play a large role in creating the assessment tool with guidance from members of the Department of Biology Curriculum Committee. Grant recipients will be asked to summarize lessons learned from the project at a future campus event or on the Iowa Outcomes Assessment website.

"Wild Bees, Landscapes, and Food Security in the Age of Colony Collapse Disorder" is the subject of a lecture by University of Iowa Biology Professor Stephen Hendrix at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, in the Biosphere Discovery Hub of the UI Museum of Natural History. Hendrix's talk is the latest in the museum's Spring 2012 Explorers Seminar Series.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

Hendrix's talk focuses on the honeybee, which is the primary pollinator of many crops but is threatened by colony collapse disorder. Hendrix will discuss recent breakthroughs in our understanding of colony collapse disorder, whether wild bees are also being affected, and the extent to which wild bees contribute to pollination at small produce farms and in large monocultures. He will also discuss how landscape features affect bee abundance and diversity and how both urban gardens and prairie restorations offer resources for wild bees that may be critical to our food security.

The Department of Biology is a unit of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
For more information, visit http://www.uiowa.edu/mnh, call 319-335-0606, or email uimnh@uiowa.edu.

Geneology is one of the most popular hobbies in the U.S. and something Spencer Wells has been pursuing actively for the past six years.

Although many Americans focus on learning the history of their own family’s lineage, Wells, a renowned geneticist and current explorer-in-residence at National Geographic, has taken a much broader approach.

He has traveled to more than three dozen countries to collect data and conduct research as director of National Geographic’s Genographic Project, an effort to track the migratory history of the human species and answer questions about our genetic diversity through the study of DNA.

On Wednesday, February 1, Wells was in Iowa City to share what he has learned so far in a public speech at The Englert Theatre that was sponsored by the University of Iowa’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Genetics.

“It’s the first global concerted effort to study this,” Wells said. “Everybody is interested in their ancestry and the idea that you can help them see aspects of their history that they didn’t know about is very exciting.”

John Manak, a faculty member of the UI Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Genetics and principal investigator in biology and pediatrics, was instrumental in getting Wells to speak as part of a genetics retreat.

Since the 1930s, scientists have studied the prickle gene, known to be a contributing cause of human epilepsy. Meanwhile, other researchers have noted that flies carrying mutated prickle genes exhibit physical malformations, such as body bristles pointed in abnormal directions.

Until a Sunday morning two winters ago, no one had connected these two sets of research data.

John Manak, Assistant Professor of Biology and Pediatrics and faculty member in the Genetics Interdisciplinary Graduate Program at the University of Iowa, made the crucial connection, leading to his discovery that mutations of the prickle gene produce seizures in fruit flies. His finding was a key component in a research paper, published February 11, 2011 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, showing that mutations in prickle genes are associated with seizures in humans, mice, and flies.

Bryan Phillips, assistant professor in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, has received two research grants totaling $863,275 for cell and developmental biology studies.

A four-year, $713,275 grant from the American Cancer Society will enable him to study the processes by which cells acquire their fate that directs proper form and function. The pathway under investigation, the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway, regulates normal cell fate specification, but is often also disrupted in human cancers.

A two-year, $150,000 grant from the March of Dimes will support research aimed at identifying the mechanisms by which Wnt signaling proteins are regulated, both by functional modification and via redistribution to various subcellular locations. During animal development, Wnt/beta-catenin signaling regulates gene expression in many tissues, directing dorsal axis specification, mesoderm induction and central nervous system patterning. Correspondingly, mutations in this pathway have been linked to a host of developmental defects.

His specialized research areas involve the processes by which cells communicate with one another during development. The results of his studies using model systems such as nematodes and human cells will open doors to new avenues of human disease treatment.

Learn more about Phillips' research at: http://www.biology.uiowa.edu/faculty_info.php?ID=1783.

Welcome

The University of Iowa invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, with appointment to begin July 1, 2012.

The Dean exercises intellectual leadership, promotes comity, encourages and facilitates faculty enterprise, and has administrative responsibility in a large college that takes pride in its national and international prominence in the fine and performing arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematical sciences, and natural sciences. The Dean must elicit, inspire, articulate, and sustain a vision for the future of the College. The Dean represents the College in its relations with University administration, with alumni, donors, and other external constituencies, securing the support and resources necessary for the College to maintain and strengthen the quality of its teaching and research mission across the full range of its disciplines. As the College's chief academic and administrative officer, the Dean serves the faculty and reports to the Provost and Executive Vice President.

The University of Iowa, a member of the Association of American Universities, currently enrolls a total of nearly 30,900 students in its eleven colleges: Business, Dentistry, Education, Engineering, Graduate, Law, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health. The campus is in Iowa City, a UNESCO City of Literature and a cosmopolitan community of 69,086, with exceptional cultural resources, excellent public schools and libraries, and outstanding medical care.

With 16,400 undergraduate students and 626 tenure-track, research-active faculty in 42 departments and professional schools, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is the largest college within the University. The College administers the General Education Program for virtually all undergraduate students and offers undergraduate degrees in 79 fields of study. In addition, the College’s departments offer graduate programs enrolling 2,262 students in 44 fields. (Please consult the College’s homepage at http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/.)

The successful candidate must be a prominent leader in his/her field and must demonstrate a commitment to advancing a multidisciplinary college in a comprehensive public research institution. S/he will have a record of effective service at the collegiate and university level; a record of administrative/budgetary success at the department level or beyond; and a documented commitment to and success in increasing diversity among faculty, staff, and students. The successful candidate must have the ability to work in a collaborative and collegial manner with a diverse faculty and staff, having demonstrated qualities that contribute to effective communication, including receptivity, responsiveness, and willingness to consult. It is desirable that the candidate be experienced at supporting internally and externally funded research, and that s/he be a successful fundraiser, able to work with foundations and individual donors.

For more information and to apply, please visit http://www.provost.uiowa.edu/search/clas/index.html

Why do living organisms engage in sexual, rather than asexual, reproduction?

That question will be investigated by Maurine Neiman, assistant professor of biology, and John M. Logsdon Jr., associate professor of biology -- both in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences -- along with collaborator Jeffrey Boore of the University of California, Berkeley, and CEO of Genome Project Solutions, Inc., thanks to a 4-year, $876,752 grant from the National Science Foundation.

It turns out that answering the question may be more complicated than it appears.

Neiman says that the commonness of sex is surprising because asexual females should be able to produce twice as many daughters as sexual females that make both male and female offspring. "Because only females can directly produce offspring, the production of sons by sexual females creates a two-fold 'cost of males' that should culminate in the rapid elimination of sex," she notes.

Despite this and other costs, nearly all organisms reproduce sexually at least some of the time. This means that sex must be associated with profound advantages, while asexual reproduction must have significant evolutionary consequences.

Neiman, Logsdon, and Boore will use high-throughput genomics -- advanced DNA sequencing technologies that rapidly generate massive amounts of DNA data from genomes -- to compare the nuclear genomes of sexual and asexual varieties of a New Zealand freshwater snail, Potamopyrgus antipodarum. The research will test ideas for why sexual reproduction persists, including the hypothesis that sex is needed to prevent the buildup of harmful mutations.

An earlier study by Neiman and Logsdon of the much smaller mitochondrial genome found that the sexually reproducing snails had accumulated harmful DNA mutations at about half the rate of the asexual snails.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500.

CONTACT: Gary Galluzzo, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

The University of Iowa Professor of Biology Erin Irish will repeat her lecture "Corn: Only as high as an elephant's eye" at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17, in the Old Capitol Museum Supreme Court Chamber.

The free public lecture is by sponsored UI Pentacrest Museums and coincides with the extension of the current Old Capitol exhibit "Maize," which originally scheduled to close on Oct. 16 but now will remain open until Nov. 27. The traveling exhibit explores the science and history of maize: what it is, why it is important, and how it has changed over the thousands of years that humans have cultivated the crop. More information on the exhibit can be found at: http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2011/august/081511maize-exhibit.html.

As a result of interest from Dr. Irish's initial Oct. 28 lecture, she appeared as a guest on Iowa Public Radio "Talk of Iowa" show. That show aired Nov. 3 and is now available on the IPR website: http://iowapublicradio.org/news/talk-of-iowa/.

The Pentacrest Museums are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday; and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. They are closed Mondays and national holidays. For more information, visit http://www.uiowa.edu/oldcap and www.uiowa.edu/mnh.

The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History's Directors' Lecture Series will wrap up its fall lineup with a public talk by Dr. David Mindell, Dean of the California Academy of Sciences. Mindell's lecture, "Life's Genealogy and Why It Matters", will be held on Thursday, November 10 at 7:00 p.m. in the Old Capitol Museum Senate Chamber.  The lecture is free and open to the public. The lecture will be immediately followed by a dessert reception where Mindell will be available to sign copies of his 2006 book, "The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life" (Harvard University Press).

"Dr. Mindell is a renowned scientist and writer and was an obvious choice for a Directors' Lecture," says John Logsdon, Director of the University of Iowa Pentacrest Museums and Associate Professor in the Department of Biology.  "A major goal of the series was to bring top scientists to the UI and the MNH (Museum of Natural History) to share their knowledge and excitement about new discoveries in museum-based research with the community.  This fall's lectures have been a huge success and we have more great speakers planned for next spring."

David P. Mindell is the Dean of Science and Research Collections and the Harry W. and Diana V. Hind Chair at the California Academy of Sciences, home of the Kimball Natural History Museum, in San Francisco. Before taking this post in July 2008, Mindell was Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan and Curator of Birds at the Museum of Zoology. His current research focuses on determining the evolutionary relationships among birds using genetics and on the conservation biology of birds of prey. An accomplished researcher, Mindell is also a talented writer with an interest in communicating science - especially evolution - to the general public. In addition to his 2006 book, he has written multiple articles for the popular press, including a 2009 feature article in Scientific American entitled "Evolution in the Everyday World."

The public lecture will be followed by a professional seminar, co-sponsored by the Department of Biology, entitled "Dating Avian Divergences and Conservation Genetics in Birds of Prey" on Friday, November 11 at 4:00 p.m. in Kollros Auditorium (Room 101) in Biology Building East. 

For more information on the UI Museum of Natural History and the Directors’ Lecture Series visit www.uiowa.edu/mnh.

For more information on the California Academy of Sciences visit http://www.calacademy.org/.

Benjamin Kopecky, a graduate student in the Department of Biology, has received a Linked Training Award (TL1) from the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) at the University of Iowa. The award supports pre-doctoral research training opportunities for individuals interested in careers in biomedical, behavioral, or clinical research and helps to ensure that a diverse and highly trained workforce is available to assume leadership roles related to these research agendas.

Awarded individuals receive a stipend at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) allowed annual maximum, tuition support up to the NIH approved maximum, $1,000 funding to defray the cost of the research expenses and travel to required national meetings, access to the ICTS services and staff, and an opportunity to participate in the annual National Pre-doctoral Clinical Research Training Program Meeting at Mayo Clinic this spring.

Trainees are selected based on a competitive application process in which trainee academic qualifications, career goals, and the quality of the training environment will be considered for funding. Applicants must identify a mentorship team and develop a proposed research plan.

Ben is a member of the Bernd Fritzsch lab and is currently enrolled in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MD, PhD) at the University of Iowa.

New York University and University of Iowa biologists have identified a key mechanism controlling early embryonic development that is critical in determining how structures such as appendages - arms and legs in humans - grow in the right place and at the right time.

In a paper published in the journal PLoS Genetics, John Manak, an assistant professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Chris Rushlow, a professor in NYU's Department of Biology, write that much research has focused on the spatial regulatory networks that control early developmental processes. However, they note, less attention has been paid to how such networks can be precisely coordinated over time.

Rushlow and Manak find that a protein called Zelda is responsible for turning on groups of genes essential to development in an exquisitely coordinated fashion.

"Zelda does more than initiate gene networks - it orchestrates their activities so that the embryo undergoes developmental processes in a robust manner at the proper time and in the correct order," says Rushlow, part of NYU's Center for Developmental Genetics.

"Our results demonstrate the significance of a timing mechanism in coordinating regulatory gene networks during early development, and bring a new perspective to classical concepts of how spatial regulation can be achieved," says Manak, who is also assistant professor of pediatrics in the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and researcher in the UI Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics.

The researchers note that their findings break new ground.
"We discovered a key transcriptional regulator, Zelda, which is the long-sought-after factor that activates the early zygotic genome," says Rushlow.

"Initially, the embryo relies on maternally deposited gene products to begin developing, and the transition to dependence on its own zygotic genome is called the maternal-to-zygotic transition," she adds. "Two hallmark events that occur during this transition are zygotic gene transcription and maternal RNA degradation, and interestingly, Zelda appears to be involved in both processes."

The research showed that when Zelda was absent, activation of genes was delayed, thus interfering with the proper order of gene interactions and ultimately disrupting gene expression patterns, the researchers noted, adding that the consequence to the embryo of altered expression patterns is a drastic change in the body plan such that many tissues and organs are not formed properly, if at all.

The researchers used Drosophila, or fruit flies, to investigate these regulatory networks. The fruit fly has the advantage of being a tractable genetic model system with a rapid developmental time, and many of the genetic processes identified in flies are conserved in humans. Additionally, pioneering fly research has led to many of the key discoveries of the molecular mechanisms underlying developmental processes in complex animals.

The study brought together Rushlow, who discovered Zelda and is an expert in genetic regulatory networks in development, and Manak, a genomics expert whose laboratory focuses on how a genome is constructed and coordinately functions.

"I had always wanted to work with Chris, and this was a wonderful opportunity for us to combine our complementary areas of expertise in a truly synergistic fashion," says Manak.

"Our collaboration is a marvelous example of how a problem can be viewed from two different perspectives, a systems view of early gene networks and an individualistic view of single genes and single embryos, and result in novel and significant discoveries," says Rushlow.

###

The project's author researchers were Stephen Butcher of the UI Departments of Pediatrics and Biology; and Chung-yi Nien, Hsiao-lan Liang, Yujia Sun, Shengbo Fu, Tenzin Gocha, and Nikolai Kirov, all of the Center for Developmental Genetics, part of NYU's Department of Biology.

The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Sarit Smolikove, assistant professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, has received a three-year, $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to focus research on the behavior of chromosomes during the biological process called meiosis.

Meiosis is a specialized cell division that results in the formation of gametes (sperm and eggs). This division reduces the number of chromosomes by half. Upon fertilization, the number of chromosomes is restored so that it is identical to the one found in the parental cells. The accurate reconstitution of chromosome numbers is crucial for the development of a healthy embryo. Alterations in chromosome numbers are the leading known causes for serious birth defects including Down syndrome as well as miscarriages and stillbirths. Therefore, the accurate separation of maternal and paternal (homologous) chromosomes during meiosis is a key event for successful sexual reproduction and is of tremendous importance for human health.

Despite the crucial importance of meiosis to human health, many of its aspects are still poorly understood. Recent progress has been made but the goal of this grant is to advance research in this area.

Learn more about Dr. Smolikove's research.

Mark Holbrook, lecturer, and Bryan Phillips, assistant professor, in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, have been named National Academies Education Fellows in the Life Sciences for the 2011-2012 academic year.

This honor is bestowed by virtue of their selection to and enthusiastic participation in the 2011 National Academies Northstar Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology that was held June 18-23, 2011, at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

The Summer Institute is the direct result of a key recommendation from the 2003 National Research Council report, Bio2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists, which called for programs of professional development to engage faculty at research-intensive institutions in taking greater responsibility for high-quality undergraduate biology education. Teams from 12 research universities from across the United States assembled in Minneapolis for five days of workshops, discussions, intensive teamwork and analysis, all focused on enhancing undergraduate education, with themes of active learning, assessment, and diversity as the primary foci.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private, non-profit society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research. More information about NAS can be found here.

Professor Chun-Fang Wu received a 2011 Distinguished Science Alumni Award from Purdue University. Joining fellow faculty member Sally K. Mason who won an award in 2010.

Distinguished Science Alumni (DSA) Awards were established in 1990 to recognize outstanding achievement in professional and related fields of endeavor. Awards are given to alumni whose work and achievements have made a significant difference in our communities and lives.

SOUTH AMANA -- Up to 40,000 worker bees bustle in one nightstand-sized hive at Nobel Bee Honey.

That healthy buzz hasn't been the norm in recent years because of colony collapse disorder.

"We've never had a problem like this when I started in the 1990s," owner Matt Stewart said of the phenomenon, first identified in the United States' bee population in 2006. "Ones with the disease, they're leaving. They're going off to die somewhere."

In May 2011, The University of Iowa, Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics (CCG), entered into an agreement with Roche NimbleGen to provide microarray services through the Roche NimbleGen Certified Service Provider (CSP) program for the US market. In July 2011, after passing their rigorous certification test plan, CCG received official certification as a Roche NimbleGen CSP for two microarray applications: array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) and gene expression.

"As a certified service provider, The Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics (CCG) will provide a full range of services for Roche NimbleGen applications including the recently certified array CGH and gene expression. The CCG is the first academic center in the US to attain this status, which emphasizes our expertise and commitment to provide high quality data to our investigators", said Dr. Harsha Doddapaneni, Director of CCG. He further added, we have a dedicated climate controlled facility for processing all the critical array steps to ensure best quality results.

About this agreement, Dr. Bernd Fritzsch, DEO, Department of Biology said, "The Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics is progressively exploring the opportunities inherent to the recent progress in genomic analysis. Becoming a certified service center for NimbleGen arrays is only the logical next step in this direction, guided by the leadership of Dr. H. Doddapaneni. Combined with the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB), run expertly by Dr. David Soll, this is the second community outreach and service program provided by the Department of Biology to the Science Community. The association with Roche NimbleGen is unique and signifies a strong partnership with a major force in genomics."

"Roche NimbleGen is extremely excited to welcome the CCG as a Certified Service Provider for NimbleGen microarrays. This addition will provide more researchers with access to the innovative NimbleGen technologies, such as our ultra-high resolution 4.2M CGH arrays and high-throughput gene expression arrays. We look forward to this partnership and the innovation and value it will provide to the research market" said Dr. Frank Pitzer, CEO of Roche NimbleGen, Inc.

About Roche
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world's largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche's personalized healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients. In 2009, Roche had over 80,000 employees worldwide and invested almost 10 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 49.1 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information: www.roche.com.

For more information about Roche NimbleGen, please visit www.nimblegen.com.

About the CCG
The Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics (CCG) is a research and service center within the Department of Biology on the campus of The University of Iowa. The CCG provides comprehensive service options for a number of genomic applications with strong emphasis on 'NextGen' sequencing (454 pyrosequencing and Illumina) and microarray applications. The CCG has a unique history of offering custom tailored project solutions for genomic applications and has expertise in handling projects with small starting quantity of RNA and DNA, whole cells and tissues. The CCG also offers services for construction of normalized cDNA, adapted to 'NextGen' sequencing for model as well as non-model species. For more information about the CCG, please visit www.biology.uiowa.edu/ccg/.

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Many medical devices, ranging from artificial hip joints to dentures and catheters, become sites for unwelcome guests -- complex communities of microbial pathogens called biofilms that are resistant to the human immune system and antibiotics, thus proving a serious threat to human health. However, researchers may have a new way of looking at biofilms, thanks to a study conducted by University of Iowa biologist David Soll and his colleagues published in the Aug. 2 issue of the online, open access journal PLoS Biology.

Evolutionary biologist John Logsdon has made a fresh contribution to the body of evidence supporting the old adage "Be careful what you ask for. You may get it."

As a member of an internal review committee charged with reviewing the University's Pentacrest Museums - Old Capitol Museum and the Museum of Natural History - Logsdon made a pitch for a faculty director. Now he is that director, having been appointed to a three-year term by Vice President for Research Jordan Cohen.

"I've always been a fan of natural history museums," says Logsdon, an associate professor of biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "And I've always been interested in the natural history museum here but hadn't really figured out how it fit in."

Jeffrey Nirschl has been selected to receive the first place Ernest R. Johnson Memorial Prize. First and second place Ernest R. Johnson Memorial Prize winners will be recognized at Commencement, Saturday, May 14, 2011.

The Ernest R. Johnson Memorial Prizes were established in 1935 by Anna H. Johnson as a memorial to her son and are presented each year to the graduating students with the highest and second highest academic standing in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Students eligible for consideration were those earning "highest distinction" during the graduation periods of August 2010, December 2010, and May 2011. Mr. Nirschl had an academic record with University of Iowa grade point average of 4.17 and total cumulative grade point average of 4.02.

Congratulations Jeff!

Jeff Nirschl spends the better part of his days with a fly-sucker around his neck. A long tube, in other words, that researchers use to transfer tiny fruit flies from one vial to another. "You put one end in your mouth," Nirschl demonstrated, "and suck a fly into the tube, then gently blow it out where you want it. And no," he laughed, "I've never accidentally sucked a fly into my mouth." Nirschl is an undergraduate research assistant in Dr. Chun-Fang Wu's neurogenetics laboratory, where, amid walls stacked with vials of living flies, he studies the interaction between healthy flies and those that have a genetic mutation that, in humans, causes a type of Lou Gehrig's disease. As he explains it, "The sick flies are very short-lived, but when you house them with healthy flies, they live twice as long as they would otherwise. Twice! The social interactions can actually change gene expression, possibly helping the sick flies live longer." Jeff's enthusiasm is not only well-founded (insights about neurodegenerative disease are of major interest to the field), but it's also infectious - give him ten minutes, and he'll have you sporting a fly-sucker, too.

Like many CLAS students, Nirschl began with only a general interest - in biology: "I've always been curious about nature," he says. "As a kid, I'd visit my grandfather's farm and explore the surrounding fields and prairies looking for bugs and flowers I thought were cool." Over the course of his four years in college, particularly during Introduction to Neurobiology with Dr. Jeffrey Denburg - the class for which he's now an undergraduate TA - he honed his interest into a specialty. But this doesn't mean he studies only neuroscience, only fruit flies, 24/7; he spends a lot of his time outside the lab, taking courses in other disciplines. "They can really give you perspective," he says. "Neuroscientists study things like 'What is consciousness?' and 'What's the nature of human experience and existence?', but science fiction writers and philosophers are asking those questions, too."

Nirschl began his college career at Kirkwood Community College and transferred to Iowa in the fall of '08 - and he's convinced that "getting involved at the UI before transferring was the biggest factor in my success at Iowa. Before I had my foot out the door at Kirkwood, I was contacting people at the UI about joining the Honors Program and finding a research lab to work with. " During his time at Iowa, Jeff has dedicated himself to strengthening the relationship between community colleges and four-year universities, working with faculty and staff to help assimilate transfer students into the UI community and the honors program. When, two years ago, he sensed a disconnect between transfer students and local professional and academic opportunities, Jeff collaborated with the UI honors program and several graduate programs at the UI to organize a networking dinner for new and incoming transfer students. And this March, he'll meet with potential honors transfer students at Kirkwood to discuss the advantages of choosing the UI. Nirschl has also been instrumental in launching the Honors Nexus Living Learning Community at the Mayflower residence hall, a program that encourages students to "leave their mark" through leadership, service, research, or art.

In short, Jeff Nirschl is busy. (He plays violin and flag football, too.) But if he has one recommendation for first-year students, it's to do exactly that: get busy. "Definitely get involved," he says. "The best part of my time at Iowa has been meeting and talking with professors, working with different groups, going out and doing community service - that's what has made it a treat to be here. And it's really made the time fly."

When he finishes his honors thesis, Jeff plans to enroll in a joint MD/PhD program at a teaching hospital and prepare for a career of researching and treating neurodegenerative disorders.

For more information on the social-interaction mediated lifespan extension in fruit flies, see: Ruan HY, Wu CF. 2008. Social interaction-mediated lifespan extension of Drosophila Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase mutants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105(21): 7506-7510.

Genes that may appear, at first glance, to be duplicates can be essential to the nature of an organism.

That is the message of a paper published in the Feb. 4 issue of the journal Science by John Manak, assistant professor of biology in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and colleagues. They describe the draft genome of an organism that serves as a kind of "canary in the coal mine" for the ecology of freshwater streams and ponds.

The water flea, also known as Daphnia pulex, is important to freshwater ecosystems as a principal grazer of algae, a primary food source for fish and a sentinel of healthy still-water, inland ecosystems.

The tiny crustacean shows a range of development, such as switching between clonal and sexual reproduction, in response to varying environmental conditions. Also, some species change migration behavior and develop exaggerated morphological defenses in response to predators.

The researchers found that the water flea's genome contains at least 30,907 genes - a very high number - with more than a third having no counterparts in any similar organism and with the most amplified gene groups being specific to the Daphnia lineage.

The finding suggests that the maintenance of duplicate genes is not random. The analysis of gene expression under different environmental conditions reveals that numerous gene groups acquire divergent expression patterns soon after duplication.

In summary, it's the genes specific to Daphnia that show the greatest response to ecological challenges, according to Manak, also a researcher in the Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500

MEDIA CONTACT: Gary Galluzzo, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

The University of Iowa has cancelled classes for today, February 2. Students should check their course ICON site or the Biology Course Website for information regarding specific course information and make up lab sections. If you have any questions, please contact your lab section instructor or Faculty instructor.

Roger Dawson Milkman, professor, population geneticist, and polyglot, died from a stroke and complications of Alzheimer's disease on January 5, 2011, in Washington, D.C. He was 80.

As a scientist, Milkman will be most remembered for his contributions to the selectionist vs. neutralist debate, for his 1978 paper "Selection differentials and selection coefficients" that unified two conceptualizations of selection, and for his development and application of a "clonal frames" theory accounting for the structure of genomic diversity in E. coli.

Roger Milkman was an extraordinary teacher and mentor. He had a passion for teaching, frequently using metaphor, song, and limerick to explain and clarify complex topics in genetics in a lucid and often humorous way. His students had to re-enact the dance of chromosomes as they learned about cell division. He enjoyed working with students, teaching them the methods and joys of research, while demanding very high standards.

Professor Milkman will be remembered for his vigorous engagement of people and ideas. He observed with sharp eyes, ready tongue, and keen wit. He loved his teaching, science, life, classical music, good food, fine wine, chocolate, languages, instant repartee, and humor. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Marianne, four children Ruth, Louise, Janet, and Paul, and six grandchildren.

Professor Chun-Fang Wu has been elected as the distinguished alumnus for 2010 for Tunghai University in Taiwan. Five distinguished alumni of Tunghai University are elected each year to recognize achievements in Entrepreneurship/Arts and Sciences/Social Sciences. Dr. Wu obtained his B.S. from Tunghai University in 1969. Tunghai University was once a small Christian liberal arts college. Founded in 1954, Tunghai University was one of the school opened to revive the Christian college systems of China. Many missionary universities were closed down after the communist take-over of mainland China. Today, Tunghai University has more than 10,000 graduates each year.

John Manak and Patrick Brophy (Pediatrics) have been awarded a subcontract on an NIH grant "Genetic Variations and Development of Vesicoureteral Reflux and Sequelae" through the Research Institute Nationalwide Children's Hospital.

Vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) nephropathy is the 4th leading etiology of end stage renal disease in children. However, little is known about the genetic basis for this disease. The work on the grant will identify copy number variants (CNVs) that cause VUR using genetic-based technology called array-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH). CNVs are relatively easy to detect and are now considered common causes of disease; however, high-throughput genomic methodologies have yet to be undertaken to help elucidate the genetics of VUR. Therefore, we are using aCGH to screen through a large number of VUR patient samples to identify the CNVs, and ultimately the genes within them, associated with this disease.

This is a highly competitive field and only 64 groups across the country received this award.

Researchers in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Carver College of Medicine will work together under funding provided by the National Institutes of Health to establish the Iowa Center for Molecular Auditory Neuroscience (ICMAN). Areas of research that will be studied include deafness genetics and gene therapy, inner ear development, sensorineural cell function and maintenance, and cochlear implants. These areas of research are fundamental to the prevention of deafness, optimization of current treatment of deafness, and to future cochlear sensorineural regeneration. Steven Green is the principal investigator on the grant which also includes 17 other investigators.

Two University of Iowa biologists have published a paper on how cells make specific interactions during development -- in the hope of one day learning more about human developmental disorders -- in the Aug. 2 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dietmar Schreiner, postdoctoral researcher, and Joshua A. Weiner, assistant professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biology, write on the subject of cell adhesion. Cell adhesion is the way in which one cell binds itself to another cell by using specific molecules, one large family of which is known as the cadherins.

Assistant Professor of Biology John Manak, PhD, recently received a $50,000 ICTS pilot grant to partner with his departmental colleague, Associate Professor Josep Comeron. They are developing a one-of-a-kind microarray technological tool designed to both ease and accelerate the identification of disease-causing genetic mutations in humans. Genetics researchers studying human disease could immediately utilize this new tool worldwide.

"Microarray technology allows you to readily find copy number variants, a common type of mutation that alters entire chunks of DNA," Manak explained. However, this technique does not allow identification of single base pair changes (which account for up to 90% of disease-causing mutations) to be readily detectable in the genome. So Manak and Comeron decided to develop a technique they call MENA (Mismatch EndoNuclease microArray) to hone in on these mutations.

Signal pathways regulate biological processes, including those related to human physiology, and understanding them is fundamental to learning how cancers arise. Recently University of Iowa biologist David Soll and his colleagues opened a unique window into this area of research by examining a newly evolved pathway in the cells of the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans.

In an article published in the May 4 issue of the journal PLoS Biology, a flagship publication of the Public Library of Science, Soll and his colleagues describe the evolution of an entire pathway that evolved 40 million years ago in the ancestor of Candida albicans, the most pervasive human fungal pathogen and the cause of a variety of oral, genital and other human illnesses.

Significantly, the way in which this pathway evolved may be similar to the way in which comparable pathways evolved in human cells.

The graduating class of 2010 recognized 23 members of the staff and faculty in biology by listing them as having the most positive effect in their lives while they were at The University of Iowa. Jonathan Poulton received 10 mentions from graduating seniors ranking him among the top 25 faculty and staff mentioned in the survey. (A full listing can be found in the May 7, 2010 edition of The Daily Iowa.)

University of Iowa scientist Valerie Reeb excitedly explained the capabilities of a hulking white structure with a window displaying empty white trays.

"You can put the sample in the machine and analyze it right away," the postdoctoral researcher said clicking around on a nearby computer.

The mechanism, known as an "ABI Sequencer," is able to determine the order of parts of 48 DNA samples in two hours. Without the sequencer, it could take days or even months.

At its April 2010 Recognition Ceremony, the University of Iowa Honors Program presented its Student and Staff Award for Outstanding Honors Advising to Jonathan Poulton. This new award recognizes his 16 years of extraordinary effort as the Biology Honors Advisor. The UIHP particularly celebrates his strong support for students and his startling numbers of Honors theses.

Honors Advisors for colleges and departments play crucial roles in honors education at Iowa: advocating for courses, arranging for student research, explaining requirements, scouting talent and opportunities, along with an endless list of other contributions. Further information about this award can be found at: http://honors.uiowa.edu/people/fame/advisors.shtml. Jonathan came to The University of Iowa in 1979 and will retire in June.

Dr. Lori Adams-Phillips, who received her Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will become Biology Honors Advisor on July 1.

Angela Cordle was selected to receive the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the University of Iowa Council on Teaching. The University of Iowa Council on Teaching annual Outstanding Teaching Awards are awarded to teaching assistants who have demonstrated outstanding ability as teachers at The University of Iowa. Angela is a doctoral student with Chi-Lien Cheng and is scheduled to graduate in July 2010.

Why is sexual reproduction so common, and why did sex evolve in the first place?

That question was center-stage at a 2009 University of Iowa symposium attended by about 130 researchers from around the world, and now it will be reflected in the publication of a series of articles in the Journal of Heredity, whose March/April 2010 supplementary issue is devoted to papers authored by meeting participants.

Symposium planners and UI biology professors John Logsdon and Maurine Neiman note that all meeting attendees were invited to contribute to the issue, which is sponsored by the journal's publisher, the American Genetic Association. The result was 17 peer-reviewed original articles written by 40 authors representing 21 institutions across five countries.

"The whole issue is devoted to sex," Logsdon said. "The last time the journal did a similar issue on this topic was 17 years ago. We want to inform people both inside and outside the research field that this is still an exciting and growing area of investigation."

Highlights of the special issue include historical treatments of the ideas and people central to the sex debate, and studies of the often unusual sexual biology of organisms ranging from digital to microbial to multicellular animals, plants and fungi.

Taking place from May 31 to June 3, 2009, at the University of Iowa, the first symposium held by the UI's Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics and organized by UI Biology faculty was titled "Evolution of Sex & Recombination: In Theory & In Practice." Logsdon and Neiman said that the goal was to bring together scientists taking both empirical and theoretical approaches to a wide range of problems in the evolution of sexual reproduction and recombination.

The sweet fragrance of a Ponderosa lemon tree circulated the greenhouse as students passed one of the tree's white-petaled flowers around.

First- and second-year University of Iowa REACH program students in this career seminar class are touring UI's greenhouse on the top floor of Biology Building East to gauge interest for a possible post-graduation job.

Students in REACH, or Realizing Educational and Career Hopes, have learning and cognitive disabilities but hope to gain greater independence through the two-year, campus-based certificate program.

Ross Boltz, 20, a second-year REACH student from Sycamore, Ill., took a long sniff of the Ponderosa flower. He is considering a job in a greenhouse or garden center, or parks and natural resources in general, after he leaves REACH next month.

"I'm thinking about it," Boltz said. "I think it's cool. It's good work because you are growing plants and flowers and other things as well."

Boltz also is considering a job at the YMCA, recreation center or school district back in his hometown, he said.

University of Iowa researchers will receive $300,000 in grant seed funding from the Iowa Department of Economic Development, the UI Office of the Vice President for Research and the IOWA Centers for Enterprise said Monday.

The funding, appropriated to the Iowa Board of Regents under the Grow Iowa Values Fund, will back six researchers in developing innovations with commercial potential, a news release said. They were:

• Michael Schultz, assistant professor of radiology, who received $49,500 for PROSTAVISION, a diagnostic imaging agent for prostate cancer.

• Chris Adams, assistant professor of internal medicine, who received $50,000 for application of a compound as a therapy for skeletal muscle atrophy.

• John Manak, assistant biology professor, who received $48,949 to develop a new way to identify human disease-causing mutations.

The Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB) centered at The University of Iowa recently received a $100,000 gift from Mercy Health Systems of Des Moines and its CEO Dave Vellinga to advance a collaborative program in applying hybridoma technologies to the development of new diagnostics and treatments of major cancers.

The collaboration will hopefully grow into a larger program or institute at Iowa that will tap into the unique techniques and resources of the DSHB, says David Soll, DSHB director and Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver/Emil Witschi Professor in the Department of Biology.

The DSHB is a national resource initiated under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health Institute of Child Health and Human Development and is housed in the UI Department of Biology.

The DSHB, in partnership with the National Cancer Institute’s Clinical Proteomic Technologies for Cancer Initiative, is the exclusive bank and worldwide distributor of proteins produced by the National Cancer Institute. The proteins - called monoclonal antibodies and produced by hybridomas - are used to study, diagnose, and treat cancer.

Diane Slusarski has received the Collegiate Teaching Award for 2009-2010 from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Collegiate Teaching Awards are given each year to faculty who demonstrate outstanding performance in the classroom, laboratory, or studio. They are recognized by their peers for stimulating and satisfying students' desire to learn, developing innovative and effective methods of presenting the most current and exciting knowledge in their disciplines, and for fostering productive and generous mentoring relationships with individual students.

Diane shares this honor with past award winners Joe Frankel and Michael Dailey.

Where there’s smoke, there’s… science?

That sounds unlikely, but for biology Professor Joseph Frankel, it was a pack of cigarettes that sparked a deep-seated passion he continues today.

In 1947 in Germany, a friend of Frankel’s father traded a pack of smokes for an old microscope, brought the instrument back to the United States, and gave it to an eager 12-year-old Frankel.

“I went out to local ponds, and looked at single-cell organisms, and studied them,” the 74-year-old said. “And then decided I really wanted to go into biology.”

It’s been more than 60 years since then, and Frankel, originally from Vienna, Austria, is still enjoying his life as a professor and researcher at the UI.

Even after 47 years of teaching biology, he still finds innovative ways to educate his students, thanks to a continually evolving field.

“There is one advantage to teaching biology over, say, teaching calculus or physics,” he said, sitting at his desk next to four tanks of liquid nitrogen — used to preserve his research organisms. “And that is that biology is such a young science. New discoveries are being made all the time.”

A colleague of his, Professor John Menninger, has been working with Frankel since 1973, and the two collaborate on the curriculum for the biology department. Menninger said he has a great deal of respect for Frankel, especially his dedication to the seminar aspect of teaching.

“He’s one of the most thorough readers and attentive listeners of biology seminars,” he said. “He’s the quintessential biology teacher.”

And when Frankel isn’t using those notes to improve his Principles of Biology II class, he is focused on his research, which specializes in protozoa — single-cell organisms — and using random mutations to alter the genetics of the cell to analyze how its structures are organized. He hopes such endeavors will assist future scientists, he said.

Living organisms have good reason for engaging in sexual, rather than asexual, reproduction according to Maurine Neiman, assistant professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and researcher in the Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics. In an article published in a recent issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, she and her colleagues, including John M. Logsdon Jr., associate professor of biology, examined the theory that sexual reproduction, while requiring more time and energy than asexual reproduction, is also much more common among living organisms and, therefore, must be very beneficial. The study looked at sexual, as well as asexual, varieties of a New Zealand freshwater snail (left), Potamopyrgus antipodarum, by sequencing mitochondrial genomes and found that the sexually reproducing snails had accumulated harmful DNA mutations at about half the rate of the asexual snails.

Two University of Iowa faculty members -- one from the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and one from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences -- have been awarded the distinction of 2009 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

The two new AAAS Fellows, recognized by the AAAS section on biological sciences, are John E. Donelson, Ph.D., UI professor of biochemistry and former head of the department of biochemistry from 1998 to 2008; and Bernd Fritzsch, Ph.D., UI professor of biology, Iowa Entrepreneur Professor and head of the department of biology from 2008 to present.

The two UI recipients are among 531 members awarded the honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. The new Fellows will be honored in February at the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Donelson was recognized for distinguished contributions to understanding how parasitic protozoa that cause major tropical diseases evade the human immune system. Donelson, who received his doctorate in biochemistry from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., in 1971, joined the UI in 1974. His research focuses on understanding gene expression in organisms such as Trypanosoma brucei, which causes African sleeping sickness; Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas' disease; and Leishmania chagasi, which causes visceral leishmaniasis. For more information see http://www.biochem.uiowa.edu/donelson/johndonelson.html.

Fritzsch was recognized for influential research on cranial evolution and development -- particularly neurosensory elements of the inner ear -- that has yielded insights into the genetic basis of hearing loss. Fritzsch, who received his doctorate from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, in 1978, joined the UI faculty in 2008. His research remains focused on understanding the evolution of the sensory neurons of the inner ear, as well as translating laboratory discoveries into new therapeutics for those suffering from hearing loss. For more information see http://www.biology.uiowa.edu/faculty_info.php?ID=1503.

The nonprofit AAAS (http://www.aaas.org) was founded in 1848 and includes 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Its journal, Science (http://www.sciencemag.org), has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million. AAAS hosts a Web site, EurekAlert!, at http://www.eurekalert.org.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500

MEDIA CONTACTS: Jennifer Brown, 319-336-7124, jennifer-l-brown@uiowa.edu; Gary Galluzzo, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu.

Jeff Murray is searching for a way to prevent cleft palate.

But the UI Carver College of Medicine professor isn’t sure what causes the defect. In fact, researchers nationwide have yet to fully understand how the human face is formed — and how that process can go awry.

Murray, who specializes in cleft lip and palate, which affects the upper lip and roof of the mouth, and a team of UI researchers have joined a nationwide project to create the first-ever encyclopedic database on how children’s faces develop and what may cause defects in them.

The UI and the University of Pittsburgh will serve as hubs for FaceBase, a five-year initiative funded with a $9 million grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Murray said new technology in the health field led to the opportunity for a project such as FaceBase. NIH officials thought that “because of technological advances that have taken place, a project such as this might be useful,” said Murray, a co-principal investigator for the project.

Other universities also garnered grants to study how the middle region of the face — which includes the nose, upper lip, and roof of the mouth — develops. Scientists are unsure how embryonic cells morph into bone, cartilage, and other tissue to form the facial structure detected by the first ultrasounds.

The causes of roughly 70 percent of birth defects are unknown, according to the March of Dimes.

Over the past couple months, Murray has been researching microarrays — glass slides that contain millions of fragments of DNA — to determine what role genes play in birth defects.

John Manak, a UI assistant professor of biology who is collaborating with Murray on the project, said Murray’s knowledge on the issue is a major reason the UI is involved in the project.

“We have Murray; he’s been at the forefront of cleft lip and palate research,” he said.

Nationwide, around 4,200 babies are affected by cleft lip and palate defects per year, according to the March of Dimes.

A one-day symposium on "The Impact of Basic Molecular Genetics on Current Biological Research" was sponsored by the Department of Biology to celebrate the distinguished career of Prof. Gary Gussin, who has been a member of the Department for 40 years and was Chair from 1994 to 1999. Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1966 under the direction of Nobel Laureate James D. Watson, Dr. Gussin's research career has been devoted to understanding at the molecular level how genes can be turned on and off at various stages of development. His "organism" of study, the bacterial virus lambda, has been a traditional model system for analysis of complicated genetic "networks" and Dr. Gussin has used this system to study how the sequence of base pairs in DNA can influence how often particular genes are expressed (turned on).

An illustrious group of speakers participated in the event including: Drs. Sankar Adhya and Susan Gottesman of the National Cancer Institute (NIH); Dr. Peter Moore, of Yale University; Dr. Louis Reichardt, of the University of California, San Francisco; and Dr. Mario Capecchi, of the University of Utah, as well as our own Drs. David Soll and Jeff Murray. Drs. Adhya, Gottesman, Moore, and Capecchi are all members of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Capecchi received the Nobel Prize in 2007 for developing methods now used to "knock out" mouse genes. His research provides the basis for constructing mouse models of human diseases and also has revealed how HOX genes regulate early development of mouse - and by extension - human embryos.

The speakers outlined their exciting research on a range of topics that spanned gene regulation and drug design in bacteria, the relation between mating and pathogenesis in yeast, nervous system development, genomics of human diseases, and model systems for studying human cancers. In addition, the speakers spent an entire day meeting with large numbers of graduate students and faculty, and participated in an evening reception in Dr. Gussin's honor.

Hans Ussing probably never imagined that his work would have a major impact on understanding human disease. Back in the 1950s, the Danish scientist was studying ion transport across frog skin. In layman's terms: He was looking at how frogs absorb salt from pond water.

Big deal, right?

Turns out, it was.

Twenty-some years later, researchers looked at his data and methodology, and applied it to their work with cystic fibrosis.

"Using his techniques and theories, we and others learned that cystic fibrosis involves a defect in the movement of the salt chloride across the bronchial lining. That finding was important to understanding the disease, and set the field on a path to discovery," says Michael J. Welsh, a professor of internal medicine and molecular physiology and biophysics at The University of Iowa since the 1980s.

"Now we know the gene that causes this disruption - it was discovered by researchers in Toronto and Michigan. But Ussing's research was the first insight into what was going on."

The lesson: Basic science is important - and not nearly as esoteric as it sounds. Those studies - about yeast cells or bacteria or fruit flies or frog skin - build a knowledge base that can propel science forward. The findings, methodology, and analysis techniques gained from that research can be - and often are - applied to studies that tackle more complex problems, like developing a cure for a specific disease.

A University of Iowa biologist and researcher in the Department of Biology and Roy J. Carver Center for Genomics, along with colleagues at Harvard and in the Carver Center for Genomics, describes a new and more effective way of identifying where important RNA transcripts are located in the human genome in a paper published in the June 28 online issue of the journal Nature Genetics.

The studies helped demonstrate that mutations that cause colorectal cancer were not altering the expression of novel RNA transcripts on a region of the 8th chromosome and helped show that the mutations were likely altering regulatory regions of a known cancer gene, referred to as c-Myc.

John Manak, assistant professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said that the new technique should help researchers to discover new genes as well as new RNA transcript isoforms for any organism, including humans, with much greater precision and with less worry of identifying false positives. Manak worked with another Iowa colleague, Harsha Doddapaneni, to employ the methodology.

"This methodology sorts through complex data generated from a genomics platform called a tiling microarray and allows researchers to get to the real genes associated with disease much faster than previously possible," said Manak. "Imagine a gumball in a jar of marbles. If you are able to identify the gumball with a high degree of accuracy, you won’t wind up with a mouthful of broken teeth. You want to get to the relevant stuff and leave the rest behind."

"The technique changes the way of analyzing this type of genomic data. In the past, this technique was prone to erroneously identifying new transcripts and genes due to the fact that the technique did not have the proper internal controls. The old way of doing it provided evidence for RNA transcripts that really weren’t there at all. Using our new method, researchers can now subtract artifacts, or false data, from their results and they will have the real data," he said.

Manak’s collaborators at Harvard University found that an inherited variant located on a particular region of the 8th chromosome of the human genome (8q24) has a significant association with colorectal cancer. Manak and his fellow researchers found that the region containing the variant is not transcribed but is actually a “transcriptional enhancer” of the known cancer gene c-myc (enhancers are short regions of DNA that regulate transcription, which, in turn, is defined as the synthesis of RNA from a DNA template). That information and other data provide strong support for c-Myc being the causative gene for this type of colorectal cancer.

"Years of work are now called into question," Manak said. "Basically, any transcriptional data generated with tiling arrays, especially studies that propose large amounts of novel transcription, must be re-examined. With this new technique, we force researchers to carefully re-evaluate their old data."

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500
MEDIA CONTACT: Gary Galluzzo, writer, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

UI biologist studies ocean plant cell adaptation in climate change

How will plant cells that live in the oceans and serve as the basic food supply for many of the world's sea creatures react to climate change?

A University of Iowa biologist and faculty member in the Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics and his colleagues came one step closer to answering that question in a paper published in the April 9 issue of the journal Science.

Debashish Bhattacharya, professor of biological sciences in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is studying a tiny (about one micrometer in diameter) and diverse group of organisms called picoeukaryotes. So far, he has found that organisms from two isolated groups of the genus Micromonas -- which thrive in ecosystems ranging from tropical to polar -- look the same, but have evolved to contain different gene pools.

Bhattacharya said that understanding how these organisms change involves many issues.

The question, he said, is: "How do photosynthetic cells in the world's oceans recognize and adapt to their ever-changing environment and how will their latent abilities allow them to respond to climate change that will result in increased stratification and lower nutrient levels in the upper productive zone in oceans?

"To understand these complex issues, investigators need to generate gene catalogs from dominant plant organisms and understand how their genomes have evolved to thrive in vastly different oceanic regions ranging from near-shore to open ocean environments."

He said that the lead author of the Science article, Alexandra Z. Worden of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and collaborators, addressed these key issues in oceanography by sequencing to completion the nuclear genome of two globally distributed, bacterial-sized green algae named Micromonas. One isolated sample (RCC299) came from tropical waters in the Pacific Ocean, whereas the other (CCMP1545) came from temperate Atlantic coastal waters off Plymouth, England.

"These picoeukaryotes are indistinguishable using cell morphology but turn out to be enormously different at the genome level," Bhattacharya said. "On average, these isolates share only 90 percent of the roughly 10,000 genes each contains, indicating they comprise distinct species. More remarkable is the finding of novel repeated sequences that have spread into genes of Atlantic sample that are completely missing in the Pacific sample."

He said that it is unclear how these ubiquitous elements originated or what their function might be in the Atlantic sample, but their presence demonstrates the distinct genomic trajectory that the two species have taken.

"Overall the genomes of these Micromonas species show clear indications of selection acting on the gene pool with each containing a set of unique genes acquired by horizontal gene transfer that are not shared with the other," he said. "These genes likely hold clues to how each species has adapted to its own specific marine environment."

"The work highlights the extent to which genomic diversity is hidden by a simple, shared morphology and points to the need to decipher gene functions in Micromonas to understand their role in adapting to regimes that define myriad marine environments," he said.

Genome sequencing was done by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute. Research in Bhattacharya's lab was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500
MEDIA CONTACT: Gary Galluzzo, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

The Department of Biology is pleased to announce the availability of several scholarships for Biology undergraduates. Please follow the link for more information.

A University of Iowa-led international research team has found a new gene associated with the brain disorder epilepsy. While the PRICKLE1 gene mutation was specific to a rare form of epilepsy, the study results could help lead to new ideas for overall epilepsy treatment. The findings, which involved nearly two dozen institutions from six different countries, appear in the Nov. 7 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.

In epilepsy, nerve cells in the brain signal abnormally and cause repeated seizures that can include strange sensations, severe muscle spasms and loss of consciousness. The seizures may not have lasting effects but can affect activities, such as limiting a person's ability to drive. Most seizures do not cause brain damage but some types of epilepsy lead to physical disabilities and cognitive problems. Medications can control symptoms, but there is no cure.

"The study results were surprising not only because the PRICKLE1 gene had never been associated with epilepsy but also because the gene was not associated with any other human disease," said the study's lead author Alex Bassuk, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and a pediatric neurologist with UI Children's Hospital.

The nine families involved in the study all lived in the Middle East and came from one of three family lines. Of the 47 individuals in the three family lines, 23 had a form of progressive myoclonus epilepsy accompanied by ataxia -- a condition that causes imbalance. One family line has been extensively described by Hatem El-Shanti, M.D., a UI adjunct professor of pediatrics who now leads genetics research for the country of Qatar. The two other family lines had been researched by Sam Berkovic, M.D., at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

"By sharing and analyzing data sets, we realized there was a common mutation in the PRICKLE1 gene in the family members with this form of epilepsy," Bassuk said.

To verify that the mutation might be related to the epilepsy, the team needed to test it in an animal model. This next step to find a suitable animal model involved a surprising coincidence: Bassuk, who had only recently joined the UI, realized through online research that the PRICKLE1 gene in zebrafish had been previously identified by another UI researcher, Diane Slusarski, Ph.D., associate professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

"I walked across the river to Diane's side of campus, and we designed an experiment to test the human mutation in the zebrafish," Bassuk said. It was 'Iowa luck.'"

Slusarski and Bassuk's collaboration revealed that the mutated PRICKLE1 gene does not behave normally in zebrafish. Bassuk noted that collaboration, whether on-campus or international, was essential to the success of the research study.

"We never could have done, or could continue to do this type of research, with just one person thinking about it," he said. "From the clinicians who found and took histories on the study participants, to antibody testing at Stanford University to DNA shared from colleagues in Japan, the study required a lot of collaboration and coordination. And of course, we greatly appreciated the participation of the Mideastern families."

Bassuk, and colleagues are now developing other animal models to investigate how PRICKLE1 gene is involved in epilepsy, and are investigating whether PRICKLE1 mutations are involved in the general population of patients with epilepsy. With that information, there is potential to develop new drugs for people with different forms of epilepsy in the general population, as well as for the study participants with the disease.

This study was supported in part by funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the NIH National Center for Research Resources, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa Health Science Relations, 5137 Westlawn, Iowa City, Iowa 5224-1178
MEDIA CONTACT: Becky Soglin, 319 335-6660 becky-soglin@uiowa.edu

Image: "PRICKLE1 gene expression appears in green in human brain cells, with neurons appearing in red and nuclei in blue. Mutated PRICKLE1 gene has been implicated as a cause of a certain form of epilepsy."

Image Credit: American Journal of Human Genetics, Vol. 83, Issue 5, Bassuk et al., Figure 3e from "Homozygous Mutation in Human PRICKLE1 Causes an Autosomal-Recessive Progressive Myoclonus Epilepsy-Ataxia Syndrome," 572-581, Copyright Elsevier, Nov. 7, 2008.

John Manak, assistant professor of biology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and researcher in the Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics, published his research in the Sept. 4 online edition of the journal Public Library of Science-Genetics. He and his collaborators found that a class of DNA bound proteins normally thought to be involved in the repression of genes is also bound to active genes.

By looking at the whole organism as well as in a particular tissue, they were able to hone in on specific functions of these proteins. Since members of this class of proteins have been shown to produce cancers when altered, these data show that linkages between the genes of drosophila (fruit fly) and humans are gradually becoming clearer, bringing scientists closer to the goal of one day understanding the genetic causes of various cancers and other diseases in man.

"I use the drosophila homologues of human genes to help understand how the human genes function," Manak said. "I tease out how the products of these genes function normally. Then I try to understand how the processes they are involved in go awry when the genes are mutated.

"My lab uses a methodology I developed in fruit flies to map mutations to the genes they affect in humans. I am using this strategy to try to identify hard-to-find mutations in a variety of human diseases and disorders," he said.

Manak noted that at least 60 percent of the genes involved in human disease and cancer are conserved in flies. The genes he is studying encode proteins that bind to DNA or chromatin in the cell nucleus. He and his colleagues hope to determine where and how these proteins bind across the entire fly genome, and how these proteins act to assemble the basic building blocks of chromatin.

He said that because several of these proteins are homologous to both tumor suppressor and tumor promoting proteins in humans, the ultimate goal will be to determine not only how these proteins function in the context of normal cell growth, but also how the loss or alteration of these proteins can lead to cancer.

His co-authors include: Camilla Kwong, Lisa Meadows, Steven Russell and Rob White of the University of Cambridge; Ian Bell of Affymetrix Inc.; and researcher Boris Adryan.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500
MEDIA CONTACT: Gary Galluzzo, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

What can a tiny marine alga that resembles a little brown ball tell scientists about how different types of organisms are related on the family tree of all life on Earth?

Quite a bit, it turns out, when it stands at a critical junction where one form of life can provide a clear evolutionary connection between otherwise distant cousins, according to John Logsdon (left), associate professor of biology in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

In the Feb. 21 issue of the journal Nature, Logsdon and his colleagues announced the discovery of a new type of eukaryotic algae that provides just such a bridge between two previously thought-to-be separate branches on the tree of life. Called Chromera velia, the organism is now the closest-known photosynthetic relative to apicomplexan parasites (like the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum) -- much closer than their distant algal relatives called dinoflagellates (some of which cause harmful "red-tides"). Together, these unicellular organisms, along with ciliates (like Paramecium), are called "alveolates."

Logsdon said the find sheds light on a formerly dark corner of the evolution of photosynthesis and indicates that further, similar discoveries lie ahead. Also, this new organism will be a powerful model for studying parasitism and disease in Apicomplexa. "Chromera opens new chapters in the evolutionary history of eukaryotic cells and will provide important clues to understand the biology of apicomplexan parasites and how they have evolved. In turn, this basic knowledge will be crucial in developing new therapeutics for the treatment of widespread diseases such as malaria and toxoplasmosis," said Logsdon.

Logsdon, who also directs the UI Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics, said the discovery is one more piece of a larger puzzle that seeks to fill in the picture of how all life on earth is interrelated. He currently serves with UI biology professor Debashish Bhattacharya as co-principal investigator on a $1.6 million National Science Foundation (NSF) project "Assembling the Tree of Eukaryotic Diversity" that seeks to decipher the evolutionary relationships primarily among microbial eukaryotes. The collaborative project is part of a larger NSF-funded effort to construct a comprehensive family tree of life on Earth called "Assembling the Tree of Life."

Logsdon noted: "it's not often that we find an organism that fits on the tree of life as a major "missing link" of sorts. Quite often we are looking at relatives that, while sharing a clear common ancestor, have diverged into separate, distinct lineages. This was previously the case for Apicomplexa, which derive from photosynthetic ancestors, but are very distant from their formerly closest photosynthetic cousins, the dinoflagellates. Our study provides a clear demonstration that there is much left to discover and learn about the diversity of life on earth, especially in the microscopic world."

Logsdon's colleagues on the project include lead authors Robert B. Moore of the University of Sydney, Australia, where he did the initial work with senior author Dee A. Carter; and Miroslav Obornik of the Biology Center of the Academy of Sciences and the University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic. Moore is formerly of the UI Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics where he worked on this project in Logsdon's laboratory.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500.
MEDIA CONTACT: Gary Galluzzo, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

This semester, The Department of Biology added a new Neurobiology teaching lab in the Biology Building. The lab is being team taught by Associate Professors Mike Dailey and Alan Kay and is an upper level biology course which requires the consent of the instructor to register. The course will give students a “hands on” laboratory experience focusing on Neurobiology. The main focus of the lab is to develop fundamental technical skills necessary for success in biomedical and health related careers, and to provide specific training in the principles and practices of modern neurobiological and neurophysiological research. Included in the lab are computer-based simulations, electrophysiology, cell and tissue culture, and microscopy and digital imaging to explore nervous system structure and function in diverse invertebrate and vertebrate organisms. The state-of-the-art lab includes computer monitors to allow the professor to demonstrate a technique while students watch at each lab station. Students will be assisted in the labs by Teaching Assistants and a course lab coordinator.

The University of Iowa has named Bernd Fritzsch to an Iowa Entrepreneurial Endowed Professorship and has appointed him chair of the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS). Fritzsch is currently professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and director for basic research in the School of Medicine at Creighton University, Omaha. He will begin his UI appointment July 1.

Linda Maxson, CLAS dean, said, "Bernd Fritzsch is an outstanding senior scientist, a gifted leader, and a seasoned administrator who will build on the strengths and prominence of our Department of Biological Sciences. He has been a leader in federally funded Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence Grants, intended to mentor and develop the kind of excellent young scholars we have been so successful in recruiting to our department."

A molecular developmental neurobiologist, Fritzsch is internationally known for his research on the evolution of the sensory neurons of the inner ear, which has provided insights into the genetic basis of hearing loss. His research program is funded by the National Institutes of Health and by a federal Small Business Innovation Research Grant for the development of neuronal tracers.

Professor Robert Malone in the Dept. of Biology at the University of Iowa has received a $450,000, 3 year grant from the National Science Foundation. This grant focuses on the behavior of chromosomes during the biological process called meiosis, those special cell divisions which occur during the formation of gametes (e.g., sperm or eggs). This unique process is highly conserved and the events which occur are very similar in organisms varying from maize to man to simple single cells like yeast. The work investigates a new mechanism by which two steps of chromosome behavior unique to meiosis are coordinated and regulated so that they both occur at the proper time to insure the proper number of chromosomes in each gamete.

Three University of Iowa biologists are among some 100 scientists who contributed to a study, published in the Nov. 8 issue of the Journal Nature, that is one of the most comprehensive genomic studies of its kind and will greatly aid scientists conducting basic research in disease, genetics and many other fields. The study involved a comparative analysis of the genomes of 12 species of Drosophila (fruit flies) and illustrated how the rates and patterns of genetic change can vary significantly among closely related species, thereby indicating mechanisms of evolutionary change, according to assistant professors Bryant McAllister and Josep Comeron and assistant research scientist Ana Llopart, all in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences' Department of Biological Sciences. "The study's genome sequences will add to the formidable genetic tools that have made the fruit fly a pre-eminent model for animal genetics and help drive fundamental research on mechanisms of development, cell biology, genetics, disease, neurobiology, behavior, physiology, and evolution," McAllister said. "The Drosophila species chosen for sequencing represent a small subset of the diversity among flies, yet we identified many genetic changes that may underlie differences in the ecology and behavior of the various species." Said Comeron, "This paper summarizes years of collaborative work among many laboratories interested in understanding how genes and genomes evolve. The analysis of complete genomes of 12 related species of fruit flies allows us to investigate a wide variety of evolutionary processes with an unprecedented level of detail. Ultimately, these '12 genomes' will provide an exceptional insight into the relative contribution of natural selection on protein evolution, gene gain/loss, the evolution of 'junk' DNA, etc." Of the 12 Drosophila species involved in the study, the genomes of 10 were presented for the first time, perhaps reflective of the fact that the study represents a four-year effort of so many individuals. "Although the actual sequencing of these 10 genomes took less than one year thanks to modern DNA sequencing technologies, three additional years were required to give meaning to this massive amount of genetic information through the development of new analytical and theoretical tools," Llopart said. "Future studies involving non-Drosophila genomes will benefit from having these new tools." In their paper, the researchers note that the study has provided a powerful means for answering questions -- not only about evolution, but also about the function of Drosophila genome features -- and that it has raised more questions than it has answered. "Because much of this rich and extraordinary comparative genomic dataset remains to be explored, we believe that these 12 Drosophila genome sequences will serve as a powerful tool for gleaning further insight into genetic, developmental, regulatory and evolutionary processes," they conclude. The complete Nature article, "Evolution of genes and genomes on the Drosophila phylogeny," can be found at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7167/full/nature06341.html

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500
MEDIA CONTACT: Josep Comeron, Department of Biology, 319-335-0628, josep-comeron@uiowa.edu; Bryant McAllister, Department of Biology, 319-335-2604, bryant-mcallister@uiowa.edu; Gary Galluzzo, University News Services, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

A University of Iowa biologist has received a five-year, $1.47 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to study how neurons in the brain are wired together. Joshua Weiner, assistant professor and Presidential Biological Scholar in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Science Department of Biological Sciences, says he will use the grant to study defects in nerve cell connecting points, called synapses, that are believed to underlie a wide range of debilitating neurological and psychiatric disorders, including autism, Alzheimer's disease, mental retardation, and schizophrenia. "What my lab would really like to understand is how, during brain development, nerve cells, called neurons, establish connections with each other," he says. "In particular, we're fascinated by the exquisite specificity with which these cells form synapses. Neurons 'know' how to wire up with each other in the correct patterns needed for the brain to process information." He adds that researchers have long understood that proteins on the surface of neurons act as a kind of "molecular Velcro" to hold synapses together. He notes also that a particular family of proteins, called gamma-protocadherin, is a great candidate for mediating such synaptic adhesion in a specific way because the proteins are so diverse, with different neurons having various arrangements of some 22 proteins. "We had already shown that gamma-protocadherins are critical for the development of the nervous system," he says. "In our new, NIH-funded work, we will determine their function in a number of identified circuits, which will help us get a handle on their possible role in synaptic specificity." His UI colleagues on the project are: Andrew Garrett, neuroscience doctoral student; Tuhina Prasad, biology doctoral student; and Leah Fuller, research assistant. Weiner, who received his doctorate from the University of California in 1999 and joined the UI faculty in 2004, says he hopes that their work will advance public health by contributing to the basic science foundation needed for the development of new therapeutic approaches to neurological and psychiatric disorders.

STORY SOURCE: University of Iowa News Services, 300 Plaza Centre One, Suite 371, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-2500
MEDIA CONTACTS: Joshua Weiner, assistant professor of biological sciences, 319-335-0091, joshua-weiner@uiowa.edu; Gary Galluzzo, University News Services, 319-384-0009, gary-galluzzo@uiowa.edu

Is a particular type of microscopic animal -- one thought to have reproduced asexually for at least 35-40 million years -- actually capable of having sex? A University of Iowa biologist hopes that his answer to that question will help solve a long-standing mystery in evolutionary biology: Why do organisms reproduce by means of sex at all? John Logsdon, associate professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biological Sciences and director of the Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics, has received a five-year, $1,128,500 research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study sex and meiosis in asexual rotifers.

The Department of Biology faculty member, Debashish Bhattacharya has been awarded the distinction of the 2007 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A Professor in Biology, Bhattacharya is also a faculty member of the Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics and director or the UI Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in genetics. Professor Bhattacharya was given the fellowship "for fundamental studies of the origin and spread of photosynthetic organelles through endosymbiosis, genome evolution and phylogeny of microbial eukaryotes, and group I intron evolution". Bhattacharya, who received his doctorate in 1989 from Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada, joined the UI faculty in 1997. He currently has a two-year, $2 million National Science foundation (NSF) grant to research how early plant cells developed the ability to make use of sunlight through photosynthesis.

The Department of Biological Sciences would like to welcome 3 new graduate students, Erin Bailey, Stephen Butcher, Sarah Derry. Erin Bailey is a former University of Iowa Biology major that graduated in May 2005 with a BS in Biological Sciences. Since graduating, Erin was employed at Tyson Foods in the Quality Control Laboratory as a Lab Chemist/Microbiologist. Stephen Butcher graduated from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse in May 2007 with a BS in Biology. While at UW, he worked on several independent research projects, one under the guidance of a former doctoral student of ours who is now an Associate Professor of Biology at UW-La Crosse: Anne Galbraith. Sarah Derry graduated from Iowa State University in May 2004 with a BS in Genetics. She also received training for a teaching certificate at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, TX. Until coming to the The University of Iowa, Sarah worked as a high school science teacher in the Houston Independent School District. Before a student is selected to join our program, their previous academic history is checked by a committee of departmental professors and graduate program advisors. The new students are chosen from among hundreds of other applicants to come for a campus visit. After the campus visit, they are invited to join our program. Welcome to all of our new graduate students!

The laboratory of Christopher Stipp, assistant professor in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biological Sciences, recently received two grants totaling more than $800,000 to study how tumor cells migrate. The first grant is a four-year, $703,000 grant from the American Cancer Society, while the second is an 18-month, $110,610 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The unique laboratory of Dr. David Soll at the University of Iowa, Department of Biological Sciences is making a big footprint in the field of cancer research, thanks to a new agreement reached between Soll and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The NCI and its $104 million Clinical Protoemics Technologies Initiative for Cancer (http://proteomics.cancer.gov) recently selected the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB) as the worldwide distributor of cancer-fighting proteins, called monoclonal antibodies, and the specialized cells, called hybridoms, that produce them. The DSHB was moved in 1995 from Johns Hopkins University to the laboratory of Dr. David Soll, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver/Emil Witschi Professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biological Sciences.

The Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics, located within the Department of Biological Sciences, has purchased a Flow Cytometer. After testing several machines, the Cell Lab Quanta SC manufactured by Beckman Coulter was chosen. It is equipped with a blue laser (488nm) and a UV light source optimized for excitation at 366, 405, 435nm. It is also equipped with a Multi-Platform Loader which will allow the use of vials and 96-well plates. With this set-up we will be capable of detecting cell staining of labeled markers as well as measuring DNA content and ploidy level.

Professor Barbara Stay will be giving a Saturday Scholars talk on Saturday, September 1, 10:00am in room 40 Schaeffer Hall. Her presentation will discuss Termites and their social interaction. Termites, like bees, ants and humans, are social creatures. We, and they, depend on interactions of individuals within families and colonies for continued existence. Not only we humans, but these social insects have enormous impact on our habitat, the Earth. How do these insects, one millionth of our size do this? It is by enormous numbers of individuals who sacrifice reproduction for the benefit of the colony. In termites, a queen and her king, the primary reproductives, produce enormous numbers of offspring that develop into different castes. Workers provide food and care, not only for the king and queen, but also for the soldiers, defenders of the colony. Chemical communication between caste members maintains the composition of the colony for the benefit of the whole. The termites studied in the Stay laboratory is the local subterranean termite Reticulitermes flavipes in which developmental pathways are very flexible; workers, if need be, can develop into soldiers or into supplementary reproductives. Our interest is in how the social environment is communicated through the brain to the endocrine system that regulates developmental pathways and reproductive ability.

Biological Sciences Professor Emeritus, Jerry Kollros died on June 8, 2007 after a long battle with cancer. He was 89 years old. Kollros came to the University of Iowa in 1946 as an Assistant Professor. He served as Acting Chairman of the Department and then Chairman of the department from 1954 to 1977. During these years, he taught many Biology courses, had an active research lab devoted to neurodevelopment in amphibians and led the department through many years of changes. See the whole story.

Joshua Weiner, assistant professor in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Biological Sciences, has received a three-year, $309, 510 grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust to study the role of glial cells in neuro-transmission and various brain disorders. In particular, he and his colleagues will study the function of glial cells - cells that provide nutrition, protection and other support to neuronal cells and participate in signal transmission in the nervous system.

The research laboratory of Christopher Stipp, assistant professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Biological Sciences, has received a three-year, $349,825 grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust to study an aspect of cell behavior that plays important roles both in normal cell development and in tumor cell progression.

John M. Logsdon Jr., assistant professor in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Biological Sciences and the Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics, has received a three-year, $347,340 grant from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust to study the evolution of sex and meiosis in fungi. The study would be an important milestone in understanding sexual reproduction by providing the first comprehensive analysis of the evolution of genes needed for sex in eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are cells with nuclei, including those found in plants, animals and fungi.

A University of Iowa, Department of Biological Sciences faculty member and member of the Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics will use a two-year, $1,973,449 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to research the answer. Debashish Bhattacharya, principal investigator, associate professor of biological sciences in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and director of the UI Interdisciplinary Program in Genetics, will sequence, or map, the genome of a key, single-celled organism.

The University of Iowa Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank (DSHB), under the direction of Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver/Emil Witschi Professor David Soll, has announced that it will provide a gift toward the Graduate Student Endowment in the Department of Biological Sciences of a minimum of $250,000 over the next five years. The endowment will help expand graduate student research within the department.

University of Iowa Biologist, Debashish Bhattacharya, Ph.D., has received a grant from NIH to study "red tide". Red Tide is the ecologically and financially costly biological phenomenon that periodically kills millions of fish and shellfish along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

The Roy J. Carver Center for Comparative Genomics has moved!! The Center is still in the Biology Building but has moved from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor. This move allows the Center to consolidate all equipment, including imagers, real-time PCR, sequencing and microarray equipment, into a single space. Samples for DNA sequencing can be dropped off in room 101 BB or 107 BB.

University of Iowa Assistant Professor of Biology, John Logsdon, along with other UI researchers, made a discovery that earned them national attention earlier this year.   Logsdon and his colleagues found that a single-celled organism called Giardia, once thought to reproduce asexually, may actually have sex. Sexual reproduction has not been directly proven yet, but the UI researchers studied the DNA of Giardia and concluded that the organism has genes necessary for sexual reproduction.

View the Fall 2005 Departmental Newsletter either online or download a copy. This file is in PDF format and requires Acrobat Reader. (23 MB)

View the October 2004 Departmental Newsletter either online or download a copy. This file is in .pdf format and requires Acrobat Reader. (23 MB)

The University of Iowa Herbarium, an important collection both historically and with respect to its representation of Iowa plant diversity, has recently been merged with the Ada Hayden Herbarium at Iowa State University. The combined collections contain approximately 640,000 specimens, and together have the largest and most complete holdings representing the flora of Iowa. The unified herbarium also contains important holdings of Midwestern flora. Please contact Lynn Clark (lgclark@iastate.edu), Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-1020, for further information.

The Offices of the Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Genetics have moved to the Department of Biological Sciences.

Biology faculty member Debashish Bhattacharya has assumed the leadership of the Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Genetics at the University of Iowa. This is one of the largest interdisciplinary programs at the University with over 50 faculty members and 40 graduate students. The move to Biological Sciences is anticipated to forge strong ties between the faculty here and in the College of Medicine and other participating Colleges. Joining Debashish are Program Associate Anita Kafer and Secretary Chloe Allgood. Offices are located on the 3rd floor of the Biology Building (BB) at Jefferson and Dubuque Streets.