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TWIB - These Weeks In Biology...
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January 21st, 2009 - March 3rd, 2009
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Thesis Defenses
Undergraduate Sere Williams (Mykles lab) completed her Senior Honors Thesis. Congratulations!
Welcome
The Reddy Lab welcomes Dr. Helena Sabina Celesnik from New York University School of Medicine as our new Postdoctoral Research Associate.
Research Funding and Grants
Miles McKenna will be working in Associate Professor Mark Simmons' lab this summer with support from the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.
On the Road
Prof. Don Mykles, postdoc Joe Covi, graduate students Erica Chao, Audrey McDonald, & Jen Gunderson, and undergrads Sere Williams, Brandon Bader, & Il-Gyu Cho attended the SICB meeting in Boston Jan. 3-7. Erica won "Best Poster" from The Crustacean Society and Audrey received an honorable mention in the DCPB poster competition.
Assistant Professor Colleen Webb gave an invited seminar in the Ecosystem Informatics Program at Oregon State University on January 21.
Graduate student Becky Chong received funding to attend the "Estimating species trees: A phylogenetic paradigm for the 21st century" (phew) workshop at The University of Michigan.
Drs. Greg Florant and Shane Kanatous were in Washington D.C. on February 8-11th to serve on the NSF Graduate Fellowships panel.
New Publications from Biology
Postdoc Joe Covi, former undergraduate Andrea Gomez, former postdoc Kara Lee, and collaborators at UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab authored "Repression of Y-organ ecdysteroidogenesis by cyclic nucleotides and agonists of NO-sensitive guanylyl cyclase" published in the proceedings of the 4th Meeting of Comparative Physiologists & Biochemists in Africa - Mara 2008.
Along with her coauthor Mike Antolin, Research Associate Shelley Bayard de Volo is lead author on a recent paper published in Condor "An improved method to increase DNA yield from molted feathers".
John Paul, postdoc in the Angert lab, is the lead author on a paper recently published in The American Naturalist entitled "Evolutionary time for dispersal limits the extent, but not the occupancy of species' potential ranges in the tropical plant genus Psychotria (Rubiaceae)."
Postdoc Joe Covi, Ernest Chang (UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab), and Prof. Don Mykles published a review article, "Conserved role of cyclic nucleotides in the regulation of ecdysteroidogenesis by the crustacean molting gland," in Comparative Biochemistry & Physiology (152A: 470-477).
Assistant Professor Joe von Fischer and REU student Rick Siller published their work studying microbial ecology of the Shortgrass Steppe LTER: von Fischer, J. C., G. Butters, P. C. Duchateau, R. J. Thelwell, and R. Siller (2009), In situ measures of methanotroph activity in upland soils: A reaction-diffusion model and field observation of water stress, J. Geophys. Res., 114, G01015, doi:10.1029/2008JG000731
Other News
A Nature article published by Gul Shad, A.S. N.Reddy and collaborators from Washington State University was featured in the "Leading Edge" section of "Cell"
Dr. Chris Funk was cited in a NY times article regarding his work with Dr. Mike Ryan in Ecuador. For more information see; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/science/10species.html?_r=1&ref=science.