Professor Gregory Florant has been selected to be a CBR Visiting Scientist at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Florant was at Spelman, Sept. 12-15th and presented a seminar on his work as well as meeting with faculty and students.

Keyona Gullet, an NIH summer intern in the lab of Assistant Professor Shane B. Kanatous, was awarded 2nd place for best oral presentation at the NIH Summer Research Symposium in Los Angeles, California.

Associate Professor Mark Simmons presented a seminar to CSU's Department of Biochemistry on September 10th.

Lisa Savage successfully defended her Ph.D. on October 1, entitled "POPULATION GENETICS, FRAGMENTATION and PLAGUE IN BLACK-TAILED PRAIRIE DOGS, or: Prairie dogs and plague…it’s what’s for dinner". Congratulations to Dr. Savage and to her major advisor Professor Mike Antolin.

Please extend a warm welcome to Erica Smith, the new Assistant Laboratory Coordinator for the Biology Department. Erica recently completed her master's degree here in Botany, advised by Dr. Dave Steingraeber. She will be the primary contact person for BZ105, BZ120, the plant portion of LIFE103, and BIO311 in the spring.

We welcome a large and talented incoming class of graduate students (and their advisors): Kirk Albrecht (Medford), Dan Auerbach (Poff), Thomas Barnett (Florant), Michael Buhnerkempe (Webb), Amber Cable (Kanatous), Jennifer Cappa (Simmons/Pilon-Smits), Craig Faigenbaum (Naug), Seungho Jung (Reddy), Kathryn Langin (Ghalambor), Anmanda Lease (Knapp), Chou Li (Reddy), Alicia Link (Kugrens), Chris Mayeck (Naug), Audrey McDonal (Mykles), Sharon Poessel (Angeloni), Karen Seaver (Wall), Julia Thomas (Reddy), Thomas Wilding (Poff). They were welcomed at the annual Bush Bash, hosted by Professor and Chair Dr. Dan Bush, on Septebmer 21.

Prof. Don Mykles travelled to University of Kentucky Sept. 12-15 to give a seminar to the Biology Department.

Assistant Professor Debbie Garrity presented a seminar on October 1, at the Cardiology Research Conference at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, entitled "Catch the beat: The onset of heart rhythm in embryonic zebrafish".

Zhang, L.-B., M.P. Simmons and S.S. Renner. 2007. A phylogeny of Anisophyllaceae based on six nuclear and plastid loci: ancient disjunctions and recent dispersal between South America, Africa, and Asia. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 44: 1057-1067.

Lee, S. G., Bader, B. D., Chang, E. S., and Mykles, D. L. (2007) Effects of elevated ecdysteroid on tissue expression of three guanylyl cyclases in the tropical land crab, Gecarcinus lateralis: possible roles of neuropeptide signaling in the molting gland. J. Exp. Biol. 210:3245-3254.

Lee, K. J., Doran, R. M., and Mykles, D. L. (2007) Crustacean hyperglycemic hormone from the tropical land crab, Gecarcinus lateralis: cloning, isoforms, and tissue expression. Gen. Comp. Endocrinol. 154:174-183.

Assistant Professor Shane B Kanatous is a coauthor on a recent publication in the American Journal of Physiology Cell entitled: Xin, an actin binding protein, is expressed within muscle satellite cells and newly regenerated skeletal muscle fibres.

Song-Bin Chang, Lorrie Anderson, Jamie Sherman, Suzanne Royer, and Stephen Stack are authors of a featured article in the August, 2007 issue of Genetics titled “ Predicting and testing physical locations of genetically mapped loci on tomato pachytene chromosome 1.”

Medler, S., Chang, E. S., and Mykles, D. L. (2007) Muscle-specific calpain is localized in regions near motor endplates in differentiating lobster claw muscles. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 148A:591-598. Scott Medler is a former postdoc and is now a special assistant professor at University of Buffalo.

Magle, S.B., B.T. McClintock, D.W. Tripp, G.C. White, M.F. Antolin, K.R. Crooks. 2007. A new method for estimating population densities for prairie dogs. J. Wildl. Manage., 71: 2067-2073. (This publication was pat off Seth magle's Ph.D. in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation, and is a collaboration between prairie dog researchers in both departments).

Associate Professor Mark Simmons presented a talk entitled "Celastraceae and Friends in Madagascar" to the Fort Collins chapter of the Colorado Native Plant Society on October 3rd.