Abstracts

$2.8 million NSF grant supports interdisciplinary training for ecologists and civil engineers

Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories will be used for training and research. Richard Anderson

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the College of Biological Sciences and Institute of Technology a $2.8 million grant to train graduate students in ecology, civil engineering, and geology to study the combined effects of physical and biological changes on environmental quality. The Mississippi River watershed will be one focus of the study.

Students will develop mathematical tools to evaluate the interaction between physical changes (such as dams and agricultural irrigation) and biological processes, and to address environmental problems, according to principal investigator Claudia Neuhauser, professor and head of ecology, evolution, and behavior. Other leaders are Chris Paola (geology) and Miki Hondzo (civil engineering). More than 20 faculty will be involved. The National Center for Earth Dynamics in the Institute of Technology and Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories, the CBS research station at Itasca State Park, will serve as key facilities for training and research.

The grant is part of the NSF’s highly competitive Integrative Graduate Education and Research Trainee Program (IGERT). Out of 639 proposals submitted this year, only 20 have been funded to date.

Renewable energy research surges with $8.5 million in new grants

The Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE) awarded more than $8.5 million to 24 renewable energy projects at the University in August. Projects span bio-energy and bio-products; economic and policy assessments; production and distribution of hydrogen; carbon sequestration; nanotechnology; solar thermal heating systems; and conversion of livestock waste to energy and products. Awards were made to faculty in six schools and colleges, including CBS, where faculty are collaborators on 12 grants.

“The awards, which were aligned with the Minnesota Environment Initiative report on renewable energy research priorities for Minnesota, will position the University to excel in the areas where we have the most potential,” said Dean Elde, who chairs the IREE executive committee.

Craig Packer, McKnight Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior. Tim Rummelhoff

Craig Packer proposes measure to curb lion attacks in Tanzania

Lions have killed 563 Tanzanians since 1990, in part because of an increase in population and a decrease in lion prey outside of protected areas. Not surprisingly, Tanzanians are responding by killing lions, which threatens conservation efforts. In an effort to protect people and lions, a research team led by EEB professor Craig Packer has identified control of bush pigs as the best strategy for curbing attacks. Lions often follow bush pigs, an agricultural pest, into villages and then attack humans who are guarding crops against the pigs. The research was published August 18 in Nature.

Postdoctoral program gets high marks from Science-Next Wave

The Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics (BMBB) was featured in the August issue of Science-Next Wave,an online companion to Sciencemagazine that focuses on early career issues. The article, “Making it Great for Everyone,” details BMBB practices as a model department for postdoctoral education and training. The article, which also discusses future possibilities for innovative reform in national postdoctoral training, was based on an interview with John Lipscomb, director of postdoctoral affairs in BMBB.

GRANTS AND AWARDS

Judy Berman (Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development) received a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for “Genome Integrity in Candida albicans.” C.albicansis a type of yeast that can cause serious infections in immuno-compromised patients.

David Kirkpatrick (Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development) has been awarded $1.4 million over five years from the NIH for the grant “Factors Controlling Minisatellite Stability in Yeast.” The grant focuses on repetitive DNA sequences that may be rearranged when reproductive cells are formed and may be linked to breast cancer and other diseases.

Mary Porter (Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development) has received a MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) award from the NIH. The award will provide long-term funding for her research on flagella that propel Chlamydomonas, a one-celled algae. The research has implications for human health because the flagella are similar to structures in human and animal cells involved in fertility, vision, hearing, and breathing.

IN PRINT

Joe McFadden (Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior) is coauthor of a paper published in the October 28 issue of Sciencetitled “The Role of Land Surface Change in Arctic Summer Warming.” McFadden and colleagues synthesized a decade of field data from Alaska showing summer warming is occurring primarily on land, where a longer snow-free season and growth of vegetation contribute to atmospheric heating.

Antony Dean (Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior) published a report titled “The Biochemical Architecture of an Ancient Adaptive Landscape” in the October 21 issue of Science. He and his colleagues determined relationships between genotype, phenotype and fitness that provide insights into how natural selection produces adaptations.

Robert Elde (dean of CBS and professor of neuroscience) published an article titled “Interaction with Vesicle Luminal Protachykinin Regulates Surface Expression of Delta Opioid Receptors and Opioid Analgesia” in the August 26 issue of Cell. Elde credits the longterm contributions of collaborators at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.

Romas Kazlauskas (Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics) wrote a News and Views article for the August 25 issue of Nature. The article describes how the technique of directed evolution creates thousands of mutant enzymes from a single original. A new approach helps to search for variants that have an increased range of substrates and can thus be used for organic synthesis.

Anath Das, Paul Judd, and Renu Kumar (Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics) published an article titled “Spatial Location and Requirements for the Assembly of the Agrobacterium TumefaciensType IV Secretion Apparatus” in the August 9 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Judy Berman (Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development) and Colleagues published a paper in the August 5 issue of Science titled “Rewiring of the Yeast Transcriptional Network Through the Evolution of Motif Usage.” The discovery grew out of a collaboration with researchers at the Weizman Institute of Science in Israel.

David Zarkower (Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development) and colleagues published a paper in Developmental Cellin June titled “The DM Domain Protein MAB-3 Promotes Sex-Specific Neurogenesis in C. Elegansby Regulating BHLH Proteins.” His coauthors are Jennifer Ross Wolff, Andrea Kalis, and Mark Murphy. The paper shows that MAB-3, a protein involved in regulating sexual development, controls another protein involved in nervous system development. The finding reveals a mechanism by which sex-specific nervous system development can be established.