School of Biological Sciences

Tailocins: The next generation of antibiotics might just come from understanding the viruses that infect bacteria

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Talia Backman – Ph.D. student, School of Biological Sciences, shares a micrograph of tailocins. “Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of purified tailocins performed at the Electron Microscopy Core Laboratory at the University of Utah by David Belnap” Talia studies how bacteria create and use weapons, called “tailocins,” by repurposing genes from viruses. From multicellular organisms, like […]

November 20, 2024

Access Scholar-Ella Bleak

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November 18, 2024 Above: Ella Bleak Ella Bleak’s journey as a self-proclaimed science nerd started at a young age. Her inner nerd was fostered by high school chemistry and biology teachers, and having a professor in developmental biology with a PhD from the U as a neighbor didn’t hurt, either. That led her to discover ACCESS […]

November 18, 2024

As climate warms, California wildfires are becoming more severe, killing more trees

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California’s Caldor Fire burned more than 220,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada in 2021, destroying more than 1,000 structures. Photo by Acacia England, U.S. Forest Service. U biologist Jon Wang, with UC Irvine colleagues, uses satellite imagery to document the growing destructiveness of Western wildfires since 1980. Wildfires continue to damage California’s forests as human-driven […]

November 15, 2024

Christmas trees and climate change

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Small choices can make a big impact this holiday season, starting with your Christmas tree! As Douglas firs and white pines appeared in lots around Salt Lake City, Natalie Vickers, a junior pre-occupational therapy major and video intern at the School of Biological Sciences, got curious—how does the tree-trimming tradition fit into a changing climate? […]

November 7, 2024

Biology Student Stories: Mia Sheneman

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Finding Success as a Transfer Student: Support Systems and Determination “I am a transfer student from Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) where I received my Associate of Science in Pre-Health Sciences. It was much easier for me to get involved in U of U campus life than I had anticipated — and it’s been so […]

November 5, 2024

SACNAS STEM

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University of Utah SACNAS cohort in Puerto Rico. Left to Right: Benning Lozada, Palepoi Gilmore, Parker Guzman, Lorelei Sole, Nayma Hernandez, Laura Rupert, Chelsea Bordon, James “Jim” Ackerman (University of Puerto Rico Campus Río Piedras) Bottom: Rodolfo Probst and Felis catus. Not pictured: Fatima Serratos. Photo credit: Luz. An undergraduate extension of the University of Utah chapter of the Society for the […]

November 1, 2024

New Faculty – Avila-Lovera

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September 25, 2024 Above: Eleinis Ávila-Lovera Like all living things, plants have to respond and adapt to various stressors in their environment. But unlike most living things, plants must cope with these issues while being completely immobile. This stalwart resilience fascinated Eleinis Ávila-Lovera in her undergraduate years, an interest that has guided her entire educational journey as a […]

October 3, 2024

How Harmful is Great Salt Lake Dust

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September 17, 2024 As Utah’s Great Salt Lake shrinks, exposing more of its playa, concerns grow about the dust the dry lakebed emits. But scientists lack the data to fully understand what pollutants are present in these airborne sediments. Researchers from the University of Utah, including atmospheric scientist Kevin Perry and biologist Michael Werner, are […]

September 18, 2024

Scientists Awarded 1U4U Seed Grants

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Above: Microbiolites at Bridger Bay on the northwest corner of Antelope Island. Credit: Utah Geological Survey. Biologists Jody Reimer and Michael Werner are part of a 1U4U team that study microbiolites. Six College of Science faculty members are members of winning teams awarded seed grants of up to $50,000 as part of the 1U4U Seed […]

September 11, 2024

Biology and innovation, preparing for biotech and life science careers

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“Innovation in biotechnology is touching on every aspect of our lives, from climate change and agriculture to health and wellness,” Fred Adler, Professor of Mathematics and Biology, Director School of Biological Sciences. Chemistry and biological sciences, which educate a significant number of students that join the biotech and life science sectors, are the top-ranked programs […]

September 9, 2024

How Symbiosis Helps Define Evolution

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September 3, 2024 Above: Colin Dale, 2012 “We’re looking at how deterministic the process of evolution is,” biologist Colin Dale says. “We’ve leveraged that question in this beautiful system, where we’ve got samples that have evolved under near identical conditions in nature.” At the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah, the Dale […]

September 6, 2024

Dream Big and Take the Initiative

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September 3, 2024 “Dream big and take the initiative to put yourself out there. If you’re hesitant or afraid of your goals, that’s okay. Your goals should be big, they should be scary, my goals certainly terrify at times.” Nathan is an undergraduate student double majoring in biochemistry and biology, and he plans to pursue […]

September 3, 2024

Of Ants and Trees: ‘Evolutionary deja vu’ in the Tropical Rainforest

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Ants are famous for their regimented and complex social behaviors. In the tropics, they are also famous for forming mutualisms with plants. Certain species of trees have conspicuous hollow swellings that house ants, often feeding the ants with specialized ant food. In return, the ants are pugnacious bodyguards, swarming out to aggressively defend the plant […]

July 23, 2024

Rethinking the Carbon Offsets Market

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July 18, 2024 Around 1989 an energy company was trying to see if they could plant trees in Guatemala and then use the absorption of carbon from those trees to offset their emissions of a new coal-fired power plant in the United States. It was the dawn of carbon-off-setting, emitting one place and then […]

July 19, 2024

A FRAMEWORK FOR CANCER ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

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July 17, 2024 Why do the vast majority of cancers arise late in subjects’ lives? A traditional explanation in the development of cancers, known as the somatic theory, is a paradigm focused on mutations in individual cells. In this theory a cascade of approximately six mutational changes in a single cell is the source that […]

July 18, 2024

Shared Landscapes Wolves, Humans in Rural Turkey

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May 30, 2024 Above: Photo of the wolf captured by Çağan Şekercioğlu on eastern Turkey’s Kars-Ardahan plateau. Photo Credit: Çağan Şekercioğlu Utah biologists track gray wolves with GPS collars and camera traps as their numbers rebound into populated parts of northeast Turkey. After 14 years of gathering and analyzing field data, an international research team […]

June 28, 2024

LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS … AND IN A STUDENT’S MIND

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June 13, 2024 Above: Mary Fairbanks BS’23, biology A DNA repair system known as the GO DNA repair system removes oxidized guanine. This helps protect the system from mutating, and while scientists understand how it works, the origin of this mechanism isn’t well understood. That’s where the Horvath Lab comes in and, in particular, Mary Fairbanks BS’23. She and […]

June 24, 2024

The Promising World of Bacteriophages

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Bacteriophages, viruses that attack and destroy bacteria, are everywhere in the natural world where they play a vital role in regulating microbe populations in ways that are not yet well understood. New research led by the University of Utah and University College London (UCL) has found that plant bacterial pathogens are able to repurpose elements of […]

June 18, 2024

A TALE OF TWO WORMS : ADVANCING EPIGENETICS

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Have you ever wondered how a cell knows whether it’s supposed to be skin or muscle? Or philosophized about “nature vs. nurture,” that is, how contributions from both genetics and the environment influence physical phenotypes? Epigenetics, a relatively new field in biology, helps explain the mechanistic basis for this phenomenon—and is the field I have […]

June 12, 2024

Utah’s Ant Man Found A New Species In His Backyard

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June 5, 2024 Above: John “Jack” Longino, in the tropics University of Utah professor Jack Longino’s research mainly takes him to Central America, but on the weekend he collects and examines the diverse ant species around him. Jack Longino likes to spend his weekends close to the ground. He often wears a vest that holds […]

June 5, 2024

Establishing a “Wildfire Resilience Collective” Wilkes Center Hackathon, 2024

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By Hannah Meier , PhD Student, School of Biological Sciences Caption: [from left to right]: Tegan Lengyel, a PhD student in the Anderegg lab, investigates the impact of climate change on forest biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Rebecca Senft, a PhD student in the Aparecido lab, delves into the interaction between global change and invasive species. Hannah Meier, […]

May 13, 2024

SBS Student Commencement Speaker

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For the 2024 University of Utah student commencement speaker Eron Powell, a love of learning is one of the most important things he is taking away from his time at the U. “Outside of college and into the future, I hope to always be able to educate myself,” Powell said. “We are never complete people. […]

April 25, 2024

THE BEAUTY OF MATHEMATICS

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April 2, 2024 by Fred Adler After listening to an egregiously (and quite uncharacteristically) dull math colloquium some years ago, I had a revelation that there are three good reasons to do mathematics: it is important (solves an open problem), it is useful (cures cancer) and it is beautiful. These good reasons are not mutually […]

April 25, 2024

Why can zebrafish regenerate damaged heart tissue

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A heart attack will leave a permanent scar on a human heart, yet other animals, including some fish and amphibians, can clear cardiac scar tissue and regrow damaged muscle as adults. Scientists have sought to figure out how special power works in hopes of advancing medical treatments for human cardiac patients, but the great physiological […]

April 22, 2024

UTAH SYMPOSIUM IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE

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March 27, 2024 Poet Claudia Rankine, physicist Brian Greene, and neuroscientist and artist Bevil Conway are the keynote speakers for this year’s Utah Symposium in Science and Literature, taking place from April 10-12 at the Eccles Alumni House on campus. Claudia Rankine is the author of “Citizen: An American Lyric,” a New York Times bestseller, […]

March 27, 2024

FINDING NEMO (THAT IS, NEMATODES) IN THE GSL

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March 13, 2024 Brine shrimp and brine flies aren’t the only animals inhabiting the Great Salt Lake. Utah biologists find tiny nematodes in its reef-like microbialites. Julie Jung examines nematodes recovered from Great Salt Lake. Credit: Brian Maffly, University of Utah ^^ Banner video above: “Finding Nematode: How University of Utah biologists founds worms in […]

March 18, 2024

Great Salt Lake Ecosystem Just Got More Interesting

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March 13, 2024 Above: Post-doctoral researcher (Werner lab, School of Biological Sciences) examines nematodes recovered from the Great Salt Lake. Credit: Brian Maffly. Brine shrimp and brine flies aren’t the only animals inhabiting the lake. Utah biologists find tiny nematodes in its reef-like microbialites. Scientists have long suspected nematodes, commonly known as roundworms, inhabit Utah’s […]

March 13, 2024

Excellence In Teaching and Mentoring Award

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Sophie Caron, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, is the recipient of the College of Science Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award for 2023. Sophie Caron. Banner photo above: the Caron Lab. While Caron is highly regarded for her stunning work in neuroscience research, she is also cherished within the College of Science […]

March 13, 2024

Nematode proteins shed light on infertility

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We have two copies of each chromosome in every cell in our bodies except in our reproductive cells. Sperm and egg cells contain a single copy of each chromosome with a unique mix of genes from our parents, an evolutionary trick to give our offspring genetic variability. The sperm and egg are made during […]

January 8, 2024

Christmas trees and climate change

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Small choices can make a big impact this holiday season, starting with your Christmas tree! As Douglas firs and white pines appeared in lots around Salt Lake City, Natalie Vickers, a junior pre-occupational therapy major and video intern at the School of Biological Sciences, got curious—how does the tree-trimming tradition fit into a changing climate? […]

January 2, 2024

PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLAR AWARD

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Associate Professor of biology Sophie Caron is a 2023 awardee. The University of Utah Presidential Scholar Award supports the work of exceptionally promising mid-career faculty in academic units across campus by providing $10,000 in funding each year for three years to the award winners. In addition to Caron, an internationally prominent neuroscientist, other awardees include […]

January 2, 2024

OUR DNA 2023

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Read the full issue of OUR DNA 2023, the magazine of the School of Biological Sciences LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Keeping the Past Alive

December 14, 2023

MECHANISMS OF PLANT MICROBES

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‘Plants do have immune systems or immune responses, and a lot of people don’t realize that,’ explains Efthymia ‘Effie’ Symeondi. “They have a pretty complicated and well-defined system for responding to pathogens.” The post-doctoral researcher in the School of Biological Sciences is this year’s recipient of the College of Science Outstanding Post-Doc Award. Symeondi’s fascination […]

December 6, 2023