Christa Nuzzo featured in Bostonia for her work in LGBTQ+ Advocacy
Christa Nuzzo, a junior studying Neurobiology, is the president of Queer Activist Collective (Q), BU’s decade-strong club for LGBTQ+ students and allies. Throughout her time at BU, Christa has turned Q from a social group into a one-stop LGBTQ+ resources center. Her story was featured in a recent Bostonia article on student activists.
Q is dedicated to providing all BU queer students with the information and resources they need, such as information about free queer-friendly therapy sessions and the location of every all-gender bathroom in BU. Q also provides workshops and giveaways to support queer students, such as sending members self-care kits and safe-sex supplies.
Last summer, Christa and Q’s Outreach Coordinator, BMB major Ryan De Kock, established the “Take Action Tuesdays”, a special hour when all Q members can engage in social advocacy by making calls to legislators and organizations. So far, they have called the state legislators on topics such as releasing incarcerated people to stop the spread of COVID-19 and increasing access to HIV testing for minors.
“I sometimes think that people don’t realize that activism can take many different forms, and they’re all effective. You can donate and sign petitions, but you can also educate others, which is really important,” Christa explained to Bostonia. “It’s easy to post something [on your social media] to spread information or awareness, but advocacy shouldn’t stop there. It should start there.”
Click here to read the full article.
Biology Undergraduate Researchers work with with Lucy Kim, Professor of Fine Arts, to create Melanin Images from E. Coli
Lucy Kim, an Assistant Professor of Fine Arts and a Faculty Affiliate at the BU Center for Antiracist Research, is working on a project with two Biology undergraduate researchers, Allison Suarez and Xingpei Zhang.
Her recent project, Melanin images via genetically modified E. Coli, develops a unique way to create screen-prints with melanin, which is the primary pigment of human skin, hair, and eye color and can be produced by genetically modified E.coli cells. The process involves screen-printing E. coli cells onto paper and placing them in an incubator. As E. coli starts to produce melanin, an image begins to show and will stay alive until the bacteria is killed. This project started in 2019 during her Artist-in-Residency at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She is now continuing her project at Boston University with the support of Biology Professor Dr. Chip Celenza.
Under Professor Kim’s supervision, two Biology undergraduate researchers, Allison Suarez and Xingpei Zhang, conduct their research to find different approaches to creating screen-printed photographic images of eumelanin-producing E.Coli cells. Allison Suarez, a junior studying Biology and Chemistry, is researching screen printing recombinant E. Coli and melanin structure determination and preservation. Xingpei Zhang, a senior studying Biology, is working on optimizing E. Coli expression of the Rhizobium etli CFN42 tyrosinase gene melA by reducing protease activity chaperone overexpression.
The Broad Institute of MIT produced a video featuring her project and biology students. You can watch the video here. If you want to know more about the project, click here.
In 2022, Professor Lucy Kim was awarded the Creative Capital grant for her Melanin Images project. The Creative Capital is a non-profit organization that aims to fund innovative work in visual arts and other multidisciplinary practices. Professor Kim's project was one of the top 50 projects selected for this grant out of the 4,000 submissions.
Wally Fulweiler and Sarah Davies Coauthor Essay on Workplace Inequality
Professors Robinson Fulweiler and Sarah Davies were coauthors on an essay, “Rebuild the Academy: Supporting academic mothers during COVID-19 and beyond”, in PLOS Biology and were featured in BU Today’s article “Let Us Be the Architects of a New World” because of their contribution to ending inequality in the field of scientific research.
Women—particularly mothers, and especially mothers of color— were hugely affected by the pandemic, losing jobs in greater numbers than men, handling the increased amount of housework that quarantine created and spending longer time tutoring their children who are now studying online.
“We kept [seeing new peer-reviewed publications] and reading [about these studies in the news], which showed moms were being badly impacted, and a lot of the lead authors on these papers were men,” says ecosystems ecologist and biogeochemist Robinson Fulweiler, a BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of biology and of earth and environment, who has been an advocate for women in academia even before she became a mom to two children, ages three and one. “The news was reporting these studies as if they were a surprise…but there’s already been a lot of data gathered about this issue. But there have been no solutions. Our level of frustration peaked. We decided we need to make a plan to fix things.”
Therefore, Dr. Fulweiler found Dr. Davies, a fellow marine scientist and a BU College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of biology. They got together a group of mothers in academia with a variety of backgrounds and at various stages of their careers to speak out to address workplace inequalities. The thirteen researchers authored a manifesto for supporting mothers in academia, that layouts policies that would support women, and particularly mothers and parents of color, to help women succeed in a field traditionally dominated by white men.
Click here to read the full BU Today article.
Randi Rotjan Published in Science Immunology
Dr. Randi Rotjan, a BU Research Assistant Professor of biology, co-authored and published a research paper in Science Immunology. This paper, “Deep-sea microbes as tools to refine the rules of innate immune pattern recognition”, has received a lot of media attention and was covered by The Brink, The Scientists, Mirage News, and the AAAS.
This research is a five-year, collaborative study among the Rotjan Marine Ecology Lab at Boston University, the Kagan Lab at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, the government of Kiribati. Together, researchers examined thousands of genes sequenced across 2,000 nautical miles of central Pacific Ocean waters. They found out that human immune cells cannot register the existence of completely foreign bacteria, which overrides the common belief that mammals can recognize all bacteria they interact with.
“This was surprising because global recognition is a widespread assumption, but now, local pattern recognition makes sense," Professor Rotjan said to an AAAS reporter. "There is no selective pressure for mammals to detect bacteria that inhabit an ecosystem different from their own — such as the deep sea."
Read the full paper here. Read the full interview of Professor Rotjan here.
Meeting New Faculty: Dr. Michaelyn Hartmann
We are excited to announce that Dr. Michaelyn Hartmann joined our department this semester as a lecturer in Biology.
Dr. Hartmann earned her BS degree in Biology, Siena College and Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She worked as a Curriculum Fellow at Harvard Medical School and has extensive teaching experience at many universities and colleges. Since she has a strong background in genetics and research, she is now teaching Biology 2 (BI108), Cell Biology (BI203) at Boston University.
She said: “I combine my passion for science and teaching to inspire the next generation of scientists. As much as my students are always learning, I am also always progressing as a teacher so I can help all students learn and succeed both in and out of the classroom. I am deeply involved in learning about and developing effective teaching methods to use in my classrooms to keep students engaged and active in the learning process. You will not only learn content in my courses, but you will learn how to apply that knowledge, how it relates to research and the world around you, and how to communicate science. I use educational research studies to assess student progress toward learning goals and gather feedback on the best ways to help students learn critical scientific skills.”
Click here for more info on Dr. Hartmann’s work.
Meeting New Faculty: Dr. Ana Fiszbein
We are excited to announce that Dr. Ana Fiszbein, our new Assistant Professor of Biology, joined our department.
Dr. Fiszbein earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. Focusing on the areas of gene regulation, she has fourteen publications and one patent, has spoken at a number of professional conferences and was the recipient of a Pew Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. She has teaching experience in molecular biology and RNA processing and has held leadership roles in chairing conferences and the MIT Postdoc Association. At BU, Dr. Fiszbein plans to investigate fundamental aspects of gene regulation using an interdisciplinary genomics-based approach. Recently, she is recruiting undergraduates, grad students, and postdocs for her lab.
Click here for more information about her lab and her work.
Kathleen Novak is participating in the CAS Social Justice and Sustainability Internship
Kathleen Novak, a senior majoring in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Psychology, is participating in the CAS Social Sciences Undergraduate Internships in Social Justice and Sustainability program. Kathleen’s research project explores the role of nature in facilitating resilience and well-being in women of color. Along with her fellow undergrad, Emily Parkington, Kathleen worked with Dr. Brenda Phillips, who is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology and Brain Science.
According to Kathleen, her work “aims to address the difficulties Black women face in meeting their psychological needs. While nature connectedness has a demonstrable positive impact on women’s well-being and emotional resilience, access to nature (or urban green spaces) has historically been denied to people of color, specifically Black women living in urban settings. Previous psychological studies concerning women’s abilities to seek solitude in nature were not representative of Black women’s experiences. Therefore, our goal is to design a mixed-methods study with questions that address Black women’s needs and experiences specifically. As an intern, I am conducting interviews with spiritual leaders in low-income Boston neighborhoods in order to gain their perspectives regarding the issues they believe are most pressing for Black women. Our results will then guide us in the design of a follow-up survey to be distributed to women within their spiritual communities. I am also aiding in participant recruitment.”
The CAS Social Sciences Internship in Social Justice and Sustainability is a program that aims to help support and advance faculty research in these areas and to provide undergraduate students interested in honing their research skills with an experiential learning opportunity.
Click here for more information about Kathleen’s internship.
Carina Terry awarded the Francis Bacon Award for Writing Excellence in the Natural Sciences
Carina Terry, a recently graduated undergrad studying Earth and Environmental Science, was awarded the Francis Bacon Award for Writing Excellence in the Natural Sciences for her thesis, “Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on noise pollution in three protected areas in metropolitan Boston (USA)”.
The Francis Bacon Award for Writing Excellence in the Natural Sciences is one of four awards the College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association gives out based on papers that have been submitted as departmental nominations for these awards.
Her research was conducted with Professor Primack in Biology and submitted as an undergraduate honors thesis for the Kilachand Honors College and the Earth and Environment Department at Boston University. In Carina’s study, she measured the sound levels in three urban protected areas in metropolitan Boston at three time periods and three places. The result showed that, while decreased human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic caused a decrease in noise pollution in two parks, the third park got noisier. The result was soon published in the journal “Biological Conservation”.
Click here to read the full article.
Dr. Dwight E. Bergles win the 2020 Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research
Dr. Dwight E. Bergles, a Boston University Biology alum, won the 2020 Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research. Graduated from BU with a bachelor's degree in biology, he is now a leading neuroscientist at The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience and the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an unpredictable and often disabling disease of the central nervous system, causing symptoms such as numbness, mobility challenges, and paralysis. Even though there is currently no cure for MS, many scientists are working towards understanding MS and developing new therapeutic approaches. Dr. Bergles conducted creative studies of oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs), immature cells in the brain that can regenerate myelin-making cells, deepen our understanding of Multiple sclerosis and myelin repair.
The Barancik Prize is administered through the National MS Society and sponsored by the generosity of the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation. It seeks to recognize and encourage exceptional innovation and originality in scientific research relevant to multiple sclerosis, with emphasis on the impact and potential of the research to lead to pathways for the treatment and cure for MS, and scientific accomplishments that merit recognition as a future leader in MS research.
For more information, read the full article here.
Ashley Penvose is the 2020 Winner of Belamarich Award
We are excited to announce that the 2020 winner of the Belamarich Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Biology goes to Dr. Ashley Penvose for her work on “Determinants of the DNA binding and gene regulatory specificity for Type II nuclear receptors”. Dr. Penvose attained her doctoral degree in Cell and Molecular Biology at BU and was a graduate research fellow in Siggers lab from 2012 to 2019.
The Belamarich Award is generously sponsored by the Belamarich family, who have provided long-standing support for Biology. We will be scheduling a seminar and award ceremony later this semester, and we hope you will be able to join us to hear about Ashley's research and show your appreciation for the family’s contributions to the department.
This award is given annually to a recent Ph.D. candidate for their outstanding doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Biology. While several outstanding theses were nominated, Ashley's dissertation stood out based on the powerful new methods she helped introduce into her discipline, her application of these tools to gain new insight into key cellular signaling pathways, her high level of scientific productivity, as well as her collaborative efforts and contributions to the community.
Congratulations, Ashley!