Posdoc Yarden Cohen Published in Nature
Postdoc Yarden Cohen has a new paper in Nature entitled ‘Hidden neural states underlie canary song syntax’, is the result of research efforts by members of the Gardner-Otchy lab in the Biology department, members of CNS, Neurophotonics, and the Kotton lab at BU medical school. This work used miniaturized microscopes, developed in-house, to record neural activity in singing canaries and introduce a new model for the neural basis of complex behavior. The main finding is that neurons in the canary premotor cortex homologue encode past song phrases and transitions, carrying information relevant to future choice of phrases as ‘hidden states’ during song. This finding is a key property necessary for creating behavior with complex syntax like music, dance, and speech.
PK Kaushik Named Sarah Joanne Davis Award Winner
PK Kaushik, Biology major and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Minor (and recent graduate), has been named as one of two recipients of this year’s Sarah Joanne Davis Award awarded by the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program!
Sarah Joanne Davis was an alumnus of the BU WGS Program whose family established the award in her name at the time of her passing; the award is intended to support and encourage WGS minors who are making exciting new inroads in area the gender and sexuality research and activism.
We are so proud of you, PK! Congratulations!
2020 Undergraduate Award Winners
On May 15, Biology and BMB students were recognized for their academic excellence and research contributions at the Biology and BMB Virtual Celebration on Zoom. Awards were given out to graduating seniors including Arnaldo Franco (Senior College Prize for Excellence in Biology); Olivia Iverson and Sunny Lin (Excellence in Scholarship Award); PK Kaushik and Jack Yang (Academic Achievement Award); and Madison Pacaro (Biology Department Undergraduate Research Award). At the Biochemistry & Molecular Biology ceremony and the graduation awards went to Meera Kumanan (Senior College Prize for Excellence in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) and to Seoyoung Kim, Lake Murphy, Rose Zhao, and Victoria Momyer (Outstanding Achievement in Research and Scholarship Award). Congratulations to those recognized and to the entire Class of 2020!
Photos of some of our award winners below:
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Graduating Senior, Abigail Gugel, Named BU Woman of the Year
Abigail Gugel, a senior Biology major and participant on Boston University women's cross country and track & field teams, was named Boston University Woman of the Year. The Boston University Woman of the Year Award honors the female student-athlete who best exemplifies a commitment to service, leadership, athletics and academics during her collegiate career. Gugel is also a Scarlet Key recipient, one of the highest honors a BU student can achieve.
Abigail has been accepted to the BU School of Public Health's Master of Public Health program, where she'll concentrate in epidemiology and biostatistics. We are so proud of you, Abigail!
To learn more about Abigail and this award, visit this page.
Melissa Zarate Receives 2020 Denton Award
Meilssa Zarate of the Schmitt Lab was selected as the winner of the 2020 Denton Award for her master’s research thesis in biology titled “Predicting suitable habitat for the Critically Endangered yellow-tailed woolly monkey (Lagothrix flavicauda) in Perú.” This award is given for excellence in scholarship and research accomplishment during a master’s thesis in the Department of Biology.
Mel has a BS in biology and environmental studies from Denison University and has studied the influences of anthropogenic activities on a variety of taxa. Prior to joining BU, she interned for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History studying mudpuppies, volunteered for the Elephant Release Project at Global Vision International, and worked as an educator for the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. For her Master's, she created a habitat suitability model for the endangered yellow-tailed woolly monkey in Peru using environmental variables and newly discovered localities of the species in order to determine where else in the country they may be found and what habitat conditions they prefer.
Congratulations, Melissa!
Statement of Unity for Racial Justice
Dear Students, Staff and Faculty of Biology,
How can we make society better for everyone? That’s a fundamental question we all face.
The recent killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor have, yet again, thrown the problem of unequal justice into sharp relief. The COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate effects on economically disadvantaged communities and communities of color have highlighted gross inequities in healthcare and other systems across the nation. These events expose the persistent, systemic racism that blights our country.
We still have much work to do to make our departments, programs, university, and city more diverse and inclusive. We remain committed to achieving these goals. In our departments and programs, we will increase our efforts to ensure equal opportunities, welcome and train students from groups who are traditionally underrepresented, adopt inclusive pedagogical techniques, and conduct impactful research that benefits society at large. We recognize that these efforts alone will not be enough to address the challenges we face.
We welcome suggestions on how to make our community more diverse, inclusive, and welcoming, and how to ensure our efforts are more effective. We are eager to hear your ideas about how to build a better tomorrow, and we look forward to continuing this work together.
Sincerely,
Pete Buston, Director of BU Marine Program
Wally Fulweiler, Former Director of BU Marine Program
Pam Templer, Director of the PhD Program in Biogeoscience
Guido Salvucci, Chair of the Department of Earth & Environment
Kim McCall, Chair of the Department of Biology
Nathan Phillips, Faculty Director of the Earth House Living and Learning Community
For members of our community in need further support, below are some additional BU resources that are free and available remotely:
Behavioral Medicine
24/7 Phone: 617-353-3569
Fax: 617-353-3557
http://patientconnect.bu.edu/
Dean of Students Office
617-353-4126
dos@bu.edu
Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground
617-353-4745
thurman@bu.edu
Marsh Chapel, Boston University
617-353-3560
chapel@bu.edu
Professor Traniello Receives NSF & GSI Grants
Professor James Traniello and Dr. Mario Muscedere, Senior Lecturer in Biology and Director of the Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience, received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the impact of social complexity on brain size, structure, and metabolism in ants. The project will examine how the energetic cost of the brain scales with worker body size, colony size and level of social organization. Computational neuroimaging methods will be applied to quantify brain size and structure, and a highly sensitive technique will enable the ex vivo measurement of the metabolic rates of intact brains and brain cells. This study is complemented by the research of Frank Azorsa, a doctoral student in the Traniello Lab, who received a grant from the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico, Tecnológico y de Innovación Tecnológica (Peru) to study the evolutionary neurobiology of predatory ants, and how diet and sociality have influenced brain evolution. Collateral to these research awards, a grant from the Genome Sciences Institute to Professors Sean Mullen and James Traniello is funding a genomic analysis of brain evolution using single-cell RNA sequencing to understand molecular underpinnings of differentiation in brain structure associated with social roles. This study will profile gene expression in the mushroom bodies, brain centers for sensory integration, learning, and memory that are deeply homologous to the vertebrate cortex. The fungus-growing ant Atta cephalotes, which has evolved morphologically- and behaviorally-specialized workers that have significant differences in the mushroom bodies, is the model system.
Biology Alum, Dr. Loren Wold, Featured in Marketplace Tech Story on COVID-19 Testing
Biology alumnus, Dr. Loren Wold (CAS '97), was featured in a Marketplace Tech story on COVID-19 testing. Last summer the Biology Department announced the first ever Dr. Loren E. Wold Research Award recipients, pictured above with Dr. Wold center. This award was established by Dr. Wold, an advocate of undergraduate research and mentoring, to help undergrads in the Biology Department and BMB program participate in summer research. The award recognizes four outstanding undergraduate researchers. Now the work of Dr. Wold and his colleagues is being recognized for its impact on the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Wold is the director of biomedical research in the College of Nursing at Ohio State University and has been working with colleagues and volunteers as OSU to develop and produce new COVID-19 tests. The team at Ohio State is producing approximately 9,000 to 10,000 tests per day, according to Dr. Wold, with Governor DeWine announcing in increase to 135,000 tests per week by the end of the month. Producing so many tests in such a short period of time has come with a number of innovations. Dr. Wold notes that some of his colleagues had to develop a new kind of media to use in test kits, as the commonly used media is in such short supply. The team at OSU has started to 3-D print their own test swabs as well. The goal of these innovations and the increased production of tests is to ultimately cover the state of Ohio.
To read or listen to the full story, please follow this link. More information on the Loren E. Wold Research Awards can be found here.
John Okechi One of Ten Pardee Center 2020 Graduate Summer Fellows
John Okechi of the Kaufman Lab was recently named one of ten Pardee Center 2020 Graduate Summer Fellows. During the ten-week fellowship, he will analyze the impacts of cage aquaculture in Lake Victoria on the environment and on food security in surrounding communities.
The Pardee Center Graduate Summer Fellows Program offers graduate students from across Boston University an opportunity for intensive interdisciplinary research and writing on topics aligned with the future-focused research interests of BU’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. Read the full announcement about the Pardee Center 2020 Graduate Summer Fellows here.
Congratulations, John!
Graduating Senior, Aria Armstrong, Published in Ecosphere
Graduating Biology CMG senior and SURF awardee, Aria Armstrong, in the Celenza lab is co-author on a recently published article in Ecosphere entitled, “Indolic glucosinolate pathway provides resistance to mycorrhizal fungal colonization in a non-host Brassicaceae”. Armstrong and Celenza collaborated with Drs. Mark Anthony and Serita Frey at the University of New Hampshire on this work that addresses how the Brassicaceae, an important agricultural group of non-mycorrhizal plants, resist interactions with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Brassicaceae can still be colonized by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), but species like Arabidopsis thaliana experience growth reductions following AMF colonization. Using Arabidopsis mutants that produce no or enhanced indolic glucosinolates, this study addresses whether the ability to produce indolic glucosinolates facilitates resistance to AMF colonization and growth suppression. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal inoculation suppressed the development of IG-removed plants, activated their pathogen-response defenses, and enhanced AMF vesicle colonization of their root systems. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi had no detrimental effects on wild-type or IG-enhanced plants. In conclusion, the IG production pathway appears to serve an important and previously unknown role in reducing AMF colonization in Arabidopsis and it is speculated they serve similar roles in other Brassicaceae.
A link to the paper can be found here: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.3100.