Department Info
Adjunct and Affiliate Faculty
Adjunct Faculty
Research Associate Professor
macantr@uidaho.edu
Dr. Cantrell studies the evolution and function of mammalian retrotransposons, particularly LINE-1 elements, and the effects of these elements on genome evolution.
Affiliate Faculty
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Boise State University
(208) 426-3474
hcharlier@chem.boisestate.edu
Henry Charlier's website
Currently I am pursuing two projects which involve the study of important enzymes that participate in carbonyl (Carbonyl Reductase, CR) and alcohol metabolism (Alcohol Dehydrogenase, ADH). My overall goal is to learn how these enzymes catalyze their respective reactions and relate this information to their physiological roles. Each of these enzymes is connected to human disease, so this information may be useful in developing pharmacological interventions in treating the diseases.
Affiliate Faculty
Professor
School of Health & Science
Department of Biology
Northwest Nazarene University
(208) 467-8892
jrchase@nnu.edu
Consumption of beverage alcohol (ethanol) by humans can disrupt many normal metabolic processes. The cells of liver and other tissues must divert processing enzymes from normal functions to process ethanol, thus reducing the production of important compounds such as the vitamin A (retinol) derivative, retinoic acid.
It has been hypothesized that the disruption in synthesis of retinoic acid by ethanol is an underlying cause of fetal alcohol syndrome. The main enzyme responsible for retinoic acid synthesis is alcohol dehydrogenase IV (ADH-IV), most abundant in the stomach and intestines in adults, and essential for proper fetal development.
Affiliate Faculty
Associate Professor
Departments of Zoology and Mathematics
University of British Columbia
(604) 822-3326
doebeli@zoology.ubc.ca
Michael Doebeli's website
Evolution of diversity, theory of adaptive speciation, evolution of cooperation, game theory, dynamics of spatially structured populations.
Adjunct Faculty
Affiliate Faculty
Associate Professor of Biology
Albertson College of Idaho
(208) 459-5063
SHeggland@albertson.edu
Our research explores the cellular mechanisms involved in heavy metal toxicity and focuses on the heavy metal cadmium. There are a variety of sources of cadmium, however, increasing discard into landfills of electronic products (e-waste) that contain heavy metals makes cadmium exposure a growing public health concern. Cadmium is an environmental pollutant that is toxic to many tissues. Human exposure to cadmium is linked to many diseases including kidney, skeletal and liver disease, and several types of cancer. A key to understanding cadmium’s toxic action is to decipher the mechanisms within cells that cause and protect against cadmium toxicity.
Affiliate Faculty
Chief of the Terrestrial Sciences Branch
Upper Midwest Environmental Science Center
(608) 781-6338
pheglund@usgs.gov
Patricia Heglund's website
Chief of the Terrestrial Sciences Branch at the Upper Midwest Environmental Science Center. She has a B.S. from the University of Minnesota-St. Paul (1980) and an M.S. (1988) and Ph.D. (1992) from the University of Missouri - Columbia.
Pat came to the Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center in August of 2002. Her current research interests include inventory and monitoring processes and wildlife-habitat relationships modeling.
Affiliate Faculty
Associate Professor
Department of Biology
Boise State University
(208) 426-4287
cjorcyk@boisestate.edu
Cheryl Jorcyk's website
My laboratory’s research interests are directed towards elucidation of the molecular mechanisms that promote tumor progression. We have been working on the effects of the cytokine Oncostatin M (OSM) on breast tumor progression and metastasis. Oncostatin M (OSM), an IL-6 family cytokine, is produced by breast cancer cells and tumor-associated cells of the immune system, including macrophages and neutrophils. OSM has been shown to inhibit the proliferation of breast cancer cells, and this effect initially focused much attention on OSM as a potential breast cancer therapy. Data from our lab, however, suggests that OSM could actually contribute to tumor progression and the development of a metastatic state. We have shown that OSM induces vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), cell detachment, and invasive capacity in vitro. In vivo studies involving the role of OSM in breast, prostate, and colon cancer progression are underway.
Adjunct Faculty
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Fish & Wildlife Resources
College of Natural Resources
University of Idaho
(208) 885-5171
kennedy@uidaho.edu
Brian Kennedy's website
I am interested in how ecological, evolutionary and ecosystem processes interact to determine how populations function over time. Much of the work in our lab is currently focused on the community ecology and population dynamics of salmon in river ecosystems. Projects include studying the evolution of life history strategies for fish and understanding how changing flow dynamics of river systems alter food web dynamics and fish bioenergetics.
Adjunct Faculty
(208) 885-6696
mlaskow@uidaho.edu
My main research interest is the development of the nervous system, specifically the understanding of cues used by developing neurons in selecting their appropriate targets. He examines the specificity of neuron development in two contexts: normal embryonic development in the mammalian neuromuscular junction and reinnervation of muscle after acute nerve injury. The techniques used combine morphology, electrophysiology and tissue culture.
Affiliate Faculty
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Sciences
College of Veterinary Medicine
Oregon State University
(541) 737-6923
Kathy.Magnusson@oregonstate.edu
Kathy Magnusson's website
The lab’s main goal is to find interventions into aging that will help to maintain the quality of life into old age. We’re also interested in helping to better understand the function of the NMDA receptor in different brain regions.
We’ve been characterizing changes in the expression of a receptor that is very important for the formation of memories, the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor.
This receptor uses glutamate as a transmitter. The NMDA receptor shows greater declines in binding of glutamate with increased age than any of the other glutamate receptors. We’ve found relationships between NMDA receptor binding and expressions of two NMDA receptor subunits, epsilon2 and epsilon1, during aging. We’ve also shown associations between age-related changes in NMDA binding densities and subunit expressions and declines in both working (short-term) and reference (long-term) memory ability.
Adjunct Faculty
Distinguished Research Professor, Northern Illinois University, Emeritus
Peter Meserve's website
I recently retired to Moscow from 35 years of teaching at Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL); courses I taught there as well as at the University of Idaho in 1975-1976 included mammalogy, ornithology, biogeography, and ecology. I continue to be involved in a long-term ecological study of small mammals, vertebrate predators, plants, and other organisms in a semiarid community near La Serena, north-central Chile. Now in its 23rd year, we are conducting experimental manipulations of predators, competitors, and herbivores, and monitoring long-term responses of the biota to on-going climatic change supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, FONDECYT Chile, and the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (Santiago).
Adjunct Faculty
pellmyr@uidaho.edu
Adjunct Faculty
Lab: Gibb Hall 235
(208) 885-8857
Office:
(208) 885-6057
apierce@uidaho.edu
My background is in endocrine regulation of growth in fishes, focusing on the roles of growth hormone and the insulin-like growth factors. A general goal of my research is to develop bioindicators based on fish physiology and endocrinology, and to apply these in the conservation and management of fish populations. In my current position, I am developing methods to capture, evaluate, and recondition post-spawning anadromous steelhead kelts. I am employed by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), and stationed in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Idaho.
Affiliate Faculty
The Rosenblum lab studies the processes that generate and impact biological diversity. We are particularly interested in both sides of the evolutionary speciation/extinction “coin” and in determining the mechanisms of rapid adaptation of animals to changing environments. We work across levels of biological organization (from genes to phenotypes to behaviors to community assemblages) and use a variety of methodologies (from genomics to field ecology). Topically, many of our projects focus on reptile and amphibians in the western US. Currently, we are studying disease-related declines in amphibians and ecological speciation in lizards, but we are open to other collaborations in evolutionary ecology, ecological genomics, and global change biology.
Affiliate Faculty
Associate Professor
Division of Biological Sciences
The University of Montana
(406) 243-4834
frank.rosenzweig@mso.umt.edu
Frank Rosenzweig's website
The overall goal of my research is to elucidate the mechanisms that produce and maintain diversity in microbial populations. This research is grounded in the belief that to understand the adaptive role of genetic variation we must understand the physiological consequences of differences in gene expression. My lab group is engaged in several projects related to this theme. In collaboration with researchers at Stanford University we are investigating how yeast and bacterial genomes respond to chronic resource limitation over evolutionary time. Replicate populations of Saccharomyces cerevisae and Escherichia coli originating from a common ancestor are propagated clonally for hundreds of generations under nutrient-limiting conditions. The tempo of evolutionary change is inferred from changes in the frequency of neutral markers in these populations, and a living record of the evolutionary trajectories is preserved by periodically archiving samples as -80°C glycerol stocks. Evolved strains and their ancestor can then be compared physiologically and genetically in order to understand the basis for differences in Darwinian fitness. The complete sequencing of these genomes makes it possible to construct DNA microarrays that hybridize specifically to all open reading frames and most intergenic regions. Using arrays we can now globally assess how changes in genome architecture and transcript levels underlie, or attend, evolutionary adaptation to limiting resources.
Affiliate Faculty
Toxicologist
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
irv.schultz@pnl.gov
Research Areas: Ecotoxicology and Biotechnology, Marine and Coastal Resources, Marine and Environmental Chemistry, Water Resources Modeling
Affiliate Faculty
Associate Professor in Evolutionary Ecology
Willamette University
Christopher Irwin Smith
(503) 370-6181
csmith@willamette.edu
Christopher Smith's website
My work examines the role of ecological processes in shaping evolutionary patterns over both microevolutionary and macroevolutionary time. I am particularly interested in exploring ecological and evolutionary questions in the context of interactions between plants and insects. Much of my work relies on coalescent and phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequence data and simulated datasets, but I also incorporate many traditional methods in field ecology.
Ronald StrohmeyerAffiliate Faculty
Assistant Professor
School of Health & Science
Department of Biology
Northwest Nazarene University
(208) 467-8335
rwstrohmeyer@nnu.edu
Dr. Strohmeyer’s research currently encompasses the following four detailed objectives:
- Characterizing the expression pattern of each C/EBP isoform in human brain tissue and in brain cell cultures.
- Assessing the functionality of C/EBPs in modulating the expression of cytokine, chemokine, complement, iNOS, and other inflammatory genes.
- Assessing the role of C/EBPs in glial cell activation and differentiation in response to inflammatory stimuli and amyloid protein.
- Determining whether C/EBPs may be modulated by anti-inflammatory drugs such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) (i.e. ibuprofen), cholesterol-lowering drugs collectively known as statins, and natural compounds such as plant-derived polyphenols.