Biological Sciences News
U of I Students Receive National Science Foundation Research Fellowships
Posted Tue, 05 May 2020 13:35:00 -0700
MOSCOW, Idaho — May 5, 2020 — Four University of Idaho student-researchers have been awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Program Fellowships for 2020. Read more
U of I Announces Awards for Excellence to Faculty, Staff
Posted Fri, 24 Apr 2020 11:30:00 -0700
MOSCOW, Idaho — April 24, 2020 — The University of Idaho is pleased to announce the University Awards for Excellence for 2019-20 to faculty and staff Read more
University of Idaho Works to Develop Cure for COVID-19
Posted Mon, 20 Apr 2020 12:07:00 -0700
MOSCOW, Idaho — April 20, 2020 — The University of Idaho is working to identify a cure for coronaviruses, including COVID-19. Read more
U of I, Regional Universities Model Intervention Strategies for Fight Against COVID-19 Pandemic
Posted Wed, 15 Apr 2020 17:04:00 -0700
MOSCOW, Idaho — April 15, 2020 — University of Idaho faculty are partnering with Boise State University, Idaho State University, Lewis-Clark State College and Washington State University to model intervention strategies across Idaho during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more
Faculty Named Best Educators in General Education Areas
Posted Fri, 10 Apr 2020 16:58:00 -0700
Last May, the university was asked to name faculty to represent the best educators in the six general education areas referred to as “The Ways of Knowing” for the Idaho State Board of Education General Education Teaching Awards. The following were U of I’s nominees: Barbara Kirchmeier, English – written communication; Diane Carter, communication – oral communication; Kirk Trigsted, math – mathematical ways of knowing; Lisa Harmon, biology – scientific ways of knowing; Deborah Thorne, sociology – social and behavioral ways of knowing; and Javier Rodriguez, music – humanistic and artistic ways of knowing. Kirchmeier and Carter were recognized as statewide finalists for their work at the annual General Education Summit in Boise in October. Read more
Two U of I Students Named 2020 Goldwater Scholars
Posted Thu, 09 Apr 2020 13:44:00 -0700
MOSCOW, Idaho — April 9, 2020 — University of Idaho juniors Beth Hoots and Isabell Strawn have been named 2020 Goldwater Scholars. Read more
Biological Diversity Treaty Needs to Protect Diversity of Wild Species
Posted Thu, 12 Mar 2020 15:32:00 -0700
The proposed post-2020 goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity — a treaty signed by 195 countries — do not sufficiently consider genetic diversity, writes evolutionary biologist Paul Hohenlohe and his colleagues in a letter published in Science. The letter states that the goals focus on conserving the genetic diversity of livestock, domestic species and their wild relatives but should extend to all wild species, as the more genetic diversity a species has, the greater chance it has to adapting to changing environments. Read more
U of I Researchers Named as Some of the Most Influential of the Past Decade
Posted Thu, 05 Dec 2019 16:00:00 -0800
Four researchers from the University of Idaho, Jeffrey Hicke, John Abatzoglou, Luke Harmon and Paul Hohenlohe, have been recognized as being among the world’s most influential researchers of the past decade. The list, compiled by Web of Science Group, recognizes the work of influential researchers around the globe who have produced multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year. Read more
Dynamic Virtual Protein Project Wins International Award
Posted Thu, 05 Dec 2019 14:20:00 -0800
A University of Idaho team recently presented at the 25th VRST Symposium in Sydney, Australia, and won the Best Demo Award for their project "Dynamic Virtual Proteins: Visualization, Interaction and Collaboration in Virtual Reality." In the world of virtual reality, the Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST) is among the top 10 conferences in the world. The Dynamic Virtual Proteins project team consisted of Jean-Marc Gauthier, Virtual Technology and Design associate professor, Jagdish Suresh Patel, Department of Biological Sciences research assistant professor, and Ian McGrath, 2019 graduate of the College of Art and Architecture. The interdisciplinary research is part of a $6 million EPSCoR Track-2 grant from NSF and supported by the Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation. Read more
Grad Student Develops Program to Increase Accuracy of Community Formation Processes
Posted Wed, 27 Nov 2019 13:29:00 -0800
Doctoral candidates Megan Ruffley, Katie Peterson and Bob Week recently published a paper in Ecology and Evolution titled "Identifying Models of Trait-Mediated Community Assembly Using Random Forests and Approximate Bayesian Computation." This publication is the second chapter of Ruffley's dissertation and the culmination of her lab rotation in Luke Harmon's lab. Ruffley designed a program called Community Assembly Model Inference, or CAMI. It uses a stochastic algorithm to simulate communities assembled under environmental filtering, competitive exclusion and neutral species assembly processes. The paper and the creation of the accompanying CAMI program involved students and faculty with a wide range of research areas and skill sets. Read more
Getting the Timing Right
Posted Fri, 22 Nov 2019 16:00:00 -0800
Undergraduate researcher Courtney Schreiner, from Scott Nuismer's lab, recently had her first paper published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology. Schreiner's paper highlights her research on the timing of vaccinations for wildlife populations. Read more
Jill Johnson, Biological Sciences, Receives NIH Grant
Posted Tue, 29 Oct 2019 13:28:00 -0700
Professor Jill Johnson, in the Department of Biological Sciences and the College of Science, has been awarded a four-year, $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. These funds will be used to better understand the basic mechanism of how the molecular chaperone Hsp90 interacts with other proteins, called clients, in order to regulate their function. Hsp90 is a global cellular regulator that controls the function of up to 15% of all cellular proteins, including many proteins that drive cancerous cell growth. Drugs that target Hsp90 block the function of cancer-causing proteins and stop tumor growth but are too toxic for general use. This award will allow Johnson and her collaborators at the University of Alberta and the Technical University of Munich to better understand Hsp90 function, paving the way toward development of more selective inhibitors of Hsp90 function that have fewer toxic effects. Read more
Study Provides First Step Toward Developing Inexpensive Diagnostic Tests to Assess Risk for Preterm Birth
Posted Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:00:00 -0700
Department of Biological Sciences Distinguished Professor Larry Forney, in collaboration with researchers from Cornell University, the University of Sao Paulo, and other Brazilian universities, recently published a paper in the journal mBio which found that measuring levels of D-lactic acid and a protein called TIMP-1 may be a non-invasive, cost-effective way to assess the risk for preterm birth due to a short cervix. The study provides a first step toward the development of an inexpensive point-of-care diagnostic test to assess the presence of known risk factors for preterm birth in resource-poor areas. Read more
Bacteria in the Human Vagina that Produce D-Lactic Acid Promote Resistance to Chlamydial Infections
Posted Tue, 08 Oct 2019 15:20:00 -0700
Department of Biological Sciences Distinguished Professor Larry Forney, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Maryland, recently published a paper entitled "The Cervicovaginal Microbiota-Host Interaction Modulated Chlamydia Trachomatis Infection" in the journal mBio that detailed their most recent study of the vaginal microbiome. These findings may enable the development of novel microbiome-based therapeutic strategies to protect women from infections and improve vaginal and cervical health. Read more
U of I Study: Thyroid Hormone Can Alter Color Vision in Zebrafish, Potentially in Humans
Posted Mon, 05 Aug 2019 13:43:00 -0700
MOSCOW, Idaho — Aug. 5, 2019 — Exposure to thyroid hormone can alter eye function in zebrafish, a result with implications for curing color blindness and retinal degeneration in humans. The University of Idaho study found the dosage of thyroid hormone in zebrafish could switch the type of opsin — proteins that support color vision — produced in individual eye cells called cones, likely influencing the animals’ color vision. Zebrafish and humans have similar genetics when it comes to color vision. Read more
Mellisa Clemons Receives NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellowship
Posted Fri, 14 Jun 2019 15:26:00 -0700
Congratulations to Mellisa Clemons of the Fuerst lab in the Department of Biological Sciences, who received a $25,000 NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellowship for “Genetic Characterizations of Retinal Cell Signaling Proteins.” Read more
Which Bacteria are Spreading Antibiotic Resistance in Wastewater?
Posted Fri, 07 Jun 2019 15:45:00 -0700
Eva Top and Thibault Stalder from the Department of Biological Sciences and the Institute for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies published in The ISME Journal, the Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology. The study identified bacteria that can carry antibiotic resistance genes through a wastewater treatment plant. These findings may help scientists determine how resistance emerges and disseminates, limit the spread of antibiotic resistance and predict which antibiotic resistance genes will show up in future infectious disease outbreaks. Read more
Jeff A. Johnson Award for Excellence Awarded to U of I Director
Posted Fri, 07 Jun 2019 15:45:00 -0700
Congratulations to Ken Baker, interim director of the University of Idaho Integrated Design Lab at the College of Art and Architecture in Boise, who received the 2019 Jeff A. Johnson Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Building Energy Codes from the U.S Department of Energy. The award recognizes Baker's outstanding accomplishments surrounding building energy codes and his impact, innovation, collaboration and passion. Read more
University of Idaho Research Hits Science Magazine
Posted Thu, 09 May 2019 15:41:00 -0700
The cover of Science Magazine currently features an important discovery made by an international research team: deep-sea fish can see more than just one color. When a Switzerland- and Australia-based research team recently needed to validate their findings regarding what colors of light a deep-sea fish species could see at up to 1500 meters below the surface, they turned to scientists at the University of Idaho. Biological Sciences Research Assistant Professor and CMCI Modeling Fellow Jagdish Patel and Biological Sciences Professors Deborah Stenkamp and Celeste Brown used Patel's newly developed computational molecular simulation based approach to generate a mathematical model to predict color sensitivity. Read more
U of I Researcher Jill Johnson Publishes Paper on Heat Shock Proteins in Nature Communications
Posted Mon, 15 Apr 2019 14:29:00 -0700
Professor Jill Johnson, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Alberta and the University of Würzburg, recently published a paper in Nature Communications titled, "The Conserved NxNNWHW Motif in Aha1-Type Cochaperones Modulates the Kinetics of Hsp90 ATPase Stimulation and is Essential for In Vivo Function." This research seeks to understand how Hsp90 partners with interacting cochaperones to help 10-15 percent of cellular proteins fold properly. Read more