Biology Majors Welcome

Allan Larson, primary contact

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Lindsay Schwarz, Stanford University; "New Approaches for Uncovering Norepinephrine Circuit Organization and Function"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Li Zhao, UC - Davis; "Evolution of Genetic Novelties in Drosophila"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Sohini Ramachandran, Brown University; "Causes and Consequences of Human Genomic Variation"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Shao Hsuan Simon Chen, UC - San Diego ; "Neuron type-specific plasticity of synaptic circuits in the motor cortex during motor learning"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Pavan Ramdya, CalTech; "The neurogenetic origins of behavioral diversity and collective consensus in Drosophila"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Kirsten Prior, University of Florida; "Enemy release, invasional meltdown, and elephant-fighting ants: the roles of friends and foes in altered interactions and the maintenance of keystone mutualisms"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Keith Hengen, Brandeis University ; "The Impact of Behavior on Plasticity: the Sleep/Wake Rules Governing Firing Rate Homeostasis"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Rachel Penczykowski, University of Helsinki; "Parasites in ecosystems: drivers and consequences of disease"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Gui Becker, Sao Paulo State University; "Three dimensions of amphibian conservation: disease, diversity, and deforestation"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Julie Semmelhack, : "From behavior to neural circuits: dissecting visual perception in zebrafish"

Seminar

Dr. Justin Fay, Washington University Medical School; "Which changes in gene expression matter?"

Seminar

Melissa Gymrek, Harvard/MIT; "Dissecting the contribution of complex genetic variation to human traits"

Hall Lecture

Dr. Oren Harman Chair, Graduate Program in Science, Technology and Society Bar Ilan University; "The Price of Altruism"

Seminar

Blake Meyers, Donald Danforth Plant Center; "Phased siRNAs in plant reproductive organs."

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Dr. Ann Tate, University of Houston; "The molecules-to-populations ecology of innate immune systems."

Biology Seminar

Dr. Lon Chubiz, UMSL; Host: Barbara Kunkel; "Uncovering patterns of intrinsic resistance in Enterobacteriaceae"

SPECIAL SEMINAR

Rebecca G. Wells, MD, Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, The University of Pennsylvania; Host: Ram Dixit "Normal & Fibrotic Livers Demonstrate Shear Strain Softening & Compression Stiffening: A Model for Soft Tissue Mechanics"

Seminar

Justin Fay, WUSTL Dept. of Genetics; "Exaptation and yeasts of the European wild"

Seminar

Thomas Valone, SLU; "Exotic invasion and the stability of natural plant communities."

Seminar

Jill Anderson, U of Georgia; "Local adaptation in the context of climate change"

Seminar

Lin - feng Li, WUSTL, Visiting Scholar; "Origin and adaptive evolution of US weedy rice"

Seminar

Canceled

Seminar

Dr. Karen Kapheim, Utah State;"Causes and Consequences of Social Evolution in Bees"

Spector Prize Seminar

Vita Jaspen; “A novel Lia3-like protein Ltl1 controls boundaries of IES excision in Tetrahymena thermophila” ; Mentor: Doug Chalker

Seminar

Roger Deal, Emory University:"Gene regulatory mechanisms in plant development"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Ximena Bernal, Purdue University; Host: Carlos Botero; "Unraveling the ecology and evolution of interspecific eavesdropping: lessons from frog-biting midges"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Laura Burkle, Montana State University; Host: Jonathan Myers; "The smell of climate change: alterations to floral volatiles and pollinator attraction"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Nyeema Harris, University of Michigan; Host: Amanda Koltz; "Ecological implications of protection-evaluating parasites, place, and predators"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Jose Luis Ramirez, Agricultural Research Service Peoria; Host: Katie Westby; "The mosquito battlefield: understanding the mosquito’s molecular weaponry against pathogens"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Ben Sadd, Illinois State University; Host: Katie Westby; "Constrained by royal decree: trans-generational immunity in bumblebees and consequences for friend and foe"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Laura Bhatti Catano, University of Missouri St. Louis; Host: Jonathan Myers; "Coral reefs and the ecology of fear"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

TBD; "TBD"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Lisa McCauley, The Nature Conservancy Arizona; Host: Kim Medley; "Climate change vulnerability of grassland species"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Lee Dyer, University of Nevada Reno; Host: Amanda Koltz; "TBD"

2016 Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Anthony Dell, National Great Rivers Research & Education Center; Host: Joe LaManna; "TBD"

2016 Tyson Summer Series

Meghan Avolio, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center; Host: Claudia Stein; “Plant Community Responses To Global Change Drivers”

Seminar

Dr. Prachee Avasthi, University of Kansas Medical Center; “Novel Trafficking and Signaling Mechanisms Regulating Flagellar Assembly in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii”

Seminar

Mary O’Riordan; University of Michigan; "Delivering Death: Mitochondrial Effectors Kill Invading Bacteria"

Seminar

Daniel Kronauer, Rockefeller University; "Social Dynamics in the Clonal Raider Ant"

Seminar

Lucia Strader; Washington University in St. Louis; "Auxin and the Strader Lab: Involved in Almost Anything"

Seminar

Dr. Bill Gray, University of Minnesota; "A molecular mechanism for acid growth: SMALL AUXIN UP RNA (SAUR) Proteins Repress PP2C.D Phosphatases to Promote Plant Growth"

Hamburger Lecture

Dr. Martyn Goulding, Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory; The Salk Institute; "From Spemann’s organizer to organized circuits: developmental insights into the functional organization of the spinal cord"

Varner Lecture

Dr. Elliot Meyerowitz, Cal Tech; "Chemical and Mechanical Signals in Control of a Plant Stem Cell Niche."

Seminar

Dr. Matthew Albrecht; Missouri Botanical Garden; "Adaptive Conservation of Rare Plants in an Era of Altered Disturbance Regimes and Climate Change"

Bioforum

Presenter- Barbara Kunkel; Title- "Yet Another Role for the Plant Hormone Auxin: A Signaling Molecule in Plant-pathogen Interactions"; Lab- Kunkel

Bioforum

Presenter- Carrie Simms; Title- "Go or No Go: Ribosome Pileups Trigger Quality Control"; Lab- Zaher

Bioforum

Presenter- Eric Schultz; Title- "Using Machine Vision and Computation to Determine the Role of MS Ion Channels in Root Gravitropism"; Lab- Haswell

Bioforum

Presenter-"Bruno Vilella"; Title-"Eco-evolutionary Dynamics in the Spread of Human Agriculture"; Lab- Botero

Bioforum

Presenter- Stephen Vadia; Title- "Flux Through Lipid Synthesis Dictates Bacterial Cell Size"; Lab- Levin

Bioforum

Presenter- Sara Wright; Title- "Cyanogenesis and Local Adaptation in White Clover"; Lab- Olsen

Bioforum

Presenter- "Ty Tuff"; Title- "Disentangling the Effects of Highly Correlated Drivers in Complex Evolutionary Processes"; Lab- Botero

HPSM

David C. Queller; "The Social Gene: The Elements of Selection, Transmission, and Evolution"

Abstract: Biologists and philosophers have long debated the units of selection. Richard Dawkins gave priority to the gene because of its immortality.  Others like, like Ernst Mayr, have instead emphasized the unity of the selected individual.  David Hull suggested that these are both important, calling the first replicators and the second interactors.  I present a progress report on a project that takes a new tack on this problem. There are sufficient differences in my approach that I will refer not to the units of selection but to the elements of selection, transmission, and evolution.  Instead of assuming a vertical or multilevel structure, I will use a horizontal one: Dawkins’ gene’s-eye view that considers a focal gene and treats everything else, including other genes, as part of its environment.  I then apply Alan Templeton’s suggestion that units/elements of selection ought to involve identifying only the causal components that are necessary to predict or describe selective change. I show that elements of genic evolution can be defined as the product or intersection of elements of selection and elements of co-transmission or genetic structure.  An element of evolution needs to be added whenever it has both distinct effects on fitness and distinct patterns of structure.  I attempt to show how this logic applies to all kinds of interactions with the focal gene: with other alleles at its locus, with other loci, with other individuals of the same species, and with individuals of other species.

HPSM

Serife Tekin; "Are Mental Disorders Natural Kinds? A Plea for a New Approach to Intervention in Psychiatry"

Abstract: Both proponents and opponents of the claim that mental disorders are natural kinds compare mental disorders to paradigmatic examples of natural kinds, to inquire into a set of properties that achieve three scientific tasks: explanation, prediction, and intervention. I argue that the comparative strategy fails to take us to any intervention-related properties of mental disorders. I replace it with what I call a trilateral strategy—a strategy guided by first person accounts of individuals with mental disorders, and the relevant clinical and scientific work on psychopathology. I conclude with a discussion on the ramifications of my view to various research frameworks in psychiatry, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC).

HPSM

Greg Radick; "New Light on the Biometrician/Mendelian Debate from the Classroom (and Vice Versa)"

Abstract: The debate that broke out among biologists over Mendel's pea-hybrids paper after its rediscovery in 1900 -- the so-called "Biometrician/Mendelian Debate" -- has long been regarded as "done," thanks to the superb historical scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s.  But recent research with the unpublished papers of the leading anti-Mendelian biologist, W. F. R. Weldon, is opening up new perspectives on just what was at stake in the debate and why it went the way it did.  This research has also stimulated a novel teaching experiment, where students were taught introductory genetics with a curriculum reflecting Weldonian rather than Mendelian ways of structuring knowledge about inheritance.  In this seminar I'll examine the power of this experiment (and the improved version of the future) to illuminate a scientific debate from the past.  Going in the other direction, I'll also consider the power of past scientific debates, as understood from the inside by historians of science, to provide new resources for science teaching in the present.

NOT AVAILABLE

Seminar

Dr. Julie Stanton; University of Georgia; "Metacognition: How Undergraduates Self-Regulate to Learn Biology"

Seminar

Dr. John McCutcheon; University of Montana ;"How Horizontal Gene Transfer and Symbiont Replacement Built the Bacteria-Within-Bacterium Endosymbiosis in Mealybugs"

Seminar

Dr. Susan Golden; University of California, San Diego; "How Cells Tell Time"

Bioforum

Presenter- Therese Rytz; Title- "Identifying Targets of the SUMO Ligase SIZ1 through Mass Spectrometry"; Lab- Vierstra

Bioforum

Presenter- Robert Augustine; Title- "The SUMO Ma(i)ze: Navigating a Post-Translational Modification's Roles in Stress and Development"; Lab- Vierstra

Bioforum

Presenter- Dr. Anton Weisstein; Title- "But what do they know? Assessing student learning and performance in Bio2960"; Lab- Herzog

Bioforum

Presenter- Shalon Ledbetter; Title- "The First Biochemical Reconstitution of Cytochrome C Biogenesis"; Lab- Kranz

Seminar

Dr. Mark Peifer; University of North Carolina; "Building the Body Plan: The Miracle of Morphogenesis"

Seminar

Dr. J. Robert Hogg, National Institutes of Health; "These Aren’t the RNA’s You’re Looking For: How mRNAs Evade Nonsense-mediated mRNA Decay."

Hall Lecture

Dr. Greg Radick, University of Leeds; "How and Why Darwin Got Emotional About Race"

Seminar

James, A.J. Fitzpatrick; Washington University School of Medicine; "Visualizing Cells and Tissues by Correlating Light, X-Rays, Electrons and Ions"

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Ben Wolf; Graduate Student, Dr. Bob Blankenship's Lab

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Erica Fishel (Tech Transfer, Danforth Center)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Yunci Qi (Blodgett Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Angela Schlegel (Haswell Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Sarah Rommelfanger (Zhang Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Tayte Campbell (Dauntas Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Ryan Calcutt, Virginia Johnson, Andrew Lin, Hannah Lucas

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Jennette Shoots, Maria Sorkin, Tricia Walker, Dennis Zhu

Chalk Talk

Dr. Craig Lowe; Stanford University; "TBD"

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Craig Lowe; Stanford University; "Gene Regulatory Changes in Vertebrate Evolution and Human Disease"

Chalk Talk

Dr. Carol Huang; Salk Institute for Biological Studies; "TBD"

Chalk Talk

Dr. Julia Allen; Illinois Natural History Survey; "TBD"

Chalk Talk

Dr. Jason Huff; University of California, Berkeley; "TBD"

Thesis Defense

Eric Hamilton; "TBD"; Haswell Lab

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Carol Huang; Salk Institute for Biological Studies; "Efficient mapping of genome-wide regulatory elements for biological insights"

Thesis Defense

Eric Hamilton; "Strategies for Success: Mechanosensitive Channel MSL8 Regulates Mechanical Challenges during Pollen Rehydration and Growth"; Haswell Lab

Seminar

Dr. Luke Harmon; University of Idaho; "Climbing in the Tree of Life"

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Julia Allen; Illinois Natural History Survey; "Untangling the Web of Vertebrate-Louse-Endosymbiont Coevolution: An Evolutionary Bioinformatic Approach"

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Jason Huff; University of California, Berkeley; "The Roles of Chromatin in Evolving Genomes Revealed by Studying Algae"

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Kirk Lohmueller; University of California, Los Angelas; "Population Genomics of Deleterious Mutations"

Chalk Talk

Dr. Kirk Lohmueller; University of California, Los Angelas; "TBD"

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Ashley Sharp (Jez Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Joe and Barrie ( Jez Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Mike Goley (Monsanto)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Dr. Brian Downes (Prof at SLU)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Hongwei Jing (Strader Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Nat Ellis (Topp Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Monsanto Panel

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Fen Liu (Vierstra Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Erica Thomas (Zaher Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Dinesh Gupta (Bose Lab)

Seminar

Dr. Guy Genin; Washington University in St. Louis; "Mechanobiology: Towards Mechanical Control of Plant and Animal Cells"

Bioforum

Yue Lu; "Energy transfer regulation by the Orange Carotenoid Protein from Cyanobacteria"; Blankenship Lab

Faculty Meeting

Faculty Meeting

Hamburger Lecture

Dr. Olivier Pourquié, Department of Genetics; Harvard Medical School & Department of Pathology; "Segmental Patterning of the Vertebrate Embryo"

Seminar

Dr. Cheryl Kerfeld; Michigan State University & University of California, Berkeley; "Diversity, Structure, Function, Assembly and Engineering of Carboxysomes and Other Bacterial Microcompartments"

Bioforum

Anindya Ganguly; "Getting on track: a new role for kinesin light chain-related proteins in plants"; Dixit Lab

Bioforum

Rachappa Balkunde; "Microtubule plus-end tracking proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana: moving beyond EB1"; Dixit Lab

Bioforum

Dr. Amanda Koltz; "Predation by spiders could buffer the effects of climate change in the Arctic"

Bioforum

Alejandro Velez; "The Cellular and Circuit Basis for Evolution Change in Sensory Perception: A Case Study in Weakly Electric Fish"; Carlson Lab

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Dr. Christine Shyu; Postdoc in the Brutnell Lab at the Danforth Center

Spring Friday Gathering

Host: Bose/Blodgett Labs

Bioforum

Elena Gracheva, Sukruth Shashikumar, Emily Chi, and Wilson Leung; "How Heterochromatin Is Formed at Repeats, and How Repeats Can Expand Our Genomes"; Elgin Lab

Seminar

Dr. Hiroshi Maeda, University Wisconsin-Madison; "Co-Evolution of Plant Primary and Secondary Metaboloism: Discovery and Application of Interspecies Variations of Tyrosine Pathway Regulation"

Varner Lecture

Dr. June Nasrallah, Cornell University; "From Genes to Receptors to Mating Systems in the Brassicaceae"

Bioforum

Sam York; "Lysine-less SUMO, a new tool for SUMO conjugation site identification and investigating the role of SUMO chains in Arabidopsis thaliana."; Vierstra Lab

Spector Prize Seminar - December 2016 Graduate

Lily Cao; "Coapplication of the Steroid Alfaxalone Enhances the GABAergic Effects of Propofol and Diazepam"; Mentor: Gustav Akk

Spector Prize Seminar - Spring 2017 Graduate

Jennifer Hsu; "Analysis of Human HCCS-mediated Cytochrome C Biogenesis"; Mentor: Robert Kranz

2017 Honors & Research Emphasis Reception and Awards Ceremony

Host: Ken Olsen

Please join us for this catered event to recognize the Biology Department’s Class of 2017 Honors and Research Emphasis students.

•Research Emphasis students have completed at least two semesters of independent research (Bio 500), have successfully submitted a written Biology thesis based on their research, and have presented their research at the Undergraduate Research Symposium. All students listed have completed the Research Emphasis in Biology.

•**Latin Honors in Biology** students have completed the Research Emphasis and have also met these academic eligibility requirements: 1. Cumulative 3.3 GPA+ in Biology courses. 2. Cumulative 3.3 GPA+ in other science and math courses required for the Biology major 3. Cumulative 3.65+ overall GPA. NOTE: Students listed as Latin Honors or Research Emphasis subject to change due to final grades and GPA requirements.

Tyson Summer Seminar

Nathan Muchala, University of Missouri St. Louis; Bats, birds, and bellflowers: specialization and speciation in Neotropical plant-pollinator mutualisms

Tyson Summer Seminar

Saara DeWalt, Clemson University; "Good plants gone bad? The ecology and evolution of invasive plants"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Manuel Leal, University of Missouri (Columbia); "Cognition outside the box: behavioral flexibility and homing behavior in Anolis lizards"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Richard Phillips, Indiana University; "Seeing the forest below the leaves: Mycorrhizal associations as trait integrators of carbon and nutrient dynamics"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Nick Haddad, North Carolina State University; "Reconnecting nature"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Helen Alexander, University of Kansas; "Effects of viruses on plant fitness: a plant ecologist’s foray into plant virus ecology"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Jason Munshi-South, Fordham University; "TBD"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Kacey Fowler-Finn, Saint Louis University; "TBD"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Claudia Stein, Washington University in St. Louis and Tyson; "Natural enemies: maintenance of species diversity & ecosystem function under global climate change"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Carl Cloyed, National Great Rivers Ecology and Education Center; " The effects of body size and temperature on locomotor performance: combining macroand micro-ecological approaches"

Tyson Summer Seminar

Amanda Gorton, University of Minnesota; "Exploring patterns of adaptation to climate in common ragweed"

Thesis Defense

Ashley Sherp; Jez Lab

Thesis Defense

Elizabeth Frick; "Roles of peroxisomes and peroxisome-derived products in controlling plant growth and stress responses"; Strader Lab

Seminar

Dr. Tony Weisstein; "An Extra Sense"; Truman State University


Fri, June 23, 4:00 – 5:30 pm:  "An Extra Sense"
Over the past 20 years, a growing number of biology education consortia and national societies have advocated for a more quantitative curriculum to match the increasingly mathematical, statistical, and computational nature of modern biological and biomedical research.  At the same time, biology instructors frequently report that their students seem less mathematically prepared than in previous years.  In this session, we will discuss some of the main challenges facing the integration of quantitative reasoning into the biology curriculum, draft sample learning objectives (both broad and narrower in scope), and introduce an assortment of pedagogical strategies, free software tools, and sample curricula.

Seminar

Dr. Tony Weisstein; "Introduction to Stochastic Modeling"; Truman State University

Fri, June 30, 4:00 – 5:30 pm: "Introduction to Stochastic Modeling"
Stochastic processes are those in which a certain level of unavoidable randomness prevents the outcome from being predicted with 100% certainty.  Such stochasticity is not just intrinsic within all physical processes, but in many cases directly motivates specific practices in scientific research.  Unfortunately, life science undergraduates across different levels of academic achievement and class standing often struggle to understand this core concept.  Developing an appreciation for the interplay between deterministic and stochastic processes often requires either a solid grasp of statistical theory and/or years of practical research experience, neither of which forms a key part of a typical biology curriculum.
In this session, we will contrast novice and experienced learners’ understanding of randomness; introduce simple, scalable Excel models that explore the effect of stochasticity in representative biological systems (Mendelian genetics and predator-prey models); and discuss the assessment of students' understanding of stochasticity.

Seminar

Dr. Gohta Goshima; Nagoya University; “Microtubules and Motors in Plants”

Thesis Defense

J. Steen Hoyer; "Analysis of Argonaute-small RNA-transcription factor circuits controlling leaf development"

Thesis Defense

Madeline Keleher; "The Effect of Dietary Fat on Obesity, Gene Expression, and Methylation in Two Generations of Mice"; Laboratory of James Cheverud

Seminar

Dr. Zhoufeng Chen; Washington University; “Molecular and Neural Basis of Socially Contagious Itch Behavior”

Seminar

Dr. Vanessa Ezenwa; University of Georgia; "Helminth-microbe Coinfection: Insights from a Natural System"

Seminar

Dr. John Doebley; University of Wisconsin; "The Genetics of Maize Domestication: Low Hanging Fruit and Dark Matter"

Seminar

Dr. Nicole Gerardo; Emory University; "Environmental Acquisition of Ecologically-Important Microbes in a Tractable Host-Symbiont Model"

HPSM

Dominic Murphy

Bioforum

Cynthia Holland; “Regulation of Aromatic Amino Acid Biosynthesis in Plants”; Jez Lab

Bioforum

"TBD"

Seminar

Dr. Pamela Brown; University of Missouri; "Regulation of Cell Wall Biogenesis and Hydrolysis in the Bacterial Plant Pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens"

Bioforum

Angela Schlegel; "Structure/Function Analysis of the Arabidopsis Mitochondrial Mechanosensitive Ion Channel MSL"; Haswell Lab

Tenure Seminar Presentation

Dr. Hani Zaher; “The Ribosome and Quality Control of mRNA”

Tenure Seminar Presentation

Dr. Jonathan Myers; Washington University in St. Louis; "Untangling Drivers of Biodiversity from Local to Global Scales"

Seminar

Dr. Simon Gilroy; University of Wisconsin-Madison; "Waves and Ripples:Transmitting Stress Signals in Arabidopsis”

Bioforum

Fionn McLoughlin; "Metabolomic, proteomic and transcriptomic profiling reveal the importance of autophagy in maize nutrient recycling"; Vierstra Lab

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Petra Levin, Lucia Strader - Faculty Overview

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Tamara Doering, Barbara Kunkel, David Fike - Faculty Overview

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Joe Jez, Himadri Pakraski, Ivan Baxter - Faculty Overview

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Rick Vierstra, Hani Zaher, Blake Meyers - Faculty Overview

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Chris Topp, Josh Blodgett, Ram Dixit - Faculty Overview

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

David Silva - OTM - Special Topic

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Student organizations day (YSP, ect.)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Liz Haswell, Becky Bart, Arpita Bose - Faculty Overview

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Student talk (TBA)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Student talk (TBA)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Student talk (TBA)

Department Gathering

Pakrasi Lab

“The Developing Brain: New Directions in Science, Policy, and Law”

Office of Neuroscience Research, Conference 2017

This conference kicks off a new effort at Washington University to address topics where the fields of neuroscience intersect with emerging issues for our society.  This new effort, led by the Office of Neuroscience Research (ONR), brings together the academic community (faculty, post docs, students and others) as well as those outside our academic walls, to engage in ways that help to educate and inform.  The conference includes keynote talks, talks from WashU faculty, and a panel discussion.

 

The ONR is grateful for support from the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC), the Department of Neurology, the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, and the Office of the Provost.

EEPB Student Seminar

Zhen Peng; "Biological Functions of Codon Usage Bias and Their Impact on Evolutionary Biology"; WUSTL EEPB

EEPB Student Seminar

Kim Sukhum; "Evolution of Brain Size in Weakly Electric African Fishes"; WUSTL EEPB

EEPB Student Seminar

Dave Duvernell, "Ecology and Evolution of a Topminnow Species Complex", Missouri University of Science and Technology

EEPB Student Seminar

Gerardo Camilo, "Bee diversity in the city: Environmental and social drivers", Saint Louis University

EEPB Student Seminar

Peter Stevens, "What do we (think we) know about angiosperm evolution", Missouri Botanical Garden

EEPB Student Seminar

Toby Kellogg, "Adaptation and diversity in ecologically dominant grasses", Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

EEPB Student Seminar

Karen DeMatteo, "Carnivore conservation in Misiones, Argentina", WUSTL Environmental Studies

EEPB Student Seminar

Andrew Gonzalez, "Diversity, stability and evolution of ecological networks', McGill University

EEPB Student Seminar

Tyler Larsen, "TBD", WUSTL EEPB

EEPB Student Seminar

Aimee Dunlap, "Components of Change and the Experimental Evolution of Learning and Innate Bias", University of Missouri St. Louis

EEPB Student Seminar

Dipti Nayak, "TBD", University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign

EEPB Student Seminar

Sara Wright, "Three years in clover: lessons learned mentoring undergraduates in eco-evo research" WUSTL EEPB

Chromatic Journal Club Seminar

Nicole Riddle; "HP1B, A Euchromatic Drosophila HP1 Homolog with Links to Metabolism"; Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Bioforum

Debra Brock, “The love/hate relationships between Dictyostelium amoebae and Burkholderia bacteria”, Strassmann Laboratory

Seminar

Dr. Ru Zhang;Danforth Center; "Exploring Functional Genomic Landscapes of Heat Sensing and Regulation in Photosynthetic Cells by Using Algal High-Throughput and Quantitative Approaches"

Fall Friday Gathering

Host: Dr. Miller & Staff

Seminar

Dr. Spencer Hall; Indiana University; "Traits and the Ecology of Disease: Heat, Sex, Doom, and Rescue"

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Tamara Bhandari, The Writing Center at Wash U

Seminar - CANCELLED

Dr. Marla Sokolowski; University of Toronto; "The foraging Gene: Unraveling Food-Related Behaviors and Metabolism”"

Bioforum

Claudia Stein; “Coexistence mechanisms in tallgrass prairies: Soil microbes trump competitive interaction”; Mangan Lab

Bioforum

Erica Thomas; "Investigating the Impact of Alkylative Damage on mRNA"; Zaher Lab

Bioforum

Stephen Vadia; "ppGpp-dependent coordination of cell envelope growth and cytoplasmic expansion in Escherichia coli"; Levin Lab

Bioforum

Matt Tso; "Astrocytes Regulate Daily Rhythms in the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus and Behavior"; Herzog Lab

Special Presentation

Victoria May, "The WashU Institute for School Partnership: Inspiring the Next Generation of Scientists"

The WashU Institute for School Partnership: Inspiring the Next Generation of Scientists

 

Join us to learn about the Institute for School Partnership, founded by Sarah Elgin and led by Vicki May. The ISP does outreach work in K-12 schools and has professional development programs for teachers and administrators. Vicki will provide a brief overview of the ISP programs and opportunities for faculty to participate.

 

Speaker:

Victoria May
Assistant Dean of Arts & Sciences

Executive Director of the Institute for School Partnership

Hall Lecture

Dr. Jack Kloppenburg; "First the Seed, Still the Seed: Breeding and Property Rights from Mass Selection to CRISPR"; University of Wisconsin

Faculty Meeting

Seminar

Dr. Jeremy Van Cleve; University of Kentucky; "Social Evolution Within and Between Groups: Reciprocity, Relatedness, and Synergy"

Bioforum

Rajesh Singh; "Understanding the Role of Ethane as a Microbial Carbon Source in Marine Ecosystems"; Bose Lab

Bioforum

Karthikeyan Rengasamy; "Improving Microbial Electrosynthesis of Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) from CO2 by Rhodopseudomonas Palustris TIE-1 using an Immobolized Iron Complex Modified Cathode"; Bose Lab

Department Gathering

Holiday Cookie Celebration; Strader Lab

Bioforum

Joe LaManna; "Species Interactions and Global Patterns of Plant Biodiversity"; Myers Lab

Bioforum

Justine Garcia; "Friends or Foes?: Not All Symbionts Benefit From Living With A Host"; Strassmann/Queller Lab

Bioforum

Katie Schreiber; “Protein Aggregation to Regulate Transcription Factor Activity”; Strader Lab

Bioforum

Molly Sutherland; "A Novel Approach to Study Heme Transporters"; Kranz Lab

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Sarah Kocher; Princeton University; "Harnessing natural variation to study the evolution of social behavior"

Candidate Seminar

Dr. William Ludington; University of California, Berkeley; "Principles of multi-scale biological organization from the Drosophila gut microbiome"

TBA

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Jason Peters; University of California, San Francisco; "Functional Genomics in Bacteria using CRISPR Interference"

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Michael Landis; Yale University; "Viewing Life's history through a phylogenetic lens"

Bioforum

Kranz Laboratory, "TBD"

Bioforum

Cory Knoot - Pakrasi Laboratory, "Developing a Fast-Growing Cyanobacterium as a Production Host for Complex Natural Products Using Synthetic Biology"

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Wenying Shou; Fred Hutch; "Evolution and robustness of microbial cooperation: lessons from experiments and modeling"

BioForum

Rachel Penczykowski, "TBD"

Faculty Meeting

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Anne Phillips (Bart Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Michael Guzman (Bose Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Dennis Zhu

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Leo Yan (Zaher Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Dinesh Gupta (Bose Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Maria Sorkin (Nusinow Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Sarah Rommelfanger (Umen Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Jenny Shoots (Haswell Lab)

Bioforum

Jeff Jones - Herzog Laboratory, "Neuropeptidergic Encoding of Circadian Rhythms and Light"

Bioforum

Rafael Saher - Blankenship Laboratory, "Structural Curiosities of the Fenna-Matthews-Olson Complex, A Model Photosynthetic Antenna"

Bioforum

Bruce Backus - Environmental Health and Safety, "TBD"

Bioforum

Graham Burkart - Dixit Laboratory, "Mechanisms to Target and Regulate Katanin Activity"

Bioforum

Joe Lamanna - Myers Laboratory, "Mycorrhizal Fungi and the Maintenance of Biodiversity Across Temperate and Tropical Forests"

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Thomas Boothby; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; "Drying without dying: tardigrades use disordered proteins to survive desiccation"

Spring Semester Department Gathering

Hosted by Hengen, Herzog and Stein Labs

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Ginger Johnson (Pakrasi Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Natasha Bilkey, Kiona Elliott, and Ryan Emenecker

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Erin Mattoon and Kari Miller

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Emily Wroblewski, WUSTL Anthrophology, "A Tale of Two Pan: MHC Immunogenetic Variation and Disease in Wild Chimpanzee & Bonobo Populations"

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Kasey Fowler-Finn, SLU, "The Ecology and Evolution of Vibrationally-singing insects"

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Ben Kerr, University of Washington, "Altruistic Moves Inside Spiteful Games: The Ecology and Evolution of Bacterial Toxins"

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Maren Friesen, Washington State University, "Evolutionary Ecology of Plant-diazotroph Interactions: Theory and Practice"

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Jordan Brock, WUSTL EEPB, "Harvesting Natural Variation in Camelina (Brassicaceae) Species for Biofuel Improvement"

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Susanne DiSalvo, SIUE, "House Guests or House Pests? Endosymbionts of the Soil Amoebae Dictyostelium discoideum"

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Jonathan Losos, WUSTL EEPB, "Experimental Studies of Ecology and Evolution on Island Lizards"

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Alison Bell, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, "Transgenerational and Behavioral Plasticity at the Molecular Level in Sticklebacks"

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Gautam Dantas, WUSTL EEPB, "Predicting and Combating Pathogenic and Abiotic Disruptions to Diverse Microbiomes"

History & Philosophy of Science & Medicine

Lindsay Brainard, Wash U, TBA

History & Philosophy of Science & Medicine

Jonathan Birch, London School of Economics and Political Science, TBA

Faculty Meeting

Candidate Seminar

Dr. Swanne Gordon; University of Jyväskylä, Finland; "Sex, genes, and environment: integrating multiple determinants of color polymorphism in nature"

History & Philosophy of Science & Medicine

Kent Staley, SLU, "Securing the Empirical Value of Measurement Results"

Candidate Seminar

Andres Lopez-Sepulcre; Université Pierre et Marie Curie (France) and University of Jyväskylä (Finland); “Studying the ecosystem effects of evolution: a case study on Trinidadian guppies”

Bioforum

Marshall Wedger- Olsen Laboratory, "The Hidden Half of Weedy Rice – 3D Imaging to Identify Weediness-Associated Root Traits"

Biology Seminar

Lars Dietrich, "Bacterial Models for Biological Shape and Pattern Formation

TBD

Biology Seminar

Dr. Wallace Marshall; UCSF; "Pattern Formation and Regeneration in a Single Cell"

Hamburger Lecture

Eve Marder - Brandeis, "Variability, Robustness, and Homeostasis in Neurons and Circuits"

Biology Seminar

Dr. Doris Wagner; Penn; "Developmental Transitions in the Context of Chromatin"

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Will McHargue (Ru Zhang Lab)

PMB Lunch Seminar Series

Tricia Walker (Pakrasi Lab)

Bioforum

Katrice McLoughlin - Vierstra Laboratory, "Arabidopsis thaliana Phytochromes Exhibit Unique Biophysical Properties In Vitro and Have Distinct Domain Arrangements in Comparison to their Bacterial Counterparts"

Biology / Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

William (Bill) Cresko, University of Oregon, "The Deep Genomic Architecture of Rapid Stickleback Evolution"

Varner Lecture/Faculty Meeting

Dr. Anja Geitmann, McGill University

Spector Prize Seminar

Jordan Shaker

Biology Seminar

Dr. Derrick Dean; Alabama State University; "Three Dimensional Scaffolds for Plant and Animal Tissue Morphogenesis"

Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Brian Sedio, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

"Comparative metabolomics of forest communities: species differences in foliar chemistry are greater in the tropics"

Host: Jonathan Myers

Tyson Summer Seminar Series

Carla Cáceres, University of Illinois - Ecological and evolutionary drivers of disease in freshwater zooplankton

Science on Tap

Joshua Blodgett: Threatened Bats and Gifted Bugs: Can natural cave bacteria help stop White-Nose Syndrome?

Securing Postdoc Funding: Assessment, Feasibility, and Statistics

Dr. Daniel Marenda

Dr. Marenda, NSF Program Officer, will be on campus to discuss Postdoctoral Fellowships in Biology

Minority Association of Rising Scientists Conference

The Minority Association of Rising Scientists (MARS), in conjunction with the Minority Association of PreMedical Students, the National Society of Black Engineers, the National Black MBA Association, and the Black Pre-Law Association, are hosting the second annual Minority Professional Advancement Summit (MPAS).

This half-day conference is scheduled to take place on Saturday, April 14th from 9:30 AM to 2:00 PM. Students can RSVP through the Facebook event.

Our goal is to equip WashU undergraduate minority students with the necessary skills for success after graduating, either in pursuing higher education or entering the professional sphere. Additionally, we hope to bring together bright minds to give talks that are idea-focused, and on a wide range of subjects, to foster learning, inspiration, and wonder in order to spark conversations that matter.

RSVP

Does Competition Really Rule the World?

Scott Mangan, Washington University, “Does Competition Really Rule the World? Plant-Microbial Interactions as Drivers of Plant Diversity”

Co-Metabolic Innovation Along Eco-Thermodynamic Gradients

Steven Hallam, University of British Columbia, "Co-Metabolic Innovation Along Eco-Thermodynamic Gradients"

Cyanogenesis and Insights on the Genetics of Climatic Adaptation in Plants

Ken Olsen, Washington University, "Cyanogenesis and Insights on the Genetics of Climatic Adaptation in Plants"

Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology Seminar

Lauren Sullivan, University of MO-Columbia, "Plants on the move: Ecological causes and consequences of dispersal”

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar

Patricia Parker, Univ. Missouri, STL, and Saint Louis Zoo, “Avian Health in the Galapagos Islands: the History and the Future”

The Evolution and Genetics of Aphid Wing Dimorphisms

Jennifer Brisson, University of Rochester, "The Evolution and Genetics of Aphid Wing Dimorphisms"

Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology Seminar

Shahla Farzan, St. Louis Public Radio, "Turning science into stories: strategies for communicating your research”

Biophysics of Biomolecular Condensates

Rohit Pappu, Washington University, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, "Biophysics of Biomolecular Condensates"

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar

Jason Knouft, Saint Louis University, "Using Hydrologic and Ecological Models to Understand and Prepare for the Future of the Meramec River Watershed”

Sensory Systems, Learning, and Communication - Insights from the Enigmatic World of Arachnids

Eileen Hebets, University of Nebraska, "Sensory Systems, Learning, and Communication - Insights from the Enigmatic World of Arachnids"

Wiring Plant Development Through Receptor Kinase Signaling Circuits

Zack Nimchuk, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, "Wiring Plant Development Through Receptor Kinase Signaling Circuits"

Department Seminar - Shankar Mukherji

Shankar Mukherji, Washington University, "The Statistical Physics of Organelle Biogenesis"

Hosted by: Elizabeth Haswell

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar

Eric Miller, Saint Louis Zoo, “The Madagascar Fauna and Flora Group (MFG): Collaboration to Protect Biodiversity”

Department Seminar - Rebecca Safran

Rebecca Safran, University of Colorado, "The Role of Adaptation in Speciation: An Integrative and Comparative Approach"

Hosted by: Carlos Botero

Circadian Rhythms are Turning Heads: Clock Regulation of Sunflower Growth and Development - Stacey Harmer

Biology Department Seminar: Stacey Harmer, University of California - Davis

Hosted by: Erik Herzog

Peroxisome Dynamics in Arabidopsis - Bonnie Bartel

Biology Department Seminar: Bonnie Bartel, Rice University

Hosted by: Richard Vierstra

Kangaroos, Kudu, and Caribou: Mammalian Herbivores, Nutrients, and Future Grasslands on Earth - Elizabeth Borer

Biology Department Seminar: Elizabeth Borer, University of Minnesota, "Kangaroos, Kudu, and Caribou: Mammalian Herbivores, Nutrients, and Future Grasslands on Earth"

Hosted by: Rachel Penczykowski

Bioforum

4:00 Kyusik Kim (Zaher Lab), “Investigating eIF4E-Independent Translation in S. cerevisiae”; 4:30 LieWei (Leo) Yan / Zaher Lab, “Chemical Damage to mRNA Triggers Ribosome-based Quality Control in the Cell”

The Signature of Competition for Shared Resources Across the Avian Radiation-Angela Chira

Biology Bioforum - Angela Chira, Botero Lab, "The Signature of Competition for Shared Resources Across the Avian Radiation"

Bioforum - Richard Marshall; Kristin Winchell & James Stroud

4:00 Richard Marshall / Vierstra Lab, "A New Class of Autophagy Receptors Defined by a Ubiquitin-interacting Motif" 4:30 Kristin Winchill & James Stroud / Losos Lab, "Ecology and Evolution of Tropical Lizards from Forests to Urban Jungles"

Bioforum - Nicholas Morffy; Arnaud Theirry Djami Tchatchou

4:00 Nicholas Morffy / Strader Lab, "Investigating the Contribution of the AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR PB1 Domain to DNA-binding Specificity"; 4:30 Arnaud Theirry Djami Tchatchou / Kunkel Lab, "Auxin Plays Multiple Roles During Pseudomonas Syringae Pathogenesis"

History & Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar

Eric Schwitzgebel, University of California, Riverside, "Is There Something It's Like to Be a Garden Snail?"

Division Plane Orientation in Plant Cells

Carolyn Rasmussen, University of CA-Irvine, "Division Plane Orientation in Plant Cells"

PMB Brunch Seminar

Dr. Pete Peters, adjunct professor, Olin Business School and DBBS, he teaches a class (Biotech Industry Innovators) focused on exposing graduate students to the biotech industry.

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar

Kim Medley, Tyson Research Center, "City Mosquito, Country Mosquito: Ecology and Evolution in the Anthropocene"

An Emerging Paradigm for Generalizing Medical Inference Beyond Definitive Diagnoses

Dennis Barbour (MD; PhD; WUSTL Engineering) will give a talk titled "An Emerging Paradigm for Generalizing Medical Inference Beyond Definitive Diagnoses," which will explore applications of machine learning to medical reasoning in disorders of sensory systems.

Biological Roles of Self-cleaving Ribozymes - Andrej Luptak

Biology Department Seminar: Andrej Luptak, University of California - Irvine; "Biological Roles of Self-cleaving Ribozymes"

Hosted by: Hani Zaher

The Role of Fungi in Mediating Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change - Kathleen Treseder

Biology Department Seminar: Kathleen Treseder, University of California, Irvine; "The Role of Fungi in Mediating Ecosystem Responses to Climate Change"

Hosted by: EEPB Students

Stress Signaling in Gram Positive Bacteria - Jade Wang

Biology Department Seminar: Jade Wang, University of Wisconsin

Hosted by: PMB Students

Dr. Wang's lab in the Department of Bacteriology seeks to understand how microbes coordinate fundamental biological processes such as DNA replication, transcription, and cell division. Additionally, her research has explored how these mechanisms change in response to stress, especially in response to the alarmone (p)ppGpp. Her work has shown that there is fascinating diversity in these basic biological concepts across the bacteria kingdom.

Viktor Hamburger Lecture - Visualization of Transvection in Living Drosophila Embryos - Mike Levine

Mike Levine, Princeton University; "Visualization of Transvection in Living Drosophila Embryos"

Abstract:

Transcriptional enhancers regulate the on/off activities of target genes in response to a variety of cellular signals.  The human genome is thought to contain hundreds of thousands of enhancers, ~10-20 enhancers per protein coding gene.  For many years we have used the early embryo of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to study the basic properties of enhancer DNAs. Past studies using traditional fixed tissue methods provided many insights into the spatial limits of gene expression, but only limited information about temporal dynamics.  Live imaging methods provide new opportunities for understanding the timing of gene activity.  The early Drosophila embryo is ideally suited for such studies, since the nuclei are organized in a simple grid along the surface of the egg.  These studies identified transcriptional bursting as a common feature of gene expression.  Bursts do not appear to be caused by unstable enhancer-promoter loops since a single enhancer can co-activate linked reporter genes in cis or in trans (transvection).  I will discuss “transcription hubs” to explain these results.  Transvection assays also provide insights into the proximity of enhancer-promoter interactions, and reveal a curious

Hosted by: Ian Duncan

Varner Lecture - Dissecting Phytochrome Photosensory Signaling and Transcriptional Networks - Peter Quail

Peter Quail, University of California - Berkeley; "Dissecting Phytochrome Photosensory Signaling and Transcriptional Networks"

Abstract:

Our research interests are in defining the mechanisms by which light signals are perceived and transduced by the phytochrome (phy)-PIF module to Direct-Target Genes (DTGs), focused specifically on the two sequential interfaces (a) between the phy and PIF proteins, and (b) between the PIFs and their DTGs. Existing data suggest that these components engage in dynamic multimolecular complexes comprised variously of (a) protein kinases (that include PPKs (Photoregulatory Protein Kinases)) and E3 ubiquitin ligases (including LRBs, EBFs and COP1-SPA), that sequentially phosphorylate and ubiquitinate the PIFs to regulate their abundance, and (b) a diversity of other interacting components that modulate the intrinsic transcriptional activation activity of the PIFs (including the core clock protein, TOC1). The data suggest yet greater complexity in the system, including potential mechanistic differences among the individual PIFs, as yet unidentified factors that may contribute to the signaling process, and transfactors that may modulate PIF transcriptional regulatory capacity in situ at the genome interface, independently of the level of promoter occupancy. Our current efforts, using a combination of mass-spectrometric, biochemical, molecular genetic and genomic approaches to explore these possibilities will be described

Hosted by: Ram Dixit & Richard Vierstra

St. Louis Area Brain Bee Competition

The St. Louis Area Brain Bee (SLABB) is a competition for high school students that tests knowledge in neuroscience. Students who participate in the Brain Bee will enjoy hands-on brain activities, meet teenagers from other schools and learn more about the science of the brain.

Evidence for Activity-dependent Critical Dynamics in Rat Striatum - Sam Funderburk

4:00/ Hengen Lab, "Evidence for Activity-dependent Critical Dynamics in Rat Striatum"

The Clocks That Time Us: A Time to Deliver - Carmel Martin-Fairey

4:00 Carmel Martin-Fairey / Herzog Lab, "The Clocks That Time Us: A Time to Deliver"

 

brookings Hall

Hall Lecture - Interdependence - Helen Longino

Helen Longino, Stanford University; "Interdependence"

Abstract:

This talk proposes that we take interaction seriously in philosophy and biology and it explores consequences - scientific and social - of doing so. 

Hosted by: Allan Larson

Greater Prairie Chicken in Illinois: Genetic Monitoring of a Conservation Icon-Whitney Anthonysamy

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar: Whitney Anthonysamy, St. Louis College of Pharmacy

Electrically-driven Microbial Photosynthesis - Michael Guzman

4:30/ Bose Lab, "TBD

Biology Bioforum - Kranz Lab

4:30 "TBD" / Kranz Lab, "TBD"

Darwin Day

The ISP’s 7th annual Darwin Day celebration will be held Saturday, February 9, on the Danforth Campus. The free program equips K-12 science teachers with the confidence and skills to teach evolution. It’s timed to the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth — his 210th this year — and features workshops, presentations, and cake! Speakers include Dr. John Hawks and Gavriel Matt.
Learn More

Molecular evolution at the origin of life and applications for the present day-Irene Chen

Biology Department Seminar: Irene Chen, University of California-Santa Barbara

Hosted by: Bob Blankenship

Sensing stress: how bacterial RNAs recognize small molecules-Christopher Jones

Biology Department Seminar: Christopher Jones, National Institutes of Health; "TBD"

Hosted by: Hani Zaher

Structure-based discovery of RNA regulatory mechanisms-Anthony Mustoe

Biology Department Seminar: Anthony Mustoe, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Hosted by: Hani Zaher

Master microbial manipulators: How bacteria shape host and microbial biology-Tera Levin

Biology Department Seminar: Tera Levin, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Hosted by: Ram Dixit

PMB Brunch Seminar-Yunci Qi, Angela Schlegel

Plant and Microbial Biosciences (PMB) Seminar Series featuring Yunci Qi of Blodgett Lab and Angela Schlegel of Haswell Lab

PMB Brunch Seminar-Tayte Campbell, Dinesh Gupta

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring Tayte Campbell of Dantas Lab and Dinesh Gupta of Bose Lab

PMB Brunch Seminar-Sam Powers, Anne Phillips

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring Sam Powers (Strader and Jez Labs) and Anne Phillips (Bart Lab)

PMB Brunch Seminar-Sarah Rommelfanger, Jenny Shoots

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring Sarah Rommelfanger (Umen Lab) and Jenny Shoots (Haswell Lab)

PMB Brunch Seminar-Kari Miller, Natasha Bilkey

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring Kari Miller (Haswell Lab) and Natasha Bilkey (Dixit Lab)

PMB Brunch Seminar-Ryan Emenecker & Andrew Lin

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring Ryan Emenecker (Strader Lab) and Andrew Lin (Pappu Lab)

PMB Brunch Seminar-Ginger Johnson, Maria Sorkin

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring Ginger Johnson (Pakrasi Lab) and Maria Sorkin (Nusinow Lab)

PMB Brunch Seminar-Emily Davenport, Rachel Jouni, Helen Blaine

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring First Years Emily Davenport, Rachel Jouni, and Helen Blaine

PMB Brunch Seminar-Jeffrey Allen, Kevin Blake, Sarah Pardi

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar Series Featuring First Years Jeffrey Allen, Kevin Blake, Sarah Pardi

PMB Brunch Seminar-Taylor Harris, Ed Wilkinson, Cynthia Lee

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring First Years Taylor Harris, Ed Wilkinson, Cynthia Lee

PMB Brunch Seminar-Eric Conners, Josh Johnson, Vivian Kitainda

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar Series featuring First Years Eric Conners, Josh Johnson, and Vivian Kitainda

How Statistics Changed Natural Selection-Andre Ariew

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar Series featuring Andre Ariew, University of Missouri, Columbia

According to a standard story found in textbooks and historical treatments, the 20th century “modern synthesis” is a unification of Mendelian genetics with Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Yet, in his 1952 presidential address to the Royal Statistical Society R.A. Fisher—one of the pioneering modern synthesists—presents a sharp rebuke of Darwin’s version of natural selection. Fisher claims that Darwin was unaware that the argument for the theory of natural selection is “manifestly statistical” although much of the relevant statistical theory was available in Darwin’s day. Instead Darwin based his theory on the unrealistic rhetoric of Robert Malthus’s doctrine of over-reproduction which invokes non-existent violent struggles between organisms in order to provide the impression to his “thick-headed audience” that adaptive speciation is the product of cosmic forces. Is Fisher right that Darwin was unaware of the statistical methods of his day? What does it mean for natural selection to be “manifestly statistical”? What makes Darwin’s theory not statistical? What role does Malthus’s doctrine of overproduction play in Darwin’s theory? My attempt to answer these questions and evaluate Fisher’s critique has provided me with a long and fruitful research project in the history and philosophy of evolutionary science that has culminated in a book manuscript. I will be presenting the main discoveries and themes. Contrary to Fisher’s claim, Darwin was not only conceptually aware of the statistical methods of his day, he used them to further develop his theory of natural selection and principle of divergence. However, Darwin did not regard the phenomenon of adaptive speciation as manifestly statistical as Fisher claims, but manifestly ecological. I will explain the difference in terms of two kinds of natural large scale effects that emerge out of individual variation. I trace the distinction to a treatise written in 1713 by William Derham concerning harmonies of nature. The philosophical upshot of my corrective to Fisher is that the standard story about the modern synthesis is misleading. The modern synthesis version of natural selection is not only a different theory than that of Darwin’s version but a different kind of theory of the dynamics of evolution. No two ways of looking at population dynamics could be more different. 

Mechanisms of Honey Bee Nestmate Recognition Cue Production - Cassie Vernier

4:00 / Ben-Shahar Lab; "Mechanisms of Honey Bee Nestmate Recognition Cue Production"

 

A Conserved Eukaryotic Translation Initiation Factor's Role in Social Traits of Drosophila melanogaster - Iris Chin

4:30; Ben-Shahar lab; "A Conserved Eukaryotic Translation Initiation Factor's Role in Social Traits of Drosophila melanogaster"

Metabolic Power and Marine Predator Diversity - John Grady

4:00 / NGRREC, Dell Lab; "TBD"

Bacterial Symbionts Receive Variable Benefits from Their Host, Dictyostelium Discoideum-Justine Garcia

Biology Forum featuring Justine Garcia, Strassmann/Queller Lab, "Bacterial Symbionts Receive Variable Benefits from Their Host, Dictyostelium Discoideum"

The Population Genetics of Environmental Racism-Kelly Lane-deGraaf

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar featuring Kelly Lane-deGraaf, Fontbonne University

Modeling the Evolutionary Origins and Dynamics of Social Complexity-Sergey Gavrilets

Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Sergey Gavrilets, University of Tennessee – Knoxville, “Modeling the Evolutionary Origins and Dynamics of Social Complexity”

Plant Evolutionary Adaptation to a Changing World-Loren Rieseberg

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar featuring Loren Rieseberg, University of British Columbia

This Seminar has been moved to Wednesday, February 27, 2019, 4:00 p.m. Simon Hall, Room 023

Deciphering the ecology, Natural history of African giant pouched rats, Cricetomys ansorgei-Danielle Lee

Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology Seminar featuring Danielle Lee, Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville

“Deciphering the Ecology,  Natural History of African Giant Pouched Rats, Cricetomys Ansorgei”

Though charged with examining the individual behavioral variation in natural populations of African giant pouched rats, Cricetomys ansorgei – apart of a larger interest to improve breeding and training protocols of this fascinating rodent that had proven it could detect long-buried land mines. The research goals included determining if consistent or variable behavioral tendencies were 1) observable in this species and 2) hopefully genetic. Experiencing a variety of pauses and interruptions to research from political, economic and logistical, I came to realize the path to establishing a new model organism is built through the hard work and contributions of indigenous and lay know, ethology and natural history. Then I’ll be discussing the exciting challenges of researching an organism that has been understudied and sharing what science is learning about the biology and behavior giant pouched rats.

Drivers of animal movement and some consequences for species interactions-Anthony Dell

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar featuring Anthony Dell, NGRREC/Washington University

"Drivers of animal movement and some consequences for species interactions"

A huge diversity of factors influence how animals move, including body size, temperature, hunger, and how resources are distributed across the landscape. These and other effects on movement have important consequences for species interactions, and thus patterns of biodiversity from local to global scales. Using data and theory, and examples that span taxa and environments, I will explore some of the mechanisms by which environmental drivers influence how animals move and behave at local scales, and the resulting (and often surprising!) multi-scale impacts on ecological systems. Uncovering these patterns and processes should lead to a more predictive science of community ecology, providing a mechanistic link between the individual organisms and entire ecosystems.

Experimental Evolution in the Wild: Lessons for Conservation in a Rapidly Changing World-Colin Donihue

Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology Seminar featuring Colin Donihue, Washington University, “Experimental Evolution in the Wild:  Lessons for Conservation in a Rapidly Changing World”

Studying the Distribution of Species and Assembly of Communities Across Elevational Gradients in the Tropical Andes-Sebastian Tello

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar featuring Sebastian Tello, Missouri Botanical Garden

Role of Behavioral Novelty in the Evolution of Extreme Encephalization and Brain Reorganization-Erika Schumacher

Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology Seminar featuring Erika Schumacher (Carlson Lab), Washington University

Biodiversity by Stealth-Rod Barnett

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar featuring Rod Barnett, Sam Fox School of Design

How do we introduce large-scale, meaningful biodiversity programs into the urban field? Fundamentally, there are two kinds of urban terrain:

a) public space  
b) private space

Because these types of terrain are funded, managed and controlled differently, we need to consider different types of design program that will effectively hasten the evolution of urban territory into ecologically effective biodiverse communities that operate at cross-urban scales. This means adapting terrains eventually at scales that are bigger than community parks, bigger than university campuses and bigger than urban riparian zones, eventually, even, that are as big as the city itself.

To do this we need two things:

a) feasible urban biodiversity models that are city-scale
b) small-scale strategies that introduce biodiversity in ways that are palatable to public and private constituencies.

The talk will discuss how these are issues are being addressed in the WashU landscape architecture program, using case studies. It argues that, since there is some public and community resistance to biodiverse landscapes, we may need to introduce them by stealth.

Plasticity and Constraint in Task Allocation: How and Why do Ants Choose Tasks-Nicole Leitner

Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology Seminar-Nicole Leitner, Washington University

“Plasticity and Constraint in Task Allocation:  How and Why do Ants Choose Tasks"

Ants are social insects that live together in colonies and divide work among themselves to meet all of the colony's needs. How individual ant workers come to be allocated to different tasks is not well understood. This talk explores both the individual-level mechanisms by which workers choose tasks and the colony-level strategies for responding dynamically to changes in task need.

PMB Brunch Seminar-Ryan Calcutt & Patricia Walker

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar featuring Ryan Calcutt (Dixit Lab) & Patricia Walker (Pakrasi Lab)

What social epistemology could learn from philosophy of science-Helen Longino

History & Philosophy of Science & Medicine Seminar featuring Helen Longino, Stanford University

Climate-driven Shifts in Plant Range and Phenology: Perspectives from Ecology, Ethnobotany, and Natural History Collections - Robbie Hart

Biology Department Seminar: Robbie Hart, Missouri Botanical Garden, Assistant Curator, High Elevation Ethnobotany and Plant Ecology; "Climate-driven Shifts in Plant Range and Phenology: Perspectives from Ecology, Ethnobotany, and Natural History Collections"

Hosted by: Joe Jez

How do temperate and tropical ecosystems differ? What I learned from Owen Sexton-Alan Covich

Tyson Summer Seminar Series: Inaugural Owen Sexton Seminar

Alan Covich, University of Georgia: "How do temperate and tropical ecosystems differ? What I learned from Owen Sexton"
Host: Kim Medley

Tropical Diversity Along Environmental Gradients: insights from functional ecology-Natalia Umana

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring Natalia Umana, University of Michigan, Host-Jonathan Myers

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

The Chemistry of Life: understanding the structure and function of ecological systems-Angelica Gonzalez

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring Angelica Gonzalez, Rutgers University, Host-Amanda Koltz

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

Species Interactions and Adaptation to the Thermal Environment-Michelle Tseng

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring Michelle Tseng, The University of British Columbia, Host-Katie Westby

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

Restoration science, policy, and practice(2021-2030): a seventh generation perspective-James Aronson

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring James Aronson, Missouri Botanical Garden, Host-Micah Stanek

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

Behind the Scenes of "Poached" with science journalist Rachel Nuwer

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring Rachel Nuwer, Freelance Journalist, Host-Suzanne Loui

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

Harnessing the power of soil microbes for ecological restorations-Tanya Cheeke

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring Tanya Cheeke, Washington State University, Host-Rachel Becknell

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

Traveling while diseased: ecology and evolution of migratory birds and their malarial parasites-Leticia Soares

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring Leticia Soares, University of Western Ontario, Host-Solny Adalsteinsson

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

Biological power and the diversity of life-John Grady

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring John Grady, National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, Host-Tony Dell/Kim Medley

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

How biotic and abiotic changes to freshwater communities affect infectious disease-Catherine Searle

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring Catherine Searle, Purdue University, Host-Rachel Penczykowski

Seminars take place on Thursday afternoons starting at 4:00 PM in the Living Learning Center at Tyson Research Center (tyson.wustl.edu/contact). Seminars are followed by an informal potluck‐‐please bring your favorite side dish or dessert, and Tyson will provide the protein! For additional information please contact Ruth Ann Bizoff (rabizoff@biology2.wustl.edu; 314-935‐8430).

rebstock hall

Photosystem II assembly and the role of a bound bicarbonate cofactor-Julian Eaton Rye

Biology Department Special Seminar: Julian Eaton Rye, Visiting Professor from University of Otago, New Zealand

Genomic Signatures of Conflict and Cooperation in Plants and Social Amoebae

Thesis Defense - Katherine Geist

Program in Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology

Laboratory of Dr. David Queller and Joan Strassmann

 

Circuit mechanisms for learning in sensory cortex- Arianna Maffei

Biology Department Seminar: Arianna Maffei, Associate Professor, Department of Neurobiology & Behavior, SUNY at Stony Brook

Hosted by: Keith Hengen

 

Linking evolutionary change in sensory perception to its cellular and network substrates in weakly electric fish- Bruce Carlson

Biology Department Seminar:  Bruce Carlson, Washington University in St. Louis

 

The genetics of neuronal robustness-Yehuda Ben-Shahar

Biology Department Seminar: Yehuda Ben-Shahar, Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis

 

Countering protein misfolding with engineered protein disaggregases-Meredith Jackrel

Biology Department Seminar: Meredith Jackrel, Department of Chemistry, Washington University in St. Louis

Hosted by: Elizabeth Haswell

Getting in Shape from the Inside Out-Ram Dixit

Biology Department Seminar: Ram Dixit, Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis

 

The genomic basis of communication signal variation in electric fish-Jason Gallant

Biology Department Seminar: Jason Gallant, Assistant Professor, Department of Integrative Biology, Michigan State University

Hosted by: Bruce Carlson

Biology Department Seminar-Keith Hengen

Biology Department Seminar:  Keith Hengen, Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis

 

Microbes, metals, and nanowires-Gemma Reguera

Biology Department Seminar: Gemma Reguera, Professor, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University

Hosted by: Josh Blodgett

How self vs non-self recognition impacts group behaviors of an opportunistic pathogen-Karine Gibbs

Biology Department Seminar: Karine Gibbs, Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University

Hosted by: Petra Levin

CANCELLED Viktor Hamburger Lecture: Cell Types as Building Blocks of Neural Circuits- Josh Sanes

This event has been cancelled.

40th Annual Viktor Hamburger Lecture - Josh Sanes,  Paul J. Finnegan Family Director, Center for Brain Science, Jeff C. Tarr Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University

The Sanes lab studies the assembly and function of neural circuits in the retina.

Title: Cell Types as Building Blocks of Neural Circuits

An Integrative Approach using Phylogenomics and High-resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) for Species Delimitation in Cryptic Earless Dragon lizards (Genus Tympanocryptis) from Australia-Jane Melville

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar featuring Jane Melville, Museums Victoria, Melbourne: “An Integrative Approach using Phylogenomics and High-resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) for Species Delimitation in Cryptic Earless Dragon lizards (Genus Tympanocryptis) from Australia”

From City to Megalopolis: The Ecology and Evolution of Feral Pigeons in the Northeastern United States-Elizabeth Carlen

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Elizabeth Carlen, Fordham University

More Than One Way to Kill a Spruce Forest:  Spatial Fingerprint of Deglacial Temperature Change in Eastern North America - John Williams

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology along with Earth & Planetary Sciences present John Williams, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "More Than One Way to Kill a Spruce Forest:  Spatial Fingerprint of Deglacial Temperature Change in Eastern North America"

Joint seminar with Earth & Planetary Sciences

Friends, Foes, and Phages in the Phyllosphere: How Multi-trophic Interactions Shape and Reshape the Microbiome-Britt Koskella

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Britt Koskella, University of California – Berkeley

Why regional differences in past and future spring-frost risk threaten Europe and Asia more than North America-Susanne Renner

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Susanne Renner, University of Munich

Circadian circuits underlying daily rhythms in corticosterone release-Jeff Jones

Bioforum seminar featuring Jeff Jones of the Herzog Lab

Environmental plasticity in the E. coli cell wall synthesis machinery-Elizabeth Mueller

Bioforum Seminar featuring Elizabeth Mueller of the Levin Lab

Bioforum-Suresh Damodaran of Strader Lab and Molly Shallow of Hengen Lab

Bioforum Seminar featuring Suresh Damodaran of Strader Lab and Molly Shallow of Hengen Lab

Piezo channels in moss-Ivan Radin, Haswell Lab

Bioforum Seminar featuring Ivan Radin of Haswell Lab

Regulatory Mechanisms for Polycyclic Tetramate Macrolactom (PTMs) Production in Streptomyces-Keshav Kumar Nepal, Blodgett Lab

Bioforum Seminar featuring Keshav Kumar Nepal of the Blodgett Lab

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch-Angela Schlegel, Nicholas Morffy

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar-Angela Schlegel of Haswell Lab, Nicholas Morffy of Strader Lab

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch-Thi Nguyen

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar featuring Thi Nguyen, Associate Dean for Graduate Career and Professional Development, WUSTL

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch-Debarati Basu, Jenny Shoots

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar featuring Debarati Basu and Jenny Shoots of Haswell Lab

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch-Dennis Zhu, Ryan Calcutt

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar featuring Dennis Zhu of Stallings Lab and Ryan Calcutt of Dixit Lab

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch-Sarah Rommelfanger, Tricia Walker

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar featuring Sarah Rommelfanger and Tricia Walker of Pakrasi Lab

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch-Ginger Johnson, Yanbing Wang

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar featuring Ginger Johnson of Pakrasi Lab and Yanbing Wang of Haswell Lab

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch-Dinesh Gupta, Leo Yan

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar featuring Dinesh Gupta of Bose Lab and Leo Yan of Zaher Lab

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch-Maria Sorkin, Andrew Lin

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Brunch Seminar featuring Maria Sorkin of Nusinow Lab and Andrew Lin of Pappu Lab

Phasing in” on the properties and functions of sticky disordered proteins-Broder Schmidt

Special Talk by Broder Schmidt, Stanford University

“Phasing in” on the properties and functions of sticky disordered proteins

Hosts: Lucia Strader and Alex Holehouse

Dragons Down Under-Jane Melville

Featured Speaker: Dr. Jane Melville, an evolutionary and conservation biologist, has studied dragon lizards across Australia for the last 20 years and has named 30 new species. Across the vast, hot and dry continent of Australia, the dragons are some of the most iconic and best-known lizards. The spectacular frill-necked lizard, the prickly thorny devil and the bearded dragon are popular as pets worldwide. The 102 dragon species in Australia show remarkable variety in color, shape and behavior. Dr. Melville will convey her admiration for these unique animals. Using spectacular images gathered for her recent book, “Dragon Lizards of Australia,” she will present the most recent understanding of their diversity, ecology and conservation.

The Conservation Conversation Series is co-sponsored by the Saint Louis Zoo and The Academy of Science-St. Louis. For information on this event, visit stlzoo.org or academyofsciencestl.org, or call (314) 646-4544.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the St Louis Zoo, Academy of Science Living Earth Collaborative.

How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog-Lee Alan Dugatkin

Featured speaker: Lee Alan Dugatkin, Ph.D., Professor of Biology and Distinguished Scholar, University of Louisville. Dr. Dugatkin will lecture on his book, co-authored with Lyudmila Trut, “How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog.”

For the last six decades, a dedicated team of researchers in Siberia has been domesticating silver foxes to replay the evolution of the dog in real time. Lyudmila Trut has been the lead scientist on this work since 1959, and together with biologist and historian of science Lee Dugatkin, she tells the inside story of the science, politics, adventure and love behind it all. “How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog” opens up to reveal story after story, each embedded within the one that preceded it. Inside this tale of path-breaking science in the midst of the often brutal -35° winters of Siberia is a remarkable collaboration between an older, freethinking scientific genius and a trusting, but gutsy, young woman. Together, these two risked not just their careers, but to an extent their lives, to make scientific history. If you go one level deeper, you find yourself lost in the magical tale of how some hardscrabble but open-hearted humans and the wild animals that they domesticated developed such deep attachments to each other.

The Conservation Conversation Series is co-sponsored by the Saint Louis Zoo and The Academy of Science-St. Louis. For information on this event, visit stlzoo.org or academyofsciencestl.org, or call (314) 646-4544.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Living Earth Collaborative.

Why the Process Turn?-Mazviita Chirimuuta

History and Philosophy of Science & Medicine Seminar featuring Mazviita Chirimuuta, University of Pittsburgh

Abstract:

Recent proponents of “scientific emergence” (e.g. Mitchell, Gillett) have held that it is consistent with the widely held tenets of physicalism. Here I provide an exposition of emergence as presented in recent philosophy of science, where the key claim is that “parts behave differently in wholes”, based on the empirical finding of what Gillett (2016) calls “differential powers.” Gillett argues that the empirical evidence does not yet settle the question of whether there is downward causation or any other form of influence from the whole system to its constituent parts, but that such evidence might be obtained. I propose instead that the question of whether or not the finding of differential powers is taken to provide overwhelming evidence for strong emergence depends on the further interpretation of differential powers, and ultimately on very broad metaphysical commitments. The interpretation of differential powers that is most resistant to objections from opponents of strong emergence involves a rejection of substance ontology, and hence the rejection of physicalism, in favour of a process ontology. This explains the attraction of process ontology to some philosophers who also endorse emergence (e.g. John Dupré). Thus, I conclude, philosophers should not wait in expectation for empirical results that will settle the question of whether or not there is strong emergence.

Chemical signaling between pathogenic Pseudomonas syringae and host plants: Uncovering roles for extracellular metabolites in virulence and defense-Jeff Anderson

Dr. Jeff Anderson from Oregon State (and previously from Scott Peck’s lab at Missou) will be visiting the Kunkel Lab on the afternoon of Tuesday Nov. 5 and giving a special seminar

Using isotope tracer additions to understand the effects of organisms on ecosystems: a new analytical toolbox-Andres Lopez-Sepulcre

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Andres Lopez-Sepulchre, Assistant Professor of Biology, WUSTL

Blue Skies and Beyond Series: 'Why Do Teens Sleep In?' -Erik Herzog

The talk will explore what wakes us up when we don’t use an alarm clock. We will discuss daily clocks in the brain, how they synchronize to each other and the local light cycle and how this system is relevant to deciding when the school day should start for teenagers.

Free and open to all. Middle and high school teachers encouraged to attend. Registration is required.

Photo Sensing and Quorum Sensing Converge to Control Bacterial Collective Behaviors-Sampriti Mukherjee

Biology Department Seminar featuring Sampriti Mukherjee, postdoc in Bassler Lab, Princeton University

Hosted by Barbara Kunkel

Molecular Mechanisms of Anti-viral Immunity by RNA-targeting CRISPR-Cas Systems-Alexander Meeske

Biology Department Seminar featuring Alexander Meeske, Marrafinni Lab, The Rockefeller University

Size-Dependent Changes in Tissue Patterning and Function-Christopher Arnold

Biology Department Seminar featuring Christopher Arnold, HHMI/Stowers Institute for Medical Research

Building the Oligodendrocyte: Mechanisms of Acentrosomal Microtubule Nucleation and mRNA Transport-Meng-meng Fu

Biology Department Seminar featuring Meng-meng Fu, Barres Lab, Stanford University

Bioforum: What’s new in the Biology Imaging Facility (Basically Everything!)-Dianne Duncan, Imaging Facility Director

Bioforum featuring Dianne Duncan, Imaging Facility Director

Sexual Interactions Induce Early Death in Nematodes: Strategies and Counter-Strategies-Lauren Booth

Biology Department Seminar featuring Lauren Booth, Brunet Lab, Stanford University

Recognition of Identity in Social Insects-Patrizia d'Ettorre

Biology Department Seminar featuring Patrizia d'Ettorre, Clark Harrison Way Visiting Professor in Biology at Wash U, Professor in Ethology, Université Paris 13

CANCELLED: Thomas Hall Lecture: “Reviving the Hopeful Monster: Richard Goldschmidt’s Evolutionary Heresies” - Michael Dietrich

Richard Goldschmidt was one of the most controversial biologists of the twentieth century. Rather than fade from view, however, Goldschmidt’s work and reputation has persisted in the biological community long after he has. How should we explain Goldschmidt’s longevity?  Are revivals of Goldschmidt as an evolutionary heretic in the 1970s and 1980s historically accurate or selective reinventions which are useful to contemporary scientists? This is the annual Thomas S. Hall Lecture. A reception will follow in the Biology Commons.

Michael Dietrich is a professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh. His research concerns developments in 20th-century genetics, evolutionary biology, and developmental biology, with a special emphasis on scientific controversies.

CANCELLED: Varner Lecture: Making a difference: cell fate, polarity and potential in the plant epidermis-Dominique Bergmann

Annual Varner Lecture: Dominique Bergmann, Professor, Stanford University

Dominique C. Bergmann is a plant scientist with a specific focus on developmental biology and plant biology. Correspondingly, she is a professor of Biology at Stanford University and is in association with the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

Title: Making a difference: cell fate, polarity and potential in the plant epidermis

PMB Brunch Seminar- Jeffrey Allen, Vivian Kitainda

PMB Brunch Seminar featuring Jeffrey Allen of Strader Lab and Vivian Kitainda of Jez Lab

PMB Brunch Seminar- Rachel Jouni, Cynthia Lee

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar featuring Rachel Jouni of Meyers Lab and Cynthia Lee of Kunkel Lab

PMB Brunch Seminar- Sarah Rommelfanger, Sarah Pardi

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar featuring Sarah Rommelfanger of Pakrasi Lab and Sarah Pardi of Nusinow Lab

PMB Brunch Seminar- Kari Miller, Erin Mattoon

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar featuring Kari Miller of Haswell Lab and Erin Mattoon of Zhang Lab

2020 Darwin Day Celebration

Celebrate Charles Darwin’s birthday with a free evolution education event for K-12 teachers! Keynote Speaker: Dr. Barbara Schaal, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, renowned evolutionary plant biologist. Speaker: Dr. Minglu Gao, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

Breakout sessions for elementary, middle and high school teachers. Evolution activities you can take, use and share! Breakfast and lunch on us! Enjoy birthday cake! Network with educators and scientists! Win fossils and books!

Register Here

St Louis Area Brain Bee

The St. Louis Area Brain Bee (SLABB) is a competition for high school students that tests knowledge in neuroscience. Questions come from Brain Facts, a book produced by the Society for Neuroscience. The winner and their chaperone will be sent to the US national Brain Bee.

Register here

Sex- and morph-biased dispersal affect population structure and polymorphism: a test using a 'non-model' model system-Swanne Gordon

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Swanne Gordon, Assistant Professor, Wash U Biology

The Land of Cinnamon and Gold: 500 Years of Amazon Science and Exploration-Thomas Lovejoy

Featured Speaker: Thomas Lovejoy, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, United Nations Foundation; Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, College of Science, George Mason University

The Amazon is as big as the 48 contiguous United States and represents the greatest terrestrial repository of biodiversity on Earth. The Amazon river system contains 20 percent of all the world’s river water and more species of fish than any other river. It has been inhabited for millennia by very sophisticated indigenous tribes, some of which remain uncontacted. Not surprisingly, the Amazon has drawn the attention of scientists and explorers. Thomas Lovejoy presents the highlights of exploration and science from the 1539-1541 expedition of Francisco de Orellana up to the present day.

The Land of Cinnamon and Gold is a Conservation Conversation of The Academy of Science – St. Louis, the Saint Louis Zoo, and the Living Earth Collaborative Center for Biodiversity. Special thanks to co-sponsors the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the American Association of University Women, and the Tuesday Women’s Association of The Ethical Society of St. Louis.

Free and OPEN to ALL. Junior Academy members and middle and high school students are welcome and encouraged to attend. Reservations not required. Parking is free in the Zoo North lot or on the street in Forest Park.

Madagascar: From crisis to conservation opportunity

Featured speaker: Andrea Baden, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College, City University of New York

Andrea Baden is a biological anthropologist with training in behavioral and molecular ecology. Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to answer broad evolutionary questions about lemur adaptation and evolution.Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, is home to more than 12,000 plant and 700 vertebrate species, 80 to 90 percent of which are found nowhere else on Earth. Sadly, much of this biodiversity is currently threatened by human activity, making it among the hottest biodiversity hotspots in the world. In her talk, primatologist and lemur specialist Andrea Baden will describe her recent work with Madagascar’s critically endangered ruffed lemur (Genus Varecia) – an important seed disperser and indicator of rainforest health – and how her results are being used to inform conservation practice in an effort to save them.This lecture is co-sponsored by the Living Earth Collaborative and the STL Zoo.

Free Admission, No reservations needed.

The distinctiveness of disease explanation

The distinctiveness of disease explanation

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Colloquium with Lauren Ross, University of California, Irvine

The philosophical literature on explanation is full of colorful examples from science and ordinary life contexts. These examples include explanatory targets such as: blocks sliding down an incline, eye color of fruit flies, length of a flagpole's shadow, movement of ocean tides, and extinction of the dinosaurs. In much of this literature, disease traits are discussed as a common explanatory target. This is seen in Hempel's discussion of childbed fever and measles (Hempel 1965), Salmon's example of paresis as a symptom of syphilis (Salmon 1984), Kitcher's reflections on Huntington’s disease (Kitcher 2003), and Woodward's discussion of psychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia (Woodward 2010).

Including these biomedical examples in a theoretical analysis of scientific explanation is a welcome move in philosophy. However, while attention to disease examples has the advantage of properly including these cases in analyses of scientific explanation, it has the curious disadvantage of suggesting that disease traits are no different from all other explanatory targets. A main aim of this talk will involve questioning this assumption. In particular, I will explore ways in which disease explanation differs from standard accounts of explanation in philosophy of science. This talk will consider: (i) ways in which disease traits are conceptualized as explanatory targets, (ii) the process in which these targets are explained, and how (i) and (ii) differ from standard scientific explanations in the philosophical literature.

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Virtual Seminar

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar--special virtual summer seminar series featured via Zoom. This week: Emily Davenport of Bose Lab, Taylor Harris of Bart Lab, and Josh Johnson of Kunkel Lab.

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Virtual Seminar

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar--special virtual summer seminar series featured via Zoom. This week: Natasha Bilkey of Dixit Lab and Helen Blaine of Stallings Lab.

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Virtual Seminar

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar--special virtual summer seminar series featured via Zoom. This week: Eric Conners of Bose Lab and Kevin Blake of Dantas Lab.

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Virtual Seminar

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar--special virtual summer seminar series featured via Zoom. This week: Michelle Cho of Topp Lab and Jessie Bullock of Levin Lab.

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Virtual Seminar

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar--special virtual summer seminar series featured via Zoom. This week: Jenna Eschbach of Kutluay Lab and Chris Harper of Blodgett Lab.

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Virtual Seminar

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar--special virtual summer seminar series featured via Zoom. This week: Nastya Onyshchenko of Peterson Lab and Ryan Valdez of Levin Lab.

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Virtual Seminar

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar--special virtual summer seminar series featured via Zoom. This week: Industry Talk by Dr. Larry Gilbertson, Applied Genome Modification Lead at Bayer

Linking Forest Elephants, Galapagos Tortoises and American Bison-Travels in Lilliput and Brobdingnag - Stephen Blake, SLU

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Virtual Adventures in Biodiversity Research Seminar by Stephen Blake, Assistant Professor of Biology, St. Louis University

"Linking Forest Elephants, Galapagos Tortoises and American Bison-Travels in Lilliput and Brobdingnag"

Livestream at the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfLG3SSfA2BlKqb5mnm8-8Q

Effects of climate change on subalpine wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains, and consequences for their pollinators

Tyson Summer Seminar Series featuring David Inouye, University of Maryland, Department of Biology

"Effects of climate change on subalpine wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains, and consequences for their pollinators"

Host: Rachel Penczykowski

For the health and safety of our community, we are live streaming the presentations by our invited speakers on the Tyson YouTube channel. Please join us!

Climate drives the diversification of animal beauty

Tyson Summer Seminar Series livestream featuring Living Earth Collaborative Postdoc Michael Moore

"Climate drives the diversification of animal beauty"

Host: Kim Medley, Director, Tyson Research Center

For the health and safety of our community, we are live streaming the presentations by our invited speakers on the Tyson YouTube channel. Please join us!

Tyson Summer Seminar by Anny Chung

Tyson Summer Seminar Series livestream featuring Anny Chung, Haines Family Assistant Professor of Plant Ecology, Plant Biology, University of Georgia

Host: Mahal Bugay, EEPB Grad Student

For the health and safety of our community, we are live streaming the presentations by our invited speakers on the Tyson YouTube channel. Please join us!

Understanding disease emergence patterns by combining long-term data sets and computational approaches

Tyson Summer Seminar Series livestream featuring Samniqueka Halsey, University of Missouri, School of Natural Resources

"Understanding disease emergence patterns by combining long-term data sets and computational approaches"

Host: Solny Adalsteinsson, PI, Tyson Research Center

For the health and safety of our community, we are live streaming the presentations by our invited speakers on the Tyson YouTube channel. Please join us!

Evolution of brain pathways and genes for vocal learning and spoken language -Erich Jarvis

Biology Department Seminar featuring Erich Jarvis of Rockefeller University.

 

He leads a team of researchers who study the neurobiology of vocal learning, a critical behavioral substrate for spoken language. The animal models he studies include songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds.

This seminar will be virtual, via Zoom. Join us here: https://wustl.zoom.us/j/92203209833

Evolution of a protective symbiont in the honey bee-Irene Garcia Newton

Biology Department Virtual Seminar featuring Irene Garcia Newton, Associate Professor, Indiana University

"Evolution of a protective symbiont in the honey bee"

The Newton Laboratory is broadly interested in host-associated microbes. We study who those microbes are, what those microbes are doing , how they persist and infect and what the consequences are to their genomic evolution. Projects in the laboratory range from highly mechanistic and cell biological to ecological and bioinformatic.

Register for Virtual Seminar here

Sleeping with the Enemy: Getting Rid of Latent Parasites

Biology Department Virtual Seminar featuring William Sullivan, Showalter Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Indiana University School of Medicine

"Sleeping with the Enemy: Getting Rid of Latent Parasites"

Bill Sullivan, PhD has been studying the intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii since he was a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. David Roos at the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. He completed postdoctoral fellowships with Dr. Chuck Smith at ELANCO (a division of Eli Lilly, Co.) from 1998-2000 and Dr. Sherry Queener at the Indiana University School of Medicine from 2000-2002. He became an Assistant Professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine in 2003. Dr. Sullivan is now the Showalter Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology and Microbiology & Immunology at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Register for Zoom seminar here

Effects of ecosystems on disease, and vice versa: Lessons from wild plants and their pathogens

Rachel Penczykowski, Assistant Professor, Washington University

Biology Department Seminar featuring Rachel Penczykowski, Assistant Professor, Washington University

"Effects of ecosystems on disease, and vice versa: Lessons from wild plants and their pathogens"

Register for seminar here

Biological stoichiometry of nutrient limitation in ecology and evolution

Jim Elser, Bierman Professor of Ecology, University of Montana

James Elser is Bierman Professor of Ecology of the University of Montana and since March 2016 has been Director of UM’s Flathead Lake Biological Station at Yellow Bay.  He also holds a part-time research faculty position in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University.  Trained as a limnologist, Dr Elser is best known for his role in developing and testing the theory of ecological stoichiometry, the study of the balance of energy and multiple chemical elements in ecological systems. 

Currently, Dr Elser's research focuses most intensively on Flathead Lake as well as mountain lakes of western Montana and western China. Specific studies involve observational and experimental studies at various scales, including laboratory cultures, short-term field experiments and sustained whole-ecosystem manipulations.  Previous field sites have included the Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario, Canada; lakes of the Arctic and of Patagonia; lakes, forests, and grasslands of the upper Midwest; and desert springs in Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert. 

Register for virtual seminar here

Symbiont Interactions Across Scales

Charles Mitchell, Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 

My research group investigates the community ecology of infectious disease. We study pathogens infecting wild plants, chiefly grasses. Our main current interest is interactions between fungal pathogens and the broader leaf microbiome.

Register for Zoom Seminar here

The MttB superfamily of methyltransferases: combatting agents of heart disease with, or without, the 22nd amino acid

Joseph Krzycki, Professor, Ohio State University, Biochemistry and molecular biology of methanogenic archaea

Register for Zoom seminar here

 

Cell behavior as cellular robotics: understanding and engineering cellular diversity

Scott Coyle, Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Our approach is premised on a back and forth between discovery-oriented systems biology that mines the diversity of the natural world for guiding principles into how behaviors are encoded by cells; synthetic biology that expands this knowledge into motifs and modules with broad, transferable utility; and a molecular machine shop in which we assemble microscale molecular systems from biochemical components in vitro to clarify our understanding from the bottom-up to provide a path forward towards engineering microscale machines and molecular robots.

Register for Zoom seminar here

Tales of Conservation Veterinarian: Tracking Pathogens and their Hosts in Madagascar, South Africa and More-Maris Brenn-White

 

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology, and Population Biology Seminar featuring Maris Brenn-White, Saint Louis Zoo

“Tales of Conservation Veterinarian: Tracking Pathogens and their Hosts in Madagascar, South Africa and More."

We will livestream the presentations at the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel.

The molecular regulation and ecological applications of seasonal responses in mosquitoes-Megan Meuti

Tyson Summer Seminar Series livestream featuring Megan Meuti, The Ohio State University, Department of Entomology

"The molecular regulation and ecological applications of seasonal responses in mosquitoes"

Host: Katie Westby, Postdoc, Tyson Research Center

For the health and safety of our community, we are live streaming the presentations by our invited speakers on the Tyson YouTube channel. Please join us!

Tyson Summer Seminar by Swanne Gordon and Andrés López-Sepulcre

Tyson Summer Seminar Series livestream featuring Swanne Gordon and Andrés López-Sepulcre, Department of Biology, Wash U

For the health and safety of our community, we are live streaming the presentations by our invited speakers on the Tyson YouTube channel. Please join us!

Tyson Summer Seminar by Martha Muñoz

Tyson Summer Seminar Series livestream featuring Martha Muñoz, Yale University, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Host: Michael Moore, Postdoc, Living Earth Collaborative

For the health and safety of our community, we are live streaming the presentations by our invited speakers on the Tyson YouTube channel. Please join us!

Tropical Botanists Still Discover New Plants in the 21st Century, AND in more ways than you think!-Pete Lowry

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology, and Population Biology Seminar featuring Pete Lowry, Missouri Botanical Garden

“Tropical Botanists Still Discover New Plants in the 21st Century, AND in more ways than you think!”

We will livestream the presentations at the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfLG3SSfA2BlKqb5mnm8-8Q

Females that look like hermaphrodites and berries that no one eats: Australia’s prickly bush tomatoes

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Chris Martine, David Burpee Professor in Plant Genetics & Research, Bucknell University

Females that look like hermaphrodites and berries that no one eats: Australia’s prickly bush tomatoes

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/UkGUk7T0gik

Inferring where the wild things were through phylogenetic models of historical biogeography

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring assistant professor Michael Landis

"Inferring where the wild things were through phylogenetic models of historical biogeography"

We will livestream the presentation at the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMhULSGhmug&feature=youtu.be

Bioforum Seminar-Adalee Lube, Wen-Hsi Kuo, Aryeh Miller

Biology Forum Seminar featuring:

Adalee Lube of Carlson Lab: Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity Alters Sensory Network Connectivity

Wen-Hsi Kuo of Olsen Lab: White Clover Cyanogenesis: Dual Benefit or Double-Edged Sword?

Aryeh Miller of Losos Lab: Novel Tests of the Key Innovation Hypothesis: Adhesive Toepads in Arboreal Lizards

Register for Bioforum Seminar

Bioforum Seminar-Nicole Leitner, Yifan Xu, Jenny Shoots

Biology Forum Seminar featuring:

Nicole Leitner of Ben-Shahar Lab: Crossing the midline: The  neurogenetics  of a polymorphic circuit

Yifan Xu of Hengen Lab: Long term computational stability in the brain: criticality and sleep

Jenny (Shoots) Codjoe of Haswell Lab: Connections between mechanosensitive ion channel MSL10 and ER-plasma membrane contact sites

Register for Seminar Here

Bioforum Seminar-Rachappa Balkunde, William Farfan-Rios, and Michelle Liberton

Biology Forum Seminar featuring:

Rachappa Balkunde of Dixit Lab: Novel regulators of Arabidopsis trichome branching

William Farfan-Rios of Myers Lab: Responses to global warming of earth's most diverse tropical forests

Michelle Liberton of Pakrasi Lab: Probing photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation in Cyanothece 51142, a unicellular cyanobacterium

Register for virtual seminar here

How Protecting Wildlife Can Help to Prevent Pandemics

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar featuring David Wang: Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Pathology & Immunology at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine; Lisa Kelley: Director of Saint Louis Zoo, WildCare Institute; Sharon Deem: Director of Saint Louis Zoo, Institute for Conservation Medicine

As the coronavirus pandemic illustrates, the fate of humanity and nature are inextricably linked. COVID-19 is just the latest of several zoonotic diseases to emerge in recent decades as a result of detrimental human-induced environmental changes to the planet, and if we don't change the way we treat nature, it won't be the last. Join our discussion with leading Saint Louis scientists to understand how diseases arise in nature and jump to humans, and what we can do to keep it from happening again. Register for virtual seminar

Ecophysiology meets disease ecology: understanding amphibian disease dynamics in a changing world

Michel Ohmer, Postdoc, LEC

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminar featuring Michel Ohmer, Postdoc, LEC

Ecophysiology meets disease ecology: understanding amphibian disease dynamics in a changing world

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: Watch Livestream

Pollination systems in changing environments: plant-pollinator responses to environmental variability

Matthew Austin, Postdoc, LEC

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Matthew Austin, Postdoc, LEC

Pollination systems in changing environments: plant-pollinator responses to environmental variability

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: Watch Livestream

Divergent mating behaviors as a driver of rapid evolution: sexual selection, reproductive isolation, and eco-evo dynamics

Yusan Yang, Postdoc, LEC

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Yusan Yang, Postdoc, LEC

Divergent mating behaviors as a driver of rapid evolution: sexual selection, reproductive isolation, and eco-evo dynamics

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: Watch Livestream

Heterospory is one of the most important traits of land plants. But, what do we really know about its origin?

Kurt Petersen, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Kurt Petersen, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Heterospory is one of the most important traits of land plants. But, what do we really know about its origin?

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: Watch Livestream

Ornaments, Enemies and Sensory Filters in the Evolution of Communication Systems

Ximena Bernal, Purdue University

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Ximena Bernal, Purdue University

Ornaments, Enemies and Sensory Filters in the Evolution of Communication Systems

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: Watch Livestream

Water in, microbes out: Water in buildings as a model system to study microbial ecology

Fangqiong Ling, Assistant Professor, McKelvey School of Engineering

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Fangqiong Ling, Assistant Professor, McKelvey School of Engineering

Water in, microbes out: Water in buildings as a model system to study microbial ecology

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: Watch Livestream

Do soil organisms matter? Determining the role of soil microbes in rare plant reintroduction & ecosystem restoration

Rachel Becknell, Grad Student, WashU

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Rachel Becknell, Grad Student, WashU

Do soil organisms matter? Determining the role of soil microbes in rare plant reintroduction & ecosystem restoration.

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: Watch Livestream

Microbes to mountains, why dispersal barriers are higher in the tropics

Vince Fasanello, Grad student, WashU

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar featuring Vince Fasanello, Grad student, WashU

Microbes to mountains, why dispersal barriers are higher in the tropics.

We will livestream the presentation on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel: Watch Livestream

Biological Essentialism, HPC Kinds, and the Projectability of Human Categories

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar featuring Jonathan Tsou from Iowa State University

Biological Essentialism, HPC Kinds, and the Projectability of Human Categories

This talk examines the projectability of human categories with reference to psychiatric classifications. I argue that human science classifications (e.g., ‘schizophrenia’) yield projectable inferences when they individuate natural kinds (i.e., HPC kinds) constituted by a set of interacting biological mechanisms. In contrast with Richard Boyd’s (1999) presentation of HPC kinds as non-essentialist kinds, I argue that to yield robust and ampliative projectable inferences, some of the mechanisms underwriting HPC kinds must be intrinsic (i.e., biological) mechanisms. This stance implies that projectable HPC kinds are characterized by a partly intrinsic biological essence (Devitt, 2008, 2010). Against Ian Hacking’s (1995, 1999) argument that human science classifications do not yield projectable inferences because of the instability generated by the looping effects of human kinds, biological kinds remain stable in spite of such classificatory feedback. Hacking’s analysis highlights the ways in which social mechanisms (e.g., imitation of stereotypes, role adoption) can causally influence the expression of mental disorders. I examine—with reference to cross-cultural research on mental disorders, transitory mental disorders, and culture-bound syndromes—the ways in which biological and social mechanisms interact to influence the stability and expression of mental disorders. I conclude that the proper objects of study and classification in psychiatry are biological kinds.

Join Zoom seminar here

A War on Science? The Death of Expertise? Rethinking Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal

Maya Goldenberg, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Guelph

Because vaccine hesitancy has been framed as a problem of public misunderstanding of science, vaccine outreach has focused on educating the misguided publics. Where efforts to change vaccine attitudes have failed, cynicism has bred the harsher view that the publics are anti-science and anti-expertise. Yet research into science and the publics lends strong support to the view that public attitudes regarding scientific claims turn crucially on epistemic trust rather than engagement with science itself. It follows that it is poor trust in the expert sources that engender vaccine hesitancy. This consideration redraws the lines of responsibility, where vaccine hesitancy signals a problem with scientific governance rather than a problem with the wayward publics. In order to improve vaccine communications, we should focus on building that trust rather than educating the misinformed publics or puzzling over the moral and epistemic failings of the publics. Doing this does not discount that public health agencies have the science on their sides. It does mean recognizing that the best science is not enough to ensure public uptake of health  recommendations.  

Contact philosophy@wustl.edu for pre-read papers and Zoom meeting details.

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Picture a Scientist: film screening hosted by the Biology Inclusion Committee

Join the Biology Department for a special screening of Picture a Scientist, a film highlighting female scientists and the endeavor to make science itself more inclusive, equitable, and diverse.

Email gerrity@wustl.edu by Wednesday, 10/21 at 4:00pm to request a viewing link, accessible 10/25—10/27

PICTURE A SCIENTIST chronicles the groundswell of researchers who are writing a new chapter for women scientists. Biologist Nancy Hopkins, chemist Raychelle Burks, and geologist Jane Willenbring lead viewers on a journey deep into their own experiences in the sciences, ranging from brutal harassment to years of subtle slights. Along the way, from cramped laboratories to spectacular field stations, we encounter scientific luminaries - including social scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists - who provide new perspectives on how to make science itself more diverse, equitable, and open to all. 

PICTURE A SCIENTIST was an official selection of the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film’s virtual theatrical run reached 47 theaters across the USA in June 2020, and raised money for two organizations advancing women of color in STEM.

Plant & Microbial Biosciences Seminar-Maria Sorkin, Ginger Johnson

Plant & Microbial Biosciences Seminar featuring Maria Sorkin, Nusinow Lab and Ginger Johnson, Pakrasi Lab

email Jenna Eschbach jeschbach@wustl.edu for Zoom link info

Free Will, Neuroscience, and Social Kind Eliminativism

History & Philosophy of Science & Medicine Virtual Seminar by Manuel Vargas, Professor of Philosophy, University of California-San Diego

A number of scientists have claimed that discoveries in the sciences (neuroscience, biology, psychology, etc.) show that people do not have free will. This talk argues that there are general and principled reasons to doubt such claims, and that we should be skeptical about any easy path from scientific findings to the rejection of free will. The reason is that many statuses and categories that are of interest to us—including concepts like freedom and responsibility—are of a sort that insulates them from being readily overturned by science, even when scientific results put pressure on ordinary understandings of these categories. Acknowledging the complicated relationship between science and these “socially insulated” categories does not show that scientific findings are irrelevant to our understanding of free will and responsibility. More plausibly, what it shows is that philosophy and the sciences (perhaps especially neuroscience) will have to work in tandem.  

 

Contact Sue McKinney for Zoom link

Bioforum: Sam Funderburk, Kyusik Kim, and Mariana Braga

Bioforum seminar featuring:

Sam Funderbunk (Hengen lab) "The representation of sleep spiking activity in rodent brain"

Kyusik Kim (Zaher lab) "Investigating non-canonical translation in S. cerevisiae"

Mariana Braga (Landis Lab) "Reconstructing ancestral ecological networks"

Register for Virtual Seminar Here

Bioforum

Bioforum Seminar featuring:

Joan Garcia-Porta (Botero Lab): How did crows and ravens conquer the world

Rajesh Singh (Bose Lab): Understanding the role of phototrophic extracellular electron uptake in terrestrial carbon cycling at the systems level

Anna Damato (Herzon Lab): Circadian rhythms  in cancer and implications for patients

Register in advance for this meeting

St Louis Area Brain Bee

The St. Louis Area Brain Bee (SLABB) is an annual competition for high school students that tests knowledge in neuroscience. Questions come from Brain Facts, a book produced by the Society for Neuroscience. The winner will complete in the 2021 virtual US national Brain Bee.

Learn more about SLABB at https://sites.wustl.edu/slabb/

Time and location to be decided, stay tuned!

Rethinking Objectivity in Psychiatry: Unmuting Patients in Epistemic Practices

Şerife Tekin, University of Texas at San Antonio

One of the central aims of psychiatry is to identify the properties of mental disorders to enable their diagnosis and treatment. As a branch of both science and medicine, psychiatry draws on a variety of scientific and medical practices to glean information about these properties. These practices include scientific research on mental disorders, such as clinical drug trials for depression treatment, as well as clinical research, such as case studies on treatment resistant depression. The ultimate goal is to develop effective interventions into mental disorders. While the first-person experience and reports of individuals with mental disorders provide unmatched resources for investigating the properties of mental disorders and designing effective interventions, dominant psychiatric frameworks have not systematically included patients in the scientific inquiry. Patient communities are rarely considered “subjects” who produce knowledge. Rather, patients are “objects” of investigation, e.g., when they are recruited for clinical trials. This problematic epistemic exclusion is most evident in the creation/revision process of the Diagnostic and the Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), i.e., the primary classificatory schema used to expand knowledge on mental disorders. From the publication of the DSM-I (1952) to the DSM-5 (2013), patients were never part of the decision-making process. While there were extensive calls to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to include patients and their families in the DSM-5 revision process to make it more democratic, the APA opposed this on epistemic grounds, suggesting patients’ involvement would compromise psychiatry’s commitment to objectivity.

 In this paper, I argue there are epistemic – rather than exclusively social/political – reasons for including individuals with mental disorders in psychiatry’s efforts to identify the properties of mental disorders. In the context of the crisis, controversy, and uncertainty in current mental health research and treatment, individuals with mental disorders can serve as important resources to enhance psychiatric epistemology. I challenge APA’s position by demonstrating the notion of objectivity operant in its reasoning is insufficiently examined. It is reminiscent of positivism which characterizes objectivity as “detached” or “impartial” knowledge. An account of scientific objectivity developed by feminist philosophers is a better fit for psychiatry. As a collective enterprise shaped by a variety of scientific and medical practices that aim to develop effective interventions for mental disorders, psychiatry requires the inclusion of patients’ perspectives if it is to be objective. In what I call the Participatory Intersubjective Objectivity in Psychiatry (PIOP) view, psychiatry represents the activity of an expert community, including those with technical expertise (medical professionals) and those with experience-based expertise (patients). The engagement between different kinds of experts not only allows a diversity of views to go through a process of transformative criticism, enhancing objectivity, but also facilitates the development of effective treatments of mental disorders that will help patients flourish, not just survive.

Wings, Feathers, Flight: The PhyloG2P Approach to Bird Evolution

Scott Edwards, Museum of Comparative Zoology

 

 

 

 

 

Virtual Biology Department Seminar by Scott Edwards, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Curator of Ornithology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology; and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology

Register for Zoom seminar here

Causes, Conditions, and Comparative Trials: Agricultural Experimentation around 1800

Jutta Schickore from Indiana University Bloomington's department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar: "Causes, conditions, comparative trials: Agricultural experimentation around 1800"

This paper is a part of a broader attempt to come to grips with a key ingredient of experimentation, experimental control. I focus on a particular type of control experiment, the comparative trial in agriculture. Agricultural trials have mostly been discussed from the perspective of the development of statistical thinking, and historians have approached them looking for evidence of statistical interpretations of trial outcomes. In my paper, I shift the focus to the methodological principles guiding comparative trial design and their history. I trace how these principles unfolded and took shape in 18th-century discussions about how to make experimental findings more secure. I also show that comparative experiments were introduced in diverse experimental contexts, in agriculture and beyond. Comparative trials were perceived as an extra check on experimental trials when the multitude of circumstances and conditions was particularly complex and difficult to manage.

Email Sue McKinney for zoom link

Environmental Racism and Biodiversity Conservation in St. Louis

Join the Living Earth Collaborative (LEC) and Washington University in St. Louis at 2 PM CST for a virtual panel and discussion

Led by moderator Dr. Zuleyma Tang-Martínez, Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri - St. Louis.  Local leaders and scholars in urban ecology and environmental law will present on the intersection between environmental racism and biodiversity, followed by an open discussion on how to address structural inequalities in research and outreach.

Our panelists include:

Dr. Kelly Lane-deGraaf - Associate Professor and director of the Center for One Health at Fontbonne University

Sebastian Moreno - Ph.D. student at UMass-Amherst studying urban bird biodiversity and community science

Debbie Njai - Board Vice President of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment and founder of Black People Who Hike

Dr. Tara Rocque - Assistant Professor of Practice and Assistant Director of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic at Washington University in St. Louis

The event will stream live on YouTube HERE

I Don’t Like Bananas: Epistemic Injustice and Iatrogenic Harm

Megan Delehanty, University of Calgary

Iatrogenesis refers to the negative or unwanted effects that accompany treatment by medical providers. Things like adverse drug interactions and hospital-acquired infections are iatrogenic effects of treatments that were intended to – and hopefully did – provide some benefit to the patient. In psychiatry, more attention has been paid to iatrogenic effects of medications than to the effects of psychotherapy. As various psychotherapeutic interventions are increasingly shown to have causal efficacy, however, we should expect that they may produce negative effects as well as positive outcomes. I argue that we can understand many of the negative effects of psychiatric interventions in terms of epistemic injustice. In this talk, I will focus on the ways in which forms of silencing arise within therapeutic contexts and on the types of epistemic harm that are produced. 

Email Sue McKinney for zoom link

Experimental organisms, neuron regeneration, and the curious case of the lamprey in the history of the neurosciences, 1870s-present

Kathryn Maxson Jones, Princeton University

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar:

I this talk, I will explore the recurrent roles of lampreys in the history of neurobiology, especially with regards to studies of central nervous system (CNS) regeneration. Three attributes, I shall argue, have bolstered lampreys’ staying powers in the laboratory: their large CNS neurons, which have enabled direct physiological recordings for circuit analyses; their robust CNS regeneration after spinal cord injuries; and their early branching position in the vertebrate phylogeny. Three time periods delineate the talk, corresponding roughly to the three attributes above. From the 1870s to the 1940s, the lamprey’s giant reticulospinal neurons--in conjunction with studies of terrestrial animals more frequently found in physiology, such as cats--helped neurologists, including a young Sigmund Freud, document the very existence of neurons while also characterizing vertebrate CNS anatomy with light microscopy. Then, from the 1950s to the 1970s, biologists characterized anatomical regeneration in the lamprey spinal cord, bolstered by funders such as the US National Institutes of Health hoping to probe the remarkable capacities of this fish next to the limited CNS regeneration observed in most mammals. Finally, since the 1980s, biologists have employed multiple methods to explore functional regeneration in the lamprey CNS, such as recovery of swimming after spinal injuries in tandem with physiological recordings and molecular tools. In these last four decades, biologists have especially leveraged the evolutionary place of lampreys, providing phylogenetic insights into mammals’ regenerative limitations by comparing molecular responses after injury. In each of these periods, however, and building on the three attributes above, neurobiologists have employed lampreys to explore problems of jointly biological and medical relevance, a duality that has stabilized the laboratory utility of this jawless fish. Yet, this work at the nexus of biology and medicine has also promoted studies in comparative perspective, suggesting that “translational” research, including in regenerative medicine, should also be comparative. Through comparison, this history shows, we can maximize insights and applications from the laboratory to the clinic.

Email Sue McKinney for Zoom link

Environmental Justice in the Greater St. Louis Area

Tyson Summer Seminar

Beth Gutzler and Sr. Dolores Sanchez, Metropolitan Congregations United (MCU)

Kentaro Kumanomido, United Congregations Metro East (UCM), Environmental Justice in the Greater St. Louis Area

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

What can we learn from the tropical dry forest — rain forest transition zone?

Tyson Summer Seminar

Catherine Hulshof, Virginia Commonwealth University, Department of Biology

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Urban Evolution from Phenotype to Genotype

Tyson Summer Seminar by Kristen Winchell, Living Earth Collaborative

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Janzen-Connell effects in tropical dry forests: unravelling the interactive effects of drought and soil microbial communities on seedling survival and growth

Tyson Summer Seminar

Camila Pizano, Universidad ICESI, Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Living in the ever-changing litter: a discussion of ant spatial and temporal dynamics

Tyson Summer Seminar

Robin Verble-Pearson, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Ozark Research Field Station

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Silver gulls and scary (bits of) bugs: investigating antimicrobial resistance at the human-wildlife interface

Tyson Summer Seminar

Bethany Hoye, University of Wollongong, Centre for Sustainable Ecosystem Solutions

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

How do we understand a Hurricane like Maria? Insect responses to a large disturbance event in Puerto Rico

Tyson Summer Seminar

Don Yee, The University of Southern Mississippi, School of Biological, Environmental, and Earth Sciences

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Coloring the Conservation Conversation

Tyson Summer Seminar

J. Drew Lanham, Clemson University, Forestry and Environmental Conservation Department

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

New Angles on Gene Function Discovery

Sean Crosson, Rudolph Hugh Endowed Professor, Michigan State University

Biology Department Seminar

While this event will be offered in-person in Rebstock 322 , it will also be presented over Zoom for those who want to attend virtually. Register here:

Join Seminar Virtually

Veterinary science at the forefront of carnivore conservation

Fernando David Nájera Muñoz, St Louis Zoo/Living Earth Collaborative

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Virtual seminar will be broadcast on the Living Earth Collaborative Youtube Channel

Apex predators are rare. As they are at the top trophic level, their ecological roles and ecosystem services collide with a wide range of human interests and conflicts. Nevertheless, large carnivores are necessary for the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem function. Conservation of this taxon requires the efforts of multiple disciplines. Veterinary science occupies a unique niche within conservation programs for these species, and the implementation of this field will unarguably benefit carnivore conservation outcomes. During this presentation, I will go over some documented facts regarding the ecological role of carnivores, their main threats, and finally, two examples of personal experiences to illustrate how veterinarians may contribute to the study and conservation of these species.

The Initiation of Epigenetic Silencing in Plants

Keith Slotkin, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Biology Seminar Series

Bioforum

Biology Forum seminar featuring:

Isha Sharma, Undergrad, Leung Lab (Internal Medicine, WUSM): “Characterization of Marburg virus nucleocapsid assembly”

Evan Mutic, Undergrad, Payton Lab (Pathology & Immunology, WUSM): “Assaying phagocytosis via flow cytometry in Lair1 knock-out and wild-type cells”

Ephraim Oyetunji, Undergrad, Miller Lab (Neurology, WUSM): "Investigating TREM2’s Role in Tau Accumulation using Antisense Oligonucleotides in a Mouse Tauopathy Model"

Bioforum

Biology Forum Seminar

Sarah Beagle, Levin Lab: "Klebsiella pnemoniae response to the Beta-lactam, Mecillinam"
Joshua Johnson, Kunkel Lab: "Investigating Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato strain DC3000's response to IAA"
Josh Coomey, Haswell Lab: "bZIP-ping forward: utilizing mechanotropic transcription factors to identify novel plant mechanosignaling components"

Bioforum

Biology Forum seminar

Hana Zand Karimi, Vierstra Lab: "Plant extracellular RNAs and their function in Host Induced Gene Silencing"
Nicole Leitner, Ben-Shahar Lab: "The neurogenetics of brain complexity in Drosophila: from embryonic segmental modularity to adult segmental specialization along the anterior-posterior brain axis"
Sam Brunwasser, Hengen Lab: "State-dependent network failure in a mouse model of Alzheimer's Disease"

Virtual presentation through Zoom

Bioforum

Biology Forum seminar featuring:

Matasaburo Fukutomi, Grad Student, Carlson Lab: "Signal diversification is associated with corollary discharge evolution in electric fish"

Kyusik Kim, Grad Student, Zaher Lab: "N1-methyl-pseudouridine found within COVID-19 mRNA vaccines produces faithful protein products"

Ricky Illindala, Undergrad, Chheda Lab (Siteman Cancer Center): "Functional characterization of the ZFHX4-CHD4 interaction in glioblastoma cancer stem cell"

Virtual option available: Register here

Limitations and Cautions for the Interpretation of Genome Wide Association Studies and Polygenic Scores: Lessons from Lewontin

Jonathan Kaplan, Oregon State University

History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine lecture

“Though written almost a half-century before the age of massive genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and the related development of polygeneic scores (GPS), several elements of Lewontin’s work remain relevant to thinking about the limitations of GWAS / PGS for discovering causal relationships. Lewontin’s work on population structure points towards why it is so difficult to successfully address problems of population stratification / cryptic population structures in such research. His work on gene-environment interactions point towards why we should not expect associations found in one population to be predictive in others. And his work on the ways in which organisms construct their environments points towards the difficulty of using GWAS / PGS as an entry into developmental biology.”

Towards an Ameliorative Account of Psychiatric Disorder

History & Philosophy of Science & Medicine Seminar-Miriam Solomon, Temple University

The concept of disorder in psychiatry is as elusive as the concept of disease in medicine. Despite many efforts to analyze the history and present usage of the concepts, we still do not have an understanding that helps with resolving difficult cases. Using an example from medicine (migraine) and an example from psychiatry (grief) I will argue that what Sally Haslanger (2005) calls an “ameliorative approach” is more productive than conceptual and descriptive approaches at getting to the heart of what we want these concepts to do. I will take some initial steps towards such an ameliorative account.  

The plant endoplasmic reticulum, making new connections after all these years!

Federica Brandizzi, MSU Foundation Professor, Michigan State University

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN TIME!

THIS SEMINAR WILL BEGIN AT 3:00 PM CST.  (The speaker is in ET.)

Virtual Event Register here for Zoom link

Disease in Freshwater Zooplankton: What have we learned and where are we going?

Carla Cáceres, Director - School of Integrative Biology, Professor - Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior, University of Illinois

Register for Virtual Event HERE

rebstock hall

Annual Varner Lecture: Mechanisms of dynamic and tunable development in plant leaves

Dominique Bergmann, Shirley R. and Leonard W. Ely, Jr. Professor of the School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University

Mechanisms of dynamic and tunable development in plant leaves

Join virtually through zoom here

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Annual Viktor Hamburger Lecture: Cell Types as Building Blocks of Neural Circuits

Joshua Sanes, Jeff C. Tarr Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University

"Cell Types as Building Blocks of Neural Circuits"

Begging for attention: the information content and function of offspring solicitations

Matthew Dugas, Assistant Professor, Illinois State University

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Seminars will be livestreamed on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel. Watch Here

Detrimental Influences: Tracing the Links Between Historical Segregation and Contemporary Inequality in St. Louis

Chris Prener, St. Louis University

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Seminars will be livestreamed on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel. Watch Here

Growing the botanical foundation for crop development: characterizing patterns of variation and covariation in herbaceous perennials

Matthew Rubin, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Seminars will be livestreamed on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel. Watch Here

Adventures in Undergraduate Education: Seeing beyond the wall of green using cross-discipline approaches

Kyra Krakos, Maryville University

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Seminars will be livestreamed on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel. Watch Here

Spring Peeper Program Update: What is happening to three of our smaller spring-breeding frog species in the STL-Metro Area?

Michael Dawson, St. Louis Zoo

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Seminars will be livestreamed on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel. Watch Here

Addressing the Hutchinsonian Shortfall: How can we better characterize the fundamental niche of species?

Adam Smith, Missouri Botanical Garden

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar

Seminars will be livestreamed on the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel. Watch Here

Microbial diversity and eco-evolutionary dynamics: Insights into food safety and human health

Jingqiu Liao, Columbia University

Biology Candidate Seminar

Virtual link Here

Social and environmental factors associated with human microbiome variation: Implications for health and health disparities

Elizabeth K. Mallott, Vanderbilt University

Biology Candidate Seminar

Virtual link here

Green with phenology -- Warmer and brighter cities trick trees into thinking spring arrives earlier

Lin Meng, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Biology Candidate Seminar

Virtual link here

Urban environments and human health inequality: Environmental exposures from the local to the global

Carlye Chaney, Yale University

Biology Candidate Seminar

Virtual Link here

Emotions as Multisensory Perceptions; or, What James Got Right

Jay Odenbaugh, Lewis & Clark University

History & Philosophy of Science and Medicine seminar

Virtual link TBA

Beginning in 1884, William James argued emotions are bodily feelings. However, acceptance of his theory was short-lived due to trenchant criticisms by Walter Cannon (1927) and Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer (1962). In this talk, I first survey this history. Second, I consider the most worrisome objection for James’ theory—bodily feelings are not intentional, but emotions are. That is, emotions seem to be directed towards the world and not our own bodies. Recently, neo-Jamesian Jesse Prinz (2004) has tried to show how emotions both involve bodily feelings and represent features of the world outside us. Third, I argue that his “embodied appraisal” theory fails. Finally, I argue that emotions are multimodal perceptions integrating exteroceptive and interoceptive sources. James was right if only partially so.

"Phytochrome Signaling: Finally Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Dr. Richard Vierstra, George and Charmaine Mallinckrodt Professor of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis

Hybrid seminar. Watch virtually via Zoom HERE

Aaron T. Beck's Chart of Virtues

Rachael Rosner

History & Philosophy of Science and Medicine Seminar

Virtual link here

There are many options in today’s psychotherapeutic marketplace and it can be difficult to know, when seeking treatment, which one is right for you. What are the differences, for instance, between psychoanalysis, psychodynamic therapy, cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based treatment, etc.? If you’re already in therapy how can you identify your particular therapist's approach? This talk will offer a historical-biographical code, of sorts, for making sense of this confusing marketplace. In particular, I’ll be taking a biographical plunge into the father-figure of the cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) movement, Aaron T. Beck, and exploring the roots of his centerpiece psychotherapeutic technology, the “Daily Thought Record" (DTR). The talk will conclude with suggestions for how this backstory of Beck’s DTR can help you make informed decisions about treatment across the board.

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Bioforum

Tina Ruedlin, Chalker Lab; Ivan Radin, Haswell Lab; David Henderson, Myers/Tello Labs

Bioforum Seminar featuring:

Tina Ruedlin, Chalker Lab: Ventral PKA localization and ciliate cell surface patterning

Ivan Radin, Haswell Lab: The secret lives of carnivorous plants

David Henderson, Myers/Tello Labs: Plant community assembly across a tropical biodiversity gradient

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Bioforum

Nikhil Lokesh, Herzog Lab; Fábio K. Mendes, Landis Lab

Bioforum Seminar featuring:

Nikhil Lokesh, Herzog Lab: Using behavioral feedback to infer network connectivity within the mammalian SCN

Fábio K. Mendes, Landis Lab: TBD

If you wish to view via Zoom, here is the link

Locating Black Racial Science

Ayah Nuriddin (Princeton University)

Abstract: For much of the twentieth century, African American physicians, scientists, and activists embraced aspects of eugenics and racial science to make arguments for racial equality. They mobilized what I call black eugenics, which I define as a hereditarian approach to racial uplift that emphasized social reform, public health, and reproductive control as strategies of biological racial improvement. I argue that this engagement and embrace of eugenics was also undergirded by a long history of racial science that relied upon a commitment to beliefs in biological racial differences. African Americans invested in eugenics and racial science sought to disentangle ideas of biological race from racism by using the tools and practices of racial science. They hoped that with rigorous scientific study, they could understand the true nature of biological race and its relationship to their quest for equality. Understanding the true nature of biological race would also contribute to how they imagined the utility of eugenic interventions for improving the biological composition of the race.

Wednesdays with WashU: A Conversation with CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, AB ’91, MD, MPH

Wednesdays with WashU: A Conversation with CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, AB ’91, MD, MPH

Wednesdays with WashU is a webinar series featuring Washington University alumni, faculty, parents, and friends from around the world. 

Feng Sheng Hu, dean of Arts & Sciences, professor of biology and of earth and planetary science, and Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor in Arts & Science will host a discussion with Rochelle P. Walensky, AB ’91, MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The discussion will include Dr. Walensky’s highlights from her current role as the CDC director and how her academic path at Washington University helped prepare her.

Due to anticipated high attendance, Dr. Walensky will only answer presubmitted questions during the presentation. Registered attendees are encouraged to submit questions on the registration form.

 

Register to Receive the Livestream Link

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar

Alumni Speakers: Dr. Erica Thomas (Zaher lab, 2019), Senior Associate | Life Sciences Strategy at Charles River Associates Dr. Jeffrey Cameron (Pakrasi lab, 2011), Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Chief Science Advisor at Prometheus Materials

Hybrid event, email Adrienne Brauer abrauer@wustl.edu for a zoom link

The True and The Helpful: Lessons from Psychotherapy

Sahanika Ratnayake (University of Cambridge)

In recent years, philosophy of psychiatry has moved away from traditional areas of inquiry such as questions of nosology and the demarcation of mental disorder, to more wide ranging debates concerning the relationship between rationality and mental health. For instance, though one might think mental disorders involving delusions, such as schizophrenia, clearly involve failures of epistemic rationality, the work of Lisa Bortolotti demonstrates the difficulty of disambiguating delusions from ordinary beliefs.

I consider a parallel problem in the characterisation of mental illness by one of the most prominent schools of contemporary therapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). CBT describes mental illnesses such as depression in terms of "thinking errors", suggesting that the basis of mental disorder involves familiar epistemic errors such as unwarranted inferences and the holding of inaccurate beliefs. I will begin by demonstrating that CBT's description of mental illness is unsupported by current research, then draw some general lessons not only for questions of mental disorder but philosophical debates concerning rationality more broadly.

Briefly, I shall argue that mental disorders such as depression, if they involve failures of rationality at all, are more likely to involve failures of epistemic rather than practical rationality and that philosophical debates in rationality should reconsider their tendency to assume that epistemic rationality is somehow superior to, or 'trumps' practical rationality

POSTPONED Biotech Explorers Pathway Student Panel
Event Date: TBD

POSTPONED Biotech Explorers Pathway Student Panel

This event has been postponed. We'll be in touch with registrants when we decide on a new date and time. Thank you for your understanding.

Learn more about the exciting connections Biotech Explorers Pathway (BEP) students are finding between the lab and real world. Join us for panel with former BEP students and Professor Joe Jez. Read about senior Gaby Smith's experience in BEP in the Ampersand online or in the latest print edition of the magazine.

One thing leads to another: from zooplankton to global human resource consumption

Tyson Summer Seminar featuring Dave Jenkins, University of Central Florida

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Justice and Healing through Urban Agriculture

Tyson Summer Seminar featuring Nick Speed, Founder and Director of Ujima

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Shedding light on invasive shrubs in eastern deciduous forests

Tyson Summer Seminar featuring Erynn Maynard-Bean, SCS Global Services, Greenhouse Gas Verification Program

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Tyson Summer Seminar

Tyson Summer Seminar featuring Danielle Lee, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Tyson Summer Seminar

Brett Scheffers, University of Florida, Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Owen Sexton Seminar

Tyson Summer Seminar featuring David Reznick, University of California Riverside, Department of Biology

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Mycorrhizal fungi mediate plant species interactions: consequences for forest

Tyson Summer Seminar featuring Camille Delavaux, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Investigating the gut microbial communities of a disease vector across fragmented landscapes

Tyson Summer Seminar featuring Kaylee Arnold, University of Georgia, Odum School of Ecology

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Tyson Summer Seminar

Desirée L. Narango, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Environmental Conservation

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Tyson Undergraduate Fellows Symposium

Every summer, the Tyson Research Center hosts a weekly seminar series with presentations on a variety of environmental topics. The goal of the series is to provide a casual forum for local and national researchers to speak to the St. Louis scientific community and to foster camaraderie and collaboration.

The Seminar Series will also be live-streamed on the Tyson YouTube channel.

Environmental DNA for assessing genetic diversity and species abundance

Kara Andres, Grad Student, Cornell University

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

Precision Human Medicine at the Intersection of Biodiversity Science and Functional Genomics

Paul Hime, McDonnell Genome Institute, Washington University

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

Listening to Locals: Folk Conservation Among Wild Plant Harvesters in Rural Appalachia

Kate Farley, MO Botanical Garden

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

The Relative Roles of Contingency, Determinism, and Stochasticity in the Evolution of West Indian Boas

Graham Reynolds, University of North Carolina Asheville

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

LEC/EEPB Grad Student presentations

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution Ecology & Population Biology seminar

Presentations:

Rhiannon Vargas: Microbiome of dairy farm workers have compositional similarities to that of dairy cows
Justin Baldwin: Avian adaptation to thermal gradients
Sean McHugh: Macroevolutionary Shifts in both Realized and Fundamental Biome Affinities
Ethan Abercrombie: The Effects of Climate Change on Small-mammal Communities in the Sierra Nevada

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

LEC/EEPB Grad Student presentations

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution Ecology & Population Biology seminar

Presentations:

Brock Mashburn: How connected is the globe?: Biogeographic surprises in Hibiscus
Anna Wassel: Why do pawpaws do the things they do? Foundation species' effects on community assembly
Wen Kuo: The genetics of the white mark polymorphism in white clover
Lauren Johnson: Hormones and Behavior in Anolis Lizards

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

Microbial Feedbacks to Climate Change: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Perspectives

Jizhong (Joe) Zhou, University of Oklahoma

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

LEC/EEPB Seminar TBA

Cristy Portales-Reyes, Saint Louis University

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

Bugs and Bugs: Insectivory and the Primate Microbiome

Liz Mallot, Assistant Professor, Washington University in St. Louis

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

Developments in Community-Driven Science: People, Salt, and Mussels

Danelle Haake, National Great Rivers Research and Education Center

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

Native Foods, Native Peoples, Native Pollinators: An Initiative to Support Pollinators, Native Americans and the Environment

Ed Spevak, St. Louis Zoo

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to join virtually can watch the livestream on youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

Helping people help bees: The case for branding pollinator conservation

Gerardo Camilo, Saint Louis University

Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology seminars are hybrid. Those who wish to attend virtually can watch the livestream on Youtube

All presentations are archived on the LEC Channel for watching at a later date: Presentation Archive

NOTE:  Seminars will be presented LIVE in Rebstock 322 as well as Livestreamed. Receptions will be held outside of Bayer Hall.  In the event of inclement weather, they will be held in Rebstock 309.

Big Data and Health

Mike Snyder, Chair, Dept. of Genetics; Director, Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine; Stanford University

Biology Seminar Series

Dr. Snyder received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and proteomics, and one of the major participants of the ENCODE project.

New lessons from old molecules: twists on antibiotic discovery in the genomic age

Joshua Blodgett, Assistant Professor, WashU

Biology Department Seminar

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Cross-cultural inclusion in science: strategies for effective communication across linguistic and cultural differences

Special Biology Inclusion Committee Seminar

The speakers will be Haley Dolosic and Katie Blackburn Brown from the English Language Program.

Biology Seminar featuring Hani Zaher

Hani Zaher, Assistant Professor, Washington University in St. Louis

Title TBA

Seminar will be recorded and link sent to the Biology Department

Biology Seminar featuring Kou-San Ju

Kou-San Ju, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy, The Ohio State University

Title TBA

Seminar will be recorded and link sent to the Biology Department

Building Bacterial Fitness through Secondary Metabolism

Paul Straight, Associate Professor, Biochemistry & Biophysics, Genetics, Texas A&M University

Seminar will be recorded and link sent to the Biology Department

Bioforum

Ethan Abercrombie, Graduate Student in Jonathan Myers’ Lab, presenting: The Effects of Climate Change on Small-mammal Communities in the Sierra Nevada

Hana Zand Karimi, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Rick Vierstra’s Lab , presenting: Extracellular proteasomes: Their functions in plant-pathogen interactions

Jia Gwee, Graduate Student in Xuehua Zhong’s lab, presenting: Mechanism and evolution of chromomethylases for non-CG DNA methylation

Bioforum

Maria Gonzalez will present: Glucocorticoid signaling synchronizes tumor and host circadian rhythms and promotes tumor growth in glioblastoma

Rupal Singh Tomar will present: Structural Localization of PsbR in Photosystem II of Higher Plants

Blake Martin will present: Introducing Project ENABLE: an online resource for Enriching Navajo as a Biology Language for Education

Biology Seminar featuring Stacy Horner

Stacy M. Horner, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology; Associate Professor of Medicine; Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society; Member of the Duke Cancer Institute, Duke University

Title TBA

Seminar will be recorded and link sent to the Biology Department

Biology Seminar featuring Robin Hopkins

Robin Hopkins, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences; Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology; Faculty Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University

Title TBA

Seminar will be recorded and link sent to the Biology Department

Comparative Plant Genomics: Patterns and Processes

Pamela Soltis, Curator, Molecular Systematics & Evolutionary Genetics, Florida Museum of Natural History

Seminar will be recorded and link sent to the Biology Department

“Scientists and students in the Soltis Lab are currently working with a variety of technologies to investigate mechanisms of speciation, evolutionary relationships and character evolution in flowering and land plants at all taxonomic levels.  

Current projects include the study of higher level phylogenetic relationships and character evolution in the angiosperms, floral evolution, the genetic and genomic consequences of polyploidy, conservation genetics of rare plants, phylogeography, and biogeography. Please explore our website for more information on our research.”  https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/soltis-lab/

Antifungal resistance in the plant-associated human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus develops in agricultural environments

Marin Brewer, Professor of Mycology, University of Georgia

Seminar will be recorded and link sent to the Biology Department

Research in [Dr. Brewer’s] lab focuses on understanding the genetic basis of emerging fungal threats to plants and people. We are particularly interested in the evolutionary processes that contribute to population-level diversity, to the formation of new species, and to species diversification. We aim to uncover the genetic basis for differences in pathogenicity, virulence, and host specialization within species and among closely-related species. We want to understand differences between agricultural and natural populations of fungal plant pathogens and how agriculture shapes population structure and diversity. We use population genetics, population genomics, comparative genomics, and molecular phylogenetics to answer our questions.

Other interests include phylogeography, fungal mating systems, and using population genetics to solve epidemiological problems in the field including sources of inoculum, pathogen overwintering mode, populations overcoming host resistance, and the evolution of fungicide resistance.  https://site.caes.uga.edu/mycologylab/

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar

Vivian Kitainda, Jez Lab; Jia Gwee, Zhong Lab

Vivian Kitainda: "Molecular mechanisms behind glucosinolate diversity in Brassica plants."

Jia Gwee: "Mechanism and Evolution of Chromomethylases for Non-CG DNA Methylation"

Hybrid Seminar, email Adrienne Brauer abrauer@wustl.edu  for the link!

Dynamic defense optimization strategies in plants

Ben Mansfeld, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the Donald Danforth Center for Plant Science

“My work investigates the different strategies plants use to navigate the fine line between growth and defense to maximize fitness. I employ and develop various computational and statistical approaches to study how plants defend against pathogens, with an emphasis on understanding the role development, tissue type, and the circadian clock play in susceptibility to disease. I also examine how domestication and selection have impacted these innate adaptations and the implications this has for agriculture.” https://www.benmansfeld.com/

The ecology of hybrid incompatibilities

Ken Thompson, Postdoctoral Scholar, Biology, Stanford University

I am an evolutionary biologist whose research centres around the evolutionary ecology of hybrid organisms. I use a combination of theory, data synthesis, and experiments to work toward identifying general features about how selection acts on hybrids in relevant ecological contexts. The overarching goal of my research is to clarify the importance of ecology-based selection (i.e., ‘extrinsic’) selection against hybrids for speciation, and identify the genetic mechanisms through which it acts.  Hybrid ecology

Spatial Biology to Study Meristem Development in Duckweed and Plant-Microbe Interactions

Kevin Cox, Postdoc, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

The impact of recombination on Microbial species

Louis-Marie Bobay, Assistant Professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro

The Bobay Lab focuses on the evolution of microbial genomes and populations. We apply and develop computational approaches to elucidate the forces that shape the architecture and gene repertoire of microbial genomes. We are particularly interested in understanding the impact of population dynamics on microbial evolution. We are working on the evolution of gene flow across bacterial populations and on the processes leading to microbial speciation.  https://biology.uncg.edu/people/louis-marie-bobay-2/  https://louismariebobay.wixsite.com/bobaylab

A genomic ecosystem of transposable elements in maize

Michelle Stitzer, Postdoc, Cornell University

Stitzer is a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, working with Cedric Feschotte and Ed Buckler. She graduated from the Population Biology Graduate Group at UC Davis with a PhD in 2019, where she worked with Jeff Ross-Ibarra in the Department of Evolution and Ecology.

"I am interested in the evolutionary forces acting on and enacted by transposable elements in plant genomes. Most of my work involves the genus Zea, which includes maize and wild relatives collectively called teosintes. Transposable elements were first discovered in maize, due to the dramatic and unexpected spots and speckles they caused on kernels when they jumped in and out of anthocyanin genes during development. Although the extent of transposable elements was unknown upon their discovery, now, DNA derived from transposable elements is known to make up 85% of the maize genome. How do these exceptional mutagens persist? What forms of regulation and cooperation have evolved between transposon and host? Between different kinds of transposable elements? How can knowledge of these interactions be leveraged in agricultural systems?" LEARN more

Ecology and evolution of host-associated microbes

Kasie Raymann, Bernard-Glickman Dean's Professor, Assistant Professor, and Associate Director of Graduate Studies at University of North Carolina Greensboro

“As an evolutionary biologist, my broad interest is in understanding how microbes evolve and adapt as populations and communities. My research has addressed microbial evolution both at the broad-scale (e.g. ancient evolutionary relationships) and fine-scale (e.g. microbial community response to perturbation). Currently, my lab uses the honeybee, an important agricultural and environmental pollinator, as a model system to study the evolution and dynamics of host-associated microbial communities. In particular, we are interested in understanding how chemical and environmental perturbations impact the population dynamics of the honeybee gut microbial communities and how these perturbations impact honeybee health. It is well known that perturbed communities can lead to infection by several pathogens, including opportunists, but the processes of how perturbation facilitates invasion remain elusive. Our research involves investigating how microbial community imbalance and within-host evolution influences pathogen susceptibility, what role resident microbes play in protecting their host, and how and when opportunistic pathogens become virulent.”  https://biology.uncg.edu/people/kasie-raymann/  https://kraymann86.wixsite.com/raymannlab

Phylogenomic methods for evolutionary mechanisms in free-living and parasitic plants

Liming Cai, Stengl-Wyer Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Integrative Biology at University of Texas at Austin

I am a systematic biologist broadly interested in the study of phylogenetics and evolutionary genomics. My research integrates fieldwork, museum/herbaria collections, and genomic analysis to characterize the patterns and drivers of biodiversity. I am trained as a botanist but I love thinking about insects as well.

​I am currently a Stengl-Wyer Postdoctoral Scholar at UT Austin. My current research is focused on the mito-nuclear co-evolution of parasitic plants. I am co-advised by Dr. Robert K Jansen and Dr. Justin C Havird. Before I came to UT, I did my PhD in the Davis Lab at Harvard University with lots of support from the Edwards Lab and the Pierce Lab. I also worked shortly on plant-insect interaction as a postdoc at UC Riverside during 2020-2021.  https://lmcai.weebly.com/

Plant evolution at different phylogenetic, temporal, and spatial scales

Felipe Zapata, Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA

Our work addresses questions about the evolutionary processes that generate biological diversity at multiple phylogenetic, spatial, temporal, and phenotypic scales. We focus on flowering plants, but we occasionally work with other organisms. Most of our projects are based in the Neotropics, California, and Hawaii.  https://www.zapatalab.org/home

Living Earth Collaborative Seminar

Biology Graduate Students (Sarah Swiston, Shreenidhi Perukkaranai Madabhushi, Wen-Hsi Kuo, Jhan Salazar)

We will livestream the presentations on Thursdays at 4:00 p.m.
at the Living Earth Collaborative YouTube Channel

Sarah Swiston: How the environment shapes diversification and dispersal: a feature-informed phylogenetic method of historical biogeography (+ Lizards!)
Shreenidhi Perukkaranai Madabhushi: Strategies for predation in the social amoeba, Dictyostelium discoideum
Wen-Hsi Kuo: Gene copy number variation and local adaptation in clover
Jhan Salazar: Once upon a time in Colombia: evolution and ecology of thermal physiology in the Andes

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar

Brian Gallagher, Bose Lab; Cynthia Lee, Kunkel Lab

Hybrid seminar, contact Adrienne Brauer for a Zoom link

Brian Gallagher: Characterizing the carbon sequestration of freshwater wetland microbiomes using a multi-omics approach

Cynthia Lee: PmeR, a TetR-like transcriptional repressor, mediates auxin responsiveness in Pseudomonas syringae  pv. tomato strain DC3000

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar

Adrienne Brauer, Levin Lab; Katherine Benza, Dixit Lab

Hybrid seminar, contact Adrienne Brauer for a Zoom link

Adrienne Brauer: The role of trehalose in the nutrient stress response Cytoplasmic Condensation in E. coli

Katherine Benza: Investigating the function and mechanism behind host cytoskeletal restructuring upon colonization by arbsucular mycorrhizal fungi

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar

Huy Le, Zhong Lab; Alex Liu, Topp Lab

Hybrid seminar, contact Adrienne Brauer for a Zoom link

Huy Le: Dissecting the role of epigenetic regulations in plant immune response

Alex Liu: root architecture genetics in Maize

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar

Kristen Edgeworth, Nusinow Lab; Stefanie King, Nusinow Lab

Hybrid seminar, contact Adrienne Brauer for a Zoom link

Kristen Edgeworth: The circadian regulation of DGAT1 in nitrogen-starved Arabidopsis

Stefanie King: Investigating the role of cold-responsive proteins in the Arabidopsis circadian clock

Transcriptional dynamics underlying cell fate specification in the Arabidopsis root

Rachel Shahan, Postdoctoral Researcher, Duke University

It’s all about communication: how bacteria coordinate their life cycles

Paola Mera, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, University of IL-Urbana-Champaign

In the Mera Lab, we are passionate about bacteria, particularly as it relates to the sophisticated molecular choreography that guides their growth. We combine bacterial genetics, biochemistry, and high-resolution imaging in order to examine the progression of the cell cycle at the molecular and cellular level. In order to best accomplish our goals, we use the genetically tractable bacterium Caulobacter crescentus whose cell cycle can be easily synchronized to enable fine temporal resolution of each cell cycle event. Our work has also expanded to include Helicobacter pylori, the causative agent of peptic ulcers and strongest risk factor for the majority of gastric cancers.  https://mcb.illinois.edu/directory/profile/pmera

Membrane remodeling in plant cellular trafficking and protein degradation

Marisa Otegui, Professor of Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Understanding the Sources of Regenerative Capacities in Animals

Annual Viktor Hamburger Lecture: Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer, Stowers Institute for Medical Research

Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado is a molecular biologist, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and executive director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. The Sánchez Alvarado Laboratory focuses on understanding the regenerative capabilities of the planarian flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea.

The 41st annual Hamburger Lecture will be given at 4:00 PM on March 20 in Rebstock 215 by Dr. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Executive Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Stowers Institute in Kansas City Missouri.  The title of his talk is "Understanding the sources of regenerative capacities in animals".  Dr. Sánchez Alvarado is a leading light in animal regeneration; his focus is on a classical system, the extraordinary regenerative abilities of planaria.  His group has identified many genes required for regeneration, clarified the roles played by both differentiated cells and different classes of pluripotent stem cells in regeneration, addressed why some organisms display extensive regenerative abilities while other forms do not, and defined similarities and differences between regeneration and normal development.  Dr. Sánchez Alvarado's talk will be a very exciting one.  A reception will follow.

What Phenotypes Matter? Open Challenges in Plant Phenomics with PlantCV

Malia Gehan, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

The Gehan lab focuses on mining natural variation for improved resistance to temperature stress, which will help to improve crops, and move towards answering how plants perceive temperature. To measure natural variation in temperature stress resistance, the Gehan lab develops computational tools that can quickly and accurately measure plant traits (phenotype) over time.

Genomics of adaptation and speciation in emerging model clades

Andreas (Andi) Kautt, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University

I am an evolutionary biologist interested in the mechanisms and conditions driving (or constraining) the evolution of biological diversity. Like most evolutionary biologists I am fascinated not only by the “how”, but also the “why” questions. For example, why are there ~350,000 species of beetles and only ~4,500 species of mammals? That might not be a fair comparison, but why is approximately every 30th species of vertebrate a cichlid fish? Beyond that, why do some lineages of cichlid fishes (e.g., Midas cichlids in Nicaragua) diversify so rapidly, while other closely related lineages of cichlids in the same area do not? Understanding why certain lineages diversify much faster than others, and how, are some of the ultimate questions to which I hope to contribute.

Driven by this main motivation, during the last couple of years I have become very interested in the evolution of behaviors. Behavioral traits are arguably often just as important as morphological and physiological traits for adaptation and speciation, but have been –mostly for pragmatic reasons– much less studied in this context. Given their importance and due to the tremendous recent progress in our ability to robustly quantify and dissect behaviors, investigating the genetic and neural bases that contribute to heritable variation in behaviors has become a key objective in my research interests over the years. Deer mice of the genus Peromyscus are an excellent system to study the evolution of behaviors. To learn more, check out my Research.  https://akautt.github.io/

The spatiotemporal choreography of another development at the single-cell level

Blaine Marchant, National Science Foundation Plant Genome Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University

I am a National Science Foundation Plant Genome Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow working in the Walbot Lab at Stanford University on maize anther development. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Florida in the Soltis Lab in the Department of Biology and Florida Museum of Natural History. I study plant reproductive biology and evolution.  https://dbmarchant.squarespace.com/

We are studying 90 hours of early anther development in maize (Zea mays L., “corn”) to elucidate the signaling networks that regulate cell type acquisition and maintenance within anther locules. The question: Without a germ line, how do cells in plants switch from mitosis to meiosis?  https://web.stanford.edu/~walbot/

Adaptation to extreme environments: lessons from Arabidopsis natural populations

Angela Hancock, Max Planck Research Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research

Our group is broadly interested in understanding how complex traits evolve. We integrate computational approaches with lab-based experimental work to identify the loci involved in quantitative trait variation and to reconstruct the evolutionary histories of these traits. Work in the lab involves population genetic inference and modeling, trait mapping (GWAS, phylo-GWAS and mapping in recombinant populations), and functional molecular genetics.  https://www.mpipz.mpg.de/hancock

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Twice as Hard: book release event by Jasmine Brown

Jasmine Brown will give a presentation about her recently published book Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians from the Civil War to the 21st Century

Black women physicians’ stories have gone untold for far too long, leaving gaping holes in American medical history, in women’s history, and in black history. It’s time to set the record straight! Join author and WashU alum Jasmine Brown ’18 in presenting the release of her newly published book Twice as hard: The stories of black women who fought to become physicians, from the civil war to the 21st century. Jasmine will perform select readings from her book followed by a Q and A with the audience. Attendees will be entered into a raffle to win a free signed copy of this critically acclaimed book.

Read more about Brown's book in this article

This event is brought to you by the Biology Inclusion Committee

Bioforum

Bria Metzger, James McGregor, Margaret Steele

Bria Metzger, Özpolat Lab: The cost and payout of age on germline regeneration and sexual maturation in Platynereis dumerilii.

James McGregor, Hengen Lab: Disruptions of neuronal network dynamics in a mouse model of neurodegeneration

Margaret Steele, Strassmann/Queller Lab: Predation-resistant Pseudomonas bacteria engage in symbiont-like behavior with Dictyostelium discoideum

Bioforum

Nicole Leitner, Susanne Renner, Sarah Anderson

Nicole Leitner, Ben-Shahar Lab: TBA

Susanne Renner: What’s the ancestral chromosome number of the flowering plants?

Sarah Anderson, Levin Lab: TBA

De-stress with Dogs

The Biology of Dog Breeds class is hosting a casual “de-stressing” opportunity.

This follows a tradition started by Vice Provost Jen Smith when she was Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences.

Everyone is welcome to come meet, pet, and even brush some of your favorite campus dogs, including:

Finn, a Westie from Biology
Bear and Brookie, the WUPD dogs
Juniper and Elgar, St. Bernards from Philosophy Pepper
a Greyhound from Anthropology Rosa
a Bernese from Biology Lucy
a Labrador from Romance Languages Piper
a Chihuahua from Brown School Gracie
a Boykin Spaniel from Biology Bailey
a Doodle from Environmental Studies Juneau
a Great Pyrenees from Earth and Planetary
Danny the Chancellor’s French Bulldog

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Annual Spector Prize Seminar

Spector Prize winner will give a thesis presentation

Title and winner TBA

Phylogenetic methods to model spatial evolution

Assistant Professor Michael Landis will give a talk about his research

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Crisscross regulation of epi-transcriptome and microRNA production

Xiuren Zhang, Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Molecular & Environmental Plant Sciences, Texas A&M University

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Unraveling lanthanide biochemistry to describe lanthanide's role in biology

N. Cecilia Martinez-Gomez, Assistant Professor, Plant & Microbial Biology, University of California-Berkeley

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Predator-prey ecology within bacterial communities at cellular resolution

Carey Nadell, Associate Professor of Biology, Dartmouth

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

No end in sight, mysteries of the telomeric variation in plants

Jae Young Choi, Assistant Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Understanding Brain Cell Type Diversity

Hongkui Zeng, Executive Vice President, Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science

Reception to follow in Biology Commons, Life Sciences 201

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Effects of global environmental change on biodiversity and phenology

Daijiang Li, Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Evolution of learned behaviors: insights from birds and humans

Nicole Creanza, Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Plant community assembly and ecosystem functioning across spatial scales

Jonathan Myers, Associate Professor, WashU

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Ecological tuning of animal behavior and physiology

Lauren A. O'Connell, Assistant Professor of Biology, Stanford University

Reception to follow in Rebstock 309

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Aerobic respiration and processing across stream ecosystems

Jancoba Dorley, National Great Rivers Research and Education Center

We will no longer be hosting a live YouTube channel, instead a zoom recording of the talk will be posted after the seminar.

Biology Department Seminar

Tessa Burch-Smith, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

TBA

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Endowment.

Tom Radomski, Washington University – Tyson Research Center

Tom Radomski, Washington University – Tyson Research Center

We will no longer be hosting a live YouTube channel, instead a zoom recording of the talk will be posted after the seminar.

The microbiome and conservation translocations; an example of endangered greater sage-grouse in managed care

Emma Vaasjo, Saint Louis Zoo

We will no longer be hosting a live YouTube channel, instead a zoom recording of the talk will be posted after the seminar.

Bioforum Undergrad Seminar

Bioforum featuring undergraduate researchers in the Biology Department

Speakers:

Jaimie Lin (Penczykowski Lab): Increased trichome branching as a defense against herbivores

Alayna Mickles (Vierstra Lab):  Synthesis to Structure: Exploring the Cyanobacterial Phytochrome of Synechococcus sp. OS-B’

Varun Sinha (Hengen Lab): Knocking out homeostatic plasticity inhibits visually-driven insect prey capture

The Science of Cats and the Future of Nature with Jonathan Losos

The Science of Cats and the Future of Nature with Jonathan Losos

Jonathan Losos, the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor and director of the Living Earth Collaborative

Explore the secret life of cats! Join us for this event co-hosted by the WashU Alumni Association and Arts & Sciences.

The domestic cat—your cat—has, from its evolutionary origins in Africa, been transformed in comparatively little time into one of the most successful and diverse species on the planet. Learn why Jonathan Losos, the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor and director of the Living Earth Collaborative, is teaching a course on cats and how this work relates to the university’s efforts to conserve biodiversity and sustain life on Earth. In his presentation, Losos offers key revelations from his recent book, "The Cat's Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa," and explores how scientists are using all the cutting-edge tools of biodiversity science (GPS tracking, genomics, forensic archaeology) to understand where cats came from, why they do what they do, and what the future may hold.

All are welcome at this free lecture and post-event reception celebrating the Power of Arts & Sciences.


Introduction by Feng Sheng Hu, the Richard G. Engelsmann Dean of Arts & Sciences and Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor

Presentation by Jonathan Losos, followed by Q&A and post-event reception

This event will be held in person and livestreamed.

Learn more about previous and upcoming Power of Arts & Sciences events.

REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT

 

Coordination of hippocampal codes for physical and visual space in food-caching birds

Hannah Payne, Columbia University

Biology Candidate Seminar

Biology Department Seminar-Michael D. L. Johnson, TBA

Michael D. L. Johnson, Associate Professor, Immunobiology, the University of Arizona

Talk TBA

Clock genes constrain homeostatic plasticity

Sacha Nelson, Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Life Science, Brandeis University

Biology Department Seminar

Determining Gonadal Sex

Blanche Capel, James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology, Duke University

Biology Deparment Seminar

Biology Department Seminar-Armando Bravo, TBA

Armando Bravo, Assistant Member, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Talk TBA

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Annual Varner Lecture: "Healthy plants; healthy people - fortifying vitamins and phytonutrients in tomato"

Cathie Martin, Professor, John Innes Centre

A neural substrate of sex-dependent modulation of motivation

Julia Cox, Northwestern University

Biology Candidate Seminar

Just Add Water: Structure and Function of Tropical Dry Forests

Jennifer Powers, University of Minnesota

Kemper Faculty Search Seminar

Tropical diversification: a multi-biome approach

Toby Pennington, University of Exeter and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburg

Biology Department Seminar

The heart-brain balancing act: The function and development of motor and sensory circuits for cardiac feedback control

Luis Hernandez Nunez, Harvard

Biology Department Seminar via Zoom

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar

Lily O'Connor, Meyers Lab

Defining the gene regulatory network of bHLH122 in maize anther development

Plant and Microbial Biosciences Seminar

Cynthia Lee, Kunkel Lab

TBA

Aidan Flynn, Holehouse Lab

On the premise of orthogonality in condensate synthetic biology

Dynamic neural representations in the hippocampus during flexible navigation

P. Dylan Rich, Princeton University