Category Archives: Biology

Biology

Dickson Emeriti Professorships awarded to faculty in music, theater … – University of California, Santa Cruz

Three UC Santa Cruz faculty members have been honored with Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professorship Awards for the 202324 academic year.

Kathy Foley, distinguished professor emerita of theater arts, Edward Houghton, professor emeritus of music and former dean of the Arts Division, and Susan Strome, distinguished professor emerita of molecular, cell, and developmental biology, were awarded the Dickson Emeriti Professorships to acknowledge and support their ongoing activities in public service, research, creative works, and teaching.

The awards are given annually and funded by an endowment from the estate of former UC Regent Edward A. Dickson. The professorships make it possible for the university to retain the invaluable services of highly accomplished, retired faculty members for the benefit of its students.

Foley will use the Dickson award to initiate a new research project to study the history and influence of an important San Francisco arts program, founded in 1963 as the American Society for Eastern Arts (ASEA) and later known as the Center for World Music (CWM). The influential program allowed many Americans to study Asian and other performance genres with master artists, primarily of Indonesian and Indian traditions of music, dance, and theater, but also of Japanese, Korean, and African traditions.

ASEA and CWM led to significant globalization of artistic resources tapped by contemporary American artists, dancers, and musicians in creative work and university teaching. Foleys research will include studying their archives, which are currently split between San Diego, where CWM moved its headquarters in 1979, and the University of Illinois. She will spend time in San Francisco interviewing and visiting studios of the many alumni of the Center for World Music who still live there, and she will study the centers links to Indian and Indonesian dance and music programs at Wesleyan University and other institutions.

Houghton has spent decades transcribing into modern musical notation the 40 works from the Chigi Codex, a rare illuminated manuscript containing musical masterworks from the late 15th century. The Dickson award will provide support for publication of the transcriptions along with critical commentary on each work, concordant sources, and a historical study of the manuscript and its art. This work will be published by the University of Chicago Press in its Monuments of Renaissance Music series.

The award will also provide support for a concert of works from the Chigi Codex at the international Herrenchiemsee Festival in Bavaria, Germany, on July 19, 2023, and for Houghton to give a presentation on the Chigi Codex at the international Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference in Munich, Germany, July 24-28, 2023.

Strome is active in efforts to support and empower women leaders in STEM and will use the Dickson award to provide partial funding for two CoRE workshops. CoRE (Community of Replenishment & Empowerment) is a group of women supporting women, whose mission is to support, revitalize, empower, and promote networking of women in academia through structured multi-day workshops. Strome is organizing two CoRE workshops, each involving 10 women in positions of leadership in STEM and two facilitators.

CoRE (previously called Nags Heart) has offered over 100 workshops to over 500 participants using a well-honed format involving intensive work sessions during which each participant discusses a dilemma of personal importance and strategizes with the rest of the group on approaches and solutions. The workshops also include unstructured time to relax, enjoy each others company, share communal meals, and continue discussions, as well as a closing ceremony for participants to share final thoughts and feelings. Stromes workshops aim to support and empower the participants and to improve the recruitment, retention, and success of many more women faculty in the participants circles of influence.

A call for the Dickson Emeriti Professorship Award is sent out to all eligible emeriti faculty early in the Fall quarter. The deadline for submission of applications is early in the winter quarter and one to three awardees are announced each spring, usually at the Emeriti Association Luncheon with the Chancellor. Additional information is available on the Dickson Professorship website.

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Dickson Emeriti Professorships awarded to faculty in music, theater ... - University of California, Santa Cruz

Biology

Synthetic Biology Market Size to Worth Around USD 85.64 BN by 2032 – GlobeNewswire

Ottawa, May 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to Precedence Research, the global synthetic biology market size was accounted at USD 14.90 billion in 2022. Synthetic Biology is a discipline of research that combines biology with different fields of engineering like electrical, mechanical, mathematical, and computer engineering to design and develop new biological systems that perform functions not found in nature. Synthetic biology is widely employed in healthcare to improve diagnosis and provide better treatment choices for various disorders.

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A wide range of synthetic biology applications, increased R&D funding and developing activities in synthetic biology, reduced prices of DNA synthesis and DNA sequencing, and rising market investments are all factors favoring market expansion. However, questions about biosafety, biosecurity, and ethics in synthetic biology may hinder growth.

By utilizing engineering methodologies based on a range of information types (genomic sequences, enzyme properties, sequence annotations, laboratory protocols, metabolic models, algorithms, and scientific knowledge), synthetic biology solutions have the potential to change the creation and production of medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics.

Vaccine technologies based on DNA and mRNA, for example, can make vaccine development and production more accessible. These vaccines comprise strands of synthetic nucleotides that induce protein creation in the recipient's cells, causing an immune system response. The availability of viral sequencing data allows for the rapid development of vaccination candidates, allowing companies like Inovio Pharmaceuticals and Moderna to proceed quickly into clinical development.

Regional Snapshot

North America held the dominating share of the global synthetic biology market. The growth of the market is attributed to increased demand for bio-based goods, significant investments in firms and rising research and development activities for the advancements of synthetic biology industry.

The United States makes significant contributions to research in the disciplines of genomics, proteomics structure prediction, and drug discovery, as well as in the region soon, encouraging the expansion of the market for synthetic biology. Various research institutes and universities have received funding from governmental organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and private organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the development of DNA sequencing and biological components, various bioinformatics, and devices of integrated systems that can be widely used in healthcare and other applications.

Europe, being the second largest market for synthetic biology is likely to witness considerable growth in the future due to increased research and development investments, favourable government initiatives, and rising demand for environmentally friendly products. Europe's key markets are the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, fuelled by premier biotech businesses and research institutions.

Report Highlights

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Scope of the report

Market Dynamics

Driver

Synthetic biotechnology's expanding range of applications

The covid-19 pandemic developed the application of synthetic biology in the development of coronavirus testing kits, medicines, treatments, vaccinations, and other medications. Similarly, as more extreme weather events kill crops, there is a growing need to apply synthetic biology to generate more climate-resilient yields. The growing threat of viruses, pollution, and climate change catastrophe has increased synthetic biology research and development financing. The financial increase will be used to investigate the potential applications of synthetic biotechnology in agriculture, medicine, life sciences, and industrial applications such as biofuels, green chemicals, and other energy applications. The ability of synthetic biology to mimic the properties of critical materials and chemicals without their environmental consequences has expanded its popularity in various businesses seeking to lower their carbon footprints to avoid further global temperature rise. As a result, growing R&D in synthetic biology is broadening the spectrum of its applications, driving the market.

Restraint

Concerns with ethics

The precise cause of coronavirus is unknown. Several medical organizations, however, cite the virus seeping from a research laboratory as one of the likely culprits. Because synthetic biology incorporates natural species, especially microbes, there is a considerable risk of genetically changed or modified organisms seeping into the environment and wreaking havoc. They can mutate and infect individuals and inflict environmental devastation or destruction. The overuse of synthetic biology must be curtailed with appropriate regulatory measures. However, a lack of knowledge, regulation, and international cooperation in the field of Synthetic will result in abuse of its applications, with long-term consequences for humanity and the environment. These repercussions are known to a few international bodies and scientific communities. They have supported initiatives that investigate the ethical aspects of the sector of synthetic biology, limiting the market's growth.

Opportunity

Growing climate concern

Overexploitation of natural resources, particularly fossil fuels, has created scarcity in the modern world. Overusing these fossil fuels has resulted in carbon emissions that exceed nature's absorption capability. The imbalance has caused global temperatures to rise, resulting in disastrous effects that the population is currently experiencing in storms, heat waves, and floods. The crude oil or conventional petroleum and gas utilized in practically every economy is a crucial contributor to the climate change challenge. As a result, a rush of investments and initiatives to create biofuels as a replacement is being witnessed worldwide to prevent further environmental devastation. Given the increasing demand for biofuels, the international synthetic biology market will see profitable expansion in the future.

Challenge

Inadequate infrastructure

The synthetic biology business is doing well in high-income economies because private and public investment provides the considerable capital required for biofuels, biochemicals, and other materials research and development. However, low- and middle-income nations need more infrastructure to investigate the potential applications of synthetic biology. A lack of infrastructure increases the possibility of illnesses or dangerous organisms escaping into the environment. The country's chances of innovating a life sciences subject are further diminished by the country's increasingly limited budget for research and development. As a result, the market's growth will be hampered by a lack of infrastructure.

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Synthetic Biology Market Size to Worth Around USD 85.64 BN by 2032 - GlobeNewswire

Biology

Penn State biologist honored by Society for the Study of Evolution – Pennsylvania State University

UNIVERSITY Park, Sarah Bordenstein, associate research professor of biology and entomology at Penn State, has been awarded the 2023 T. H. Huxley Award from the Education and Outreach Committee of the Society for the Study of Evolution. The award recognizes and promotes the development of high-quality evolution education resources and provides funds for the awardee to present at the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) annual conference.

Bordenstein is an expert in microbial ecology, genomics, and science education and a member of the Penn State One Health Microbiome Center. In her research, she uses quantitative and computational genomic analyses to study the lifecycle and genome dynamics of the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis which lives within the cells of about half the worlds arthropods, including insects, spiders, mites, and crustaceans and a virus that can infect the bacteria. Wolbachias ability to manipulate arthropod reproduction and inhibit RNA viral replication makes it a promising vector control tool in the fight against mosquito-borne diseases and an intriguing topic for student research.

Bordenstein was recognized for her work as director of "Discover the Microbes Within! The Wolbachia Project." During this activity, students and citizen scientists take part in evolutionary problem solving around the identity of insects and the microbes that live inside them. Participants engage in real-world research, exploring their own questions using DNA sequence data from samples they collect.

I am thrilled to be recognized by the Society for the Study of Evolution because it highlights our commitment to make the study of genetics, evolution and symbiosis accessible to all audiences, said Bordenstein. All of our curriculum is available online through a creative-commons license, and we provide free training and resources for teachers to easily incorporate the project into their classrooms.

The Wolbachia Project is an immersive lab experience that integrates concepts from biodiversity, biotechnology and bioinformatics. Participants identify arthropod species in their local community; isolate DNA to discover if the arthropods are infected with Wolbachia bacterial symbionts; examine DNA sequences to determine the relatedness of these Wolbachia strains to other sequences in the national genetic database; publish their results in the Wolbachia Project Database; and communicate their findings to the scientific community.

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Penn State biologist honored by Society for the Study of Evolution - Pennsylvania State University

Biology

Biology Professor Susan Bailey Awarded Nearly $800,000 NSF … – Clarkson University News

Susan Bailey, an assistant professor of Biology at Clarkson University, has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for her research aimed at understanding how microbes evolve in complex environments. The $798,662 grant, which began on May 1, will last five years.

CAREER awards are the NSFs most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty and are awarded to pre-tenure faculty who have shown potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

Baileys award is the first of its kind to be awarded in Clarksons Biology Department. The funded project, titled The effects of spatial structure and heterogeneity on local adaptation, diversification, and dispersal evolution: Experimental tests and statistical models, will support both research and educational outreach.

Most species live in complex and variable environments, and so understanding how that complexity might impact evolution is really important - but also difficult! Funding from this award will allow my research group to take a close look at the ways in which a complex environment can impact evolution by using controlled experiments with bacteria in the lab, as well as statistical models that focus on patterns of DNA sequence change, Bailey said. In the long term, our work has a number of important applications outside of the lab, including the potential for better predictions of future changes in rapidly evolving pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2.

This award will provide support for both graduate and undergraduate students to do research in Baileys lab and will also allow for the development of related educational resources in evolution and bioinformatics to be used in biology courses at Clarkson, as well as a planned high school enrichment course through Clarksons Project Challenge.

Im very excited to be given this opportunity by NSF to do this important work. I look forward to growing my research program, while supporting students at Clarkson and within the community over the next five years, Bailey said.

The award abstract can be found at nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2239197.

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Biology Professor Susan Bailey Awarded Nearly $800,000 NSF ... - Clarkson University News

Biology

Biology students win annual awards – The Source – Washington University in St. Louis

The Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis has named the student winners of its annual awards.

New this year is an award established in honor of Garland E. Allen III, a renowned science historian who advocated for racial and gender equality in the biological sciences. The Allen Prize was established this year to honor the work and memory of Allen, a professor emeritus who died in February, and is awarded to a graduating senior biology major who has made significant efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion.

The 2023 biology award winners include:

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Biology students win annual awards - The Source - Washington University in St. Louis

Biology

Structural biologist Helen Berman elected to the National Academy … – USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Helen Berman, professor (research) of quantitative and computational biology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Bridge Instituteof theUSC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

The academy is a private, nonprofit institution established during Abraham Lincolns term as U.S. President to recognize members achievement in science and advise the federal government and other organizations on matters of science, engineering and health policy.

Berman, a Professor Emerita at Rutgers University, joined USC Dornsife in January. She is among 120 members and 23 international members elected to the academy this year.

This is a wonderful achievement that comes on top of many honors that Professor Berman received for contributions to the field of computational and structural biology, said Remo Rohs, chair of the Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology and professor of quantitative and computational biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy, and computer science.

The careers of most cell and molecular biologists have been enriched in amazing ways by the work that Helen has performed. Her co-founding of the Protein Data Bank has created the most important dictionary we use in studying the language of life, said Scott Fraser, director of Bridge Institute and Provost Professor of Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Physiology and Biophysics, Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Pediatrics, Radiology, Ophthalmology and Quantitative and Computational Biology. The field would be decades behind if not for her visionary efforts.

Berman studies nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, and how proteins interact with them. She also studies collagen, a protein found throughout the body that provides structure and strength to muscles, bones and skin as well as the tissues that connect them.

She says shes driven to pursue her research by a love of learning and discovery, and she tries to foster that drive in others, as well. In my work, I try to balance time between conducting my own research with ways of enabling scientific discovery by others.

She co-founded the Protein Data Bank archive, an international archive that stores all experimentally determined structures of molecules and their complexes. The PDB enabled the important, artificial intelligence-driven breakthrough, AlphaFold. Developed by Googles DeepMind and openly available to the scientific community, AlphaFold can predict the three-dimensional structures or folds of all existing proteins using their amino acid sequence.

This work would not have been possible without Helens groundbreaking contributions, Rohs said.

Berman has also pursued an interest in sharing her work with the public through film and digital arts. She was executive producer of the documentary series Target Zero, which uses high-quality animation to illustrate how anti-HIV drugs work. At USC Dornsife, she is contributing to the World in a Cell project, a collaboration between the Bridge Institute and the USC School of Cinematic Arts that uses virtual reality to provide a view of the inside of a pancreatic beta cell, where insulin is made.

Scientists need to analyze and weigh in on issues as they relate to the public good, she said. We have a responsibility to help educate not only our students but the public at large.

Renowned among her peers, Berman is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Society for Computational Biology among other organizations. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Access in the Life Sciences, the Distinguished Service Award from the Biophysical Society and the DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

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Structural biologist Helen Berman elected to the National Academy ... - USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Biology

Next-generation statistical simulator gives medical and biological … – UCLA Health Connect

UCLA researchers have developed an all-in-one, next-generation statistical simulator capable of assimilating a wide range of information to generate realistic synthetic data and provide a benchmarking tool for medical and biological researchers who use advanced technologies to study diseases and potential therapies. Specifically, the new computer-modeling or in silico system can help researchers evaluate and validate computational methods.

Single-cell RNA sequencing, called single-cell transcriptomics, is the foundation for analyzing genetic makeup (genome-wide gene expression levels) of cells. The introduction of additional omics offered detail on a range of molecular features, and in recent years, spatial transcriptomic technologies made it possible to profile gene expression levels with spatial location information of cell neighborhoods, showing precise locations and movements of cells within tissue.

Thousands of computational methods have been developed to analyze single-cell and spatial omics data for a variety of tasks, making method benchmarking a pressing challenge for method developers and uses, said Jingyi Jessica Li, PhD, a UCLA researcher and professor in statistics, biostatistics, computational medicine, and human genetics. Li is also affiliated with the Gene Regulation research area at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Li leads a research group titled the Junction of Statistics and Biology.

Although simulators have evolved and become more powerful, there are numerous limitations. Few can generate realistic single-cell RNA sequencing data from continuous cell trajectories by mimicking real data, and most lack the ability to simulate data of multi-omics and spatial transcriptomics. We introduced the scDesign3, which we believe is the most realistic and versatile simulator to date, to fill the gap between researchers benchmarking needs and the limitations of existing tools, said Li, senior author of a study published May 11 in Nature Biotechnology.

The UCLA researchers say they believe scDesign3 offers the first probabilistic model that unifies the generation and inference for single-cell and spatial omics data. Equipped with interpretable parameters and a model likelihood, scDesign3 is beyond a versatile simulator and has unique advantages for generating customized in silico data, which can serve as negative and positive controls for computational analysis, and for assessing the goodness-of-fit of inferred cell clusters, trajectories, and spatial locations in an unsupervised way. Goodness-of-fit is a measure of how well a statistical model fits a set of observations.

According to the authors, the systems transparent modeling and interpretable parameters can help users explore, alter, and simulate data. Overall, scDesign3 is a multi-functional suite for benchmarking computational methods and interpreting single-cell and spatial omics data.

This study was led by Lis student Dongyuan Song, a 4th-year Ph.D. student in the UCLA Interdepartmental Bioinformatics Ph.D. program.

Authors Additional authors include: Qingyang Wang, Guanao Yan, Tianyang Liu, and Tianyi Sun all in Lis research group JSB at UCLA.

Funding This work was supported by the following grants: National Science Foundation DBI-1846216 and DMS-2113754, NIH/NIGMS R01GM120507 and R35GM140888, Johnson & Johnson WiSTEM2D Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine W. M. Keck Foundation Junior Faculty Award, and the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative Single-Cell Biology Data Insights Grant (to J.J.L.).

Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests.

Article: Song et al., scDesign3 generates realistic in silico data for multimodal single-cell and spatial omics, Nature Biotechnology DOI: 10.1038/s41587-023-01772-1.

URL upon publication: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-023-01772-1

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Next-generation statistical simulator gives medical and biological ... - UCLA Health Connect

Biology

Johns Hopkins scientists get $35 million gift to study the biological roots of cancer metastasis – News-Medical.Net

With a $35 million gift from researcher, philanthropist and race car driver Theodore Giovanis, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine will study the biological roots of the most fatal aspect of cancer: how it metastasizes, or spreads, through the body.

The contribution, a 15-year commitment, will establish the Giovanis Institute for Translational Cell Biology, dedicated to studying metastasis. The institute's researchers aim to make discoveries that reveal common features of metastasis across cancer types, with the potential to develop new therapies.

Cancer is most dangerous when the disease has spread to many parts of the body, and conventional treatments are not effective enough for patients with metastatic disease. Research in our department has shown that many different cancers use similar molecular tools to spread, and we seek to design treatments to disrupt this process."

Andrew Ewald, Ph.D., new Giovanis Institute director, the Virginia DeAcetis Professor in Basic Cancer Research and Director of the Department of Cell Biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Overall, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., and some estimates indicate that about two-thirds of cancer deaths are linked to metastasis.

"Understanding fundamental biology drives the majority of medical advances, and this gift is incredibly important for that goal," says Theodore DeWeese, M.D., interim dean of the medical faculty and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Ewald and other researchers have previously received research funding from Giovanis' foundation, the Jayne Koskinas Ted Giovanis Foundation for Health and Policy, named to honor his late wife, who died from metastatic breast cancer in 2010. Giovanis is an advisory board member of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences.

"I think of myself as someone who wants to make a difference, and I can leverage the work of my foundation to a much broader and more impactful scale by providing this gift to Johns Hopkins," says Giovanis.

Born in Baltimore and a Maryland resident, Giovanis' career spans a long history in hospital system finance and insurance regulation. He led the legal battle for hospitals for a multibillion-dollar settlement in 2012 to correct an error in reimbursement rates for hospitals. He was among the first staff to run the Health Services Cost Review Commission in Maryland, the only state to annually review and set Medicare and Medicaid payment rates for hospitals.

Currently, Giovanis is a professional sports car driver and owner of Team TGM in the International Motor Sports Association.

"Mr. Giovanis' gift will enable collaboration among scientists from many disciplines, including those who specialize in basic biology, clinical treatment of patients, physics, engineering, machine learning and computational medicine," says Ewald, co-leader of the Cancer Invasion and Metastasis Program at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

The institute will be housed in the Department of Cell Biology at Johns Hopkins Medicine on the East Baltimore campus. It will include a core group of cross-departmental scientists who focus on fundamental mechanisms of cancer metastasis, and will also award grants to fund metastasis research at Johns Hopkins more broadly.

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Johns Hopkins scientists get $35 million gift to study the biological roots of cancer metastasis - News-Medical.Net

Biology

First generation Aggie with a passion to learn about wildlife … – AgriLife Today

What started as a plan to study zoology turned into a passion for learning in the Texas A&M Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology for first generation student Sydnee Smith.

Attending college was not something Smith pictured while growing up. Her father, a veteran, passed away when she was a child, and her mother raised Smith and her siblings on her own.

It was not until I was much older that we looked into the possibility of me having a college career, Smith said. I came to learn of all the great benefits available to me to be able to pursue a college degree after all because of my fathers service.

I have been not only able to attend Texas A&M University but also graduate debt free, which is a really big deal in todays world, she said.

Smith sat down with us and shared her experience in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and her future plans with a passion for learning and traveling.

I initially began as a zoology major in the College of Arts and Science. The coursework for this major focused on micro concepts like organic chemistry and biochemistry that did not appeal to me as much as I had initially hoped it would.

So, I combed through all the majors the university had to offer and found the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology. The degree plan consisted of course options like general mammalogy, diversity and evolution of vertebrates, fire ecology and many study abroad options. With the prospects of traveling, fieldwork and specimen identification, I could not have contacted my adviser faster to learn how to change my major.

I never knew that I would enjoy it as much as I do now.

Traveling with the students in my major to Brazil in the Amazon education abroad program hands down. Traveling there was a one-of-a-kind experience. We got to see the most biodiverse biome the Earth has to offer in a way many never will. Visiting local villages, fishing in lakes only known by locals and having an amazing guide helped make the experience so valuable.

This trip really showed me that I made the right call choosing my major; I want to continue to have experiences like this for the rest of my life.

The study abroad trip also provided me the chance to make more like-minded friends on campus. Now that I have spent more time with my classmates, it seems I have a friend in each of my classes, which is always a plus.

My advice is to put yourself out there. Texas A&M has so much to offer great people, professors, clubs, organizations and opportunities. For a while with the pandemic and no friends on campus, I was too scared to attend events alone. I really had to push myself out of my comfort zone to attend different club meetings, socials and open houses. Discovering yourself and your path is worth the momentary discomfort.

Being a transfer student myself, I would also say not to be afraid to reach out to the advisers our campus has to offer. The one-on-one time with my adviser gave me the clarity and comfort I needed to make the switch in majors. By taking advantage of the help they offered to me, I plan to still graduate on time, which has always been a goal of mine.

My coursework has given me the chance to explore different aspects of ecology including fire ecology, population and community ecology, as well as wildlife conservation and resource policy. The plethora of career options that are possible with a degree in my major was almost overwhelming. I am taking classes now that will help me narrow down which path I would be most passionate about while gaining insight into other areas that can benefit me in the future.

While I have not narrowed down my exact career path after college, there are a few areas that have piqued my interest, one of them being conservation and resource policy.

With that being said, I would still love to travel and learn even more in my field of study. I am planning to go on another study abroad trip to New Zealand during the next winter semester. The program would focus more on marine wildlife, which gives me a chance to expand my learning a bit more. I have always had an interest in learning about marine biology since I was a kid. My knowledge in this area isnt very diverse up to this point, so I would love the chance to pursue this study abroad to gain a deeper understanding of this field.

I can say that after graduation I intend to take seasonal positions working in state parks around the country to fill my love for travel and pair it with my educational background.

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First generation Aggie with a passion to learn about wildlife ... - AgriLife Today

Biology

Graduating human biology major creates opportunities for North … – USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

In spring semester 2021, Woori Lee took the general education philosophy course The Meaning of Life.

A human biology major who plans to go to medical school after graduating this spring from USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Lee had already satisfied her general education requirements. But she enrolled in the online, 150-student class to learn more about what to value in life.

The year before provides a good clue about one of her top priorities.

Lee immigrated to the United States from South Korea when she was 17, and her grandfather is a North Korean immigrant who came to the U.S. in the 1950s. This family history drove her longtime interest in helping refugees from her grandfathers isolated home country.

So in summer 2020, she co-founded a nonprofit, Aurora NK, with fellow USC Dornsife student Jay Lee, who at the time was president of the student club Liberty in North Korea at USC.

Aurora NK provides tutoring, legal aid and health care assistance to North Korean refugees by pairing native English-speaking college students, lawyers and health care professionals with North Korean refugees.

Woori Lee was inspired to launch Aurora NK after the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered many resources for those in need.

Woori is one of the most independently motivated and psychologically mature undergraduates Ive ever met, said Stephen Finlay, adjunct professor of philosophy who taught The Meaning of Life (PHIL 168g) course Lee attended.

Her hearts wish is to make a difference improving the lives of others.

Lee was a junior in high school when her family moved from Seoul to Los Angeles. Her father is an architect, and her mother is a homemaker. She has a brother, 23.

While her family established new roots in Los Angeles, Woori finished high school at a boarding school near Chicago.

Ive always been really interested in policy, international relations and political science, she said. Since I was young, I would ask questions like why is the Korean peninsula divided and why are North Korean refugees discriminated against in South Korea?

Lee joined her family in Los Angeles for college because of the high concentration of North Korean refugees here and because of USC Dornsifes reputation as a haven for top international relations scholars.

I was really lucky because at USC I found so many like-minded people who want to help North Korean refugees and who really want to change the world, Lee said. So many opportunities just came to me at USC.

Since 2020, Aurora NK has grown into an international network of more than 600 volunteer English tutors and over 500 North Korean refugees.

In addition to tutoring services, Aurora NK provides citizenship and immigration resources for North Koreans living in the United States and South Korea.

The nonprofit also helps refugees navigate the byzantine U.S. health care system and connects them with free clinic services. Many immigrants from North Korea struggle with nightmares, PTSD and other mental health issues, Lee said.

Wooris a super passionate and driven person, Jay Lee said. Her compassion for the North Korean people is second to none, and one thing that sets her apart is that even while working tirelessly to support this underrepresented population, shes always trying to learn more.

Even though Woori is devoted to studying health and science, she makes a genuine effort to learn more about policy so that she can better serve others, added Lee, who earned an MA in public diplomacy and now works at USC Dornsifes Korean Studies Institute. As the leader of Aurora, shes always envisioning greater things for the organization, and shes never afraid to dream big.

Finlay said that in his more than 20 years of teaching general education courses, Woori Lee stands out.

I havent met anyone I found more admirable than Woori, for her combination of intellectual curiosity and humanitarian dedication. I have no doubt that Woori is going to leave the world a better place than she found it.

Aurora NK now is active on the East Coast and in the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, India and South Korea.

Although her eyes are set on becoming a doctor, Lees heart always will remain on helping North Korean refugees.

Recently, she learned she was a finalist for aSamuel Huntington Award, which provides $30,000 for a public service project run by graduating seniors.

At USC, Lee also served as vice president of the WorldMed Club, a student organization that meets to understand, discuss and tackle critical issues in global medicine.

Her big goal is to help advance health care in North Korea. To that end, she plans to earn a masters degree in public policy or public health.

She says her time at USC Dornsife has a lot to do with her drive.

My professors at USC provided me an incredible amount of support, opportunity and guidance, said Lee, who in her limited spare time enjoys figure skating, boxing and yoga. The USC community really shaped me into the person I am now and always challenges me to think about what I can do to help others and just make the world a better place.

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Graduating human biology major creates opportunities for North ... - USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences