Category Archives: Biology

Space Biology And The Out-Of-This-World Exploration Of Plant Stress – Texas A&M University Today

October 16, 2023 medical

Texas A&M AgriLife plant scientist Nithya Rajan is studying plant stress levels for future space use in a NASA-funded project.

Sam Craft/Texas A&M AgriLife Marketing & Communications

A Texas A&M AgriLife plant scientist is joining the space race, of a sort, by helping to understand how plants can survive in space to support human space exploration.

As aTexas A&M AgriLife Researchcrop physiologist/agroecologist and professorin theTexas A&M College of Agriculture and Life SciencesDepartment of Soil and Crop Sciences, Dr. Nithya Rajan is used to working with hundreds of acres of plants grown on this planet.

But one of her latest projects will have her tending to the stress levels of individual plants, not in the field, but in the growth chamber, testing sensors for deployment in a spaceflight or lunar or martial habitats.

Rajan is connecting with University of Texas at Tyler assistant professor of electrical engineering Shawana Tabassum, Ph.D., who is leading the NASA-funded project,Leaf Sensor Network for In Situ and Multiparametric Analysis of Crop Stressors.

With all the advancements being made in space travel, Rajan said as a plant scientist, it is exciting to be a part of this project.

If we have to grow plants in a space station, on space flights or on Mars, we need to understand how plants behave in that environment, Rajan said. Resources in space will be very limited because it can take eight months to get to Mars, for example. So, every plant in a space environment will be essential to human explorers. We need to know if a plant is stressed and how to immediately intervene to correct that.

Tabassum is designing unique, one-of-a-kind wireless, multivariable leaf sensors to check hormone levels in plants to detect stress.

This fall, Rajan is taking those sensors and determining how they are picking up the stress levels of plants using short-duration cowpeas as the test crop in growth chamber studies.

We are thinking by attaching these sensors, we can detect plant stress, she said. And then, as a physiologist, I can try to relate that stress with the plant performance. I can see how that stress is impacting photosynthesis, for example.

While unable to replicate all growing conditions in space here on Earth, such as zero gravity, Rajans studies will mimic conditions like temperature and light. She will conduct experiments in a lightweight media as a stand-in for weightlessness.

Just like most space flights, this grant is exploratory in nature. If the two researchers can predict crop performance in spacelike conditions, they hope the next step will be more funding for future experiments, possibly aboard the International Space Station.

We want to see how plants are performing in the growth chamber, and we want to relate that to the sensors and test how the signals relate to plant performance, Rajan said. Hopefully, in the future, we may be able to test these sensors in space. If they are performing well, perhaps we can deploy them in space and utilize them.

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Space Biology And The Out-Of-This-World Exploration Of Plant Stress - Texas A&M University Today

Biology

Long-Term Lizard Study Challenges the Rules of Evolutionary Biology – Georgia Tech

October 16, 2023 medical

Charles Darwin said that evolution was constantly happening, causing animals to adapt for survival. But many of his contemporaries disagreed. If evolution is always causing things to change, they asked, then how is it that two fossils from the same species, found in the same location, can look identical despite being 50 million years apart in age?

Everything changed in the past 40 years, when an explosion of evolutionary studies proved that evolution can and does occur rapidly even from one generation to the next. Evolutionary biologists were thrilled, but the findings reinforced the same paradox: If evolution can happen so fast, then why do most species on Earth continue to appear the same for many millions of years?

This is known as the paradox of stasis, and James Stroud, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, set out to investigate it. He conducted a long-term study in a community of lizards, measuring how evolution unfolds in the wild across multiple species. In doing so, he may have found the answer to one of evolutions greatest challenges.

His research was published as the cover story in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read the full feature in the GT Research newsroom.

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Long-Term Lizard Study Challenges the Rules of Evolutionary Biology - Georgia Tech

Biology

Caldwell Welcomes New Faculty Caldwell University – Caldwell University

October 16, 2023 medical

Caldwell University welcomed several new faculty members this fall semester.

Ellina Chernobilsky, Ph.D., acting vice president for Academic Affairs, said the University is delighted to welcome such accomplished faculty. I believe that the new faculty will contribute to the success of our students not only as classroom faculty but also by being great role models outside of the class.

Maria Agapito, Ph.D. has joined the School of Natural Sciences. She was previously chair of the Biology Program at Bard High School Early College in Newark. At Bard, she was one of 35 science teachers in the country to receive a grant from the Society of Science & the Public to pursue research. Agapito worked in the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Department at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School where she conducted research in developmental biology, neurology and ethanol toxicology, using C. elegans as an animal model system.She served for several years at Kean University as adjunct professor in the School of Natural Sciences.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in chemistry and a Master of Science in Biology with a concentration in molecular biology from Montclair State University. She completed her doctoral training in neuroscience at Rutgers and was accepted to the National Institute of Health IRACDA/INSPIRE postdoctoral program.

Agapito has published peer-reviewed articles in professional journals, presented at national conferences and obtained prestigious fellowships. She is the president of the New Jersey Academy of Science and serves as a convener for the North Jersey Life Sciences Industry Partnership. Her long-term goal is to change the face of America by enhancing curiosity, educating and mentoring students to enter STEM-related fields to create a diverse population of role models for the generations to come.

Daniel Cruz, Ph.D. rejoins the School of Psychology and Counseling, having previously served on the faculty at Caldwell. Cruz is an assessment psychologist and neuroscience researcher, is licensed to practice psychology in New Jersey and is board-certified in counseling psychology with a concentration in psychological and neuropsychological assessment and consultation.

Cruz is past president of the Latino Mental Health Association of New Jersey and an officer of the board of trustees for the New Jersey Neuropsychological Society. He completed an APA-accredited child and adolescent psychology internship at Rutgers University-University Behavioral Health Care and postdoctoral training in outpatient mental health, severe and persistent mental illness, and psychological, educational and neuropsychological testing and intervention. His research focuses on developmental disorders, including developmental trauma, complex PTSD, autism and ADHD. Cruz is the founder of the Neuroscience Institute for Trauma. He holds a Master of Science degree from Rutgers and a Ph.D. from Seton Hall University.

Steven Kreutzer, Ph.D. joins the School of Business and Computer Science, bringing much higher education and corporate business experience.

He previously served at Bloomfield College where he was professor of computer science and chair of the Division of Business. He was active in shared governance as chair of several committees including technology, tenure and advancement and enrollment management. Kreutzer was faculty council chair and faculty chair and served as the faculty representative on the Academic Affairs Board Committee for many years.

Early in his career Kreutzer worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories where he wrote software used by tens of thousands of people and did work advancing the effectiveness of large-scale software development organizations. He performed assessments of large-scale development teams and did technology due diligence for potential acquisition targets. Kreutzer worked as a management consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and at AIG where he held senior management positions and led a team that developed, maintained and supported a large-scale data warehouse. He led an internal management consulting organization, focusing on operations and strategy.

Melissa Sepe, M.A., N. joins the Caldwell School of Nursing and Public Health as an assistant professor, having previously served as an adjunct. Her clinical experience includes critical care, outpatient care and community health for pediatric and adult populations. She brings leadership experience, having served as an adult nurse practitioner responsible for the care of cardiac patients in the office setting, as an advanced practice nurse overseeing clinical operations and education for an emergency department nursing staff and as head nurse at a local private school during the COVID-19 pandemic. While in the Overlook Hospital Emergency Department, Sepe was the nurse leader for the acute myocardial infarction team when the department received the Mission Impossible Award in recognition of outstanding patient care. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Villanova University and a Master of Arts in Nursing from NYU.

Bacterial therapies at the interface of synthetic biology and … – Nature.com

October 16, 2023 medical

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Biology

How vitamins have shaped human biology and evolution – Advanced Science News

October 16, 2023 medical

Eat your fruit and vegetables! These foods are packed with essential nutrients, including vitamins, the health benefits of which have been drummed into us since childhood.

We understand that vitamins play a crucial role in preventing disease and maintaining our overall health. But to what extent do they shape our physical characteristics and how have they contributed to our evolution as a species?

Mark Lucock, associate professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia is pushing for a new paradigm of thinking in this area and is revolutionizing the way we might think about vitamins beyond just health and well being.

[Vitamins] contribute to shaping and maintaining the human phenome, the fingerprint of an individuals unique biology defined by complex environmental and genetic factors over lifecycle and evolutionary timescales, Lucock explained in an email.

Spanning a lengthy career, Lucock says the concept of vitomics and adaptive vitome, a term he coined for this concept has evolved over several years, dating back to when he was studying folic acid and vitamin D.

He defines it as follows: Vitamin related actions that adapt an organisms metabolism/biology to a specific environmental condition(s) within, across and beyond the lifecycle.

This is different to the traditional and perhaps more one-dimensional view of vitamins, which focuses on their overall health benefits and ability to prevent deficiencies, such as rickets or scurvy.

According to Lucock, this more traditional view has little appreciation for the long-term evolutionary role vitamins play in adapting our biology to environmental conditions over time and their importance in our prenatal development.

Acknowledging these extended functions aids our understanding of evolution and highlights that vitamins are even more important than already known.

From embryo development to childhood, adulthood and old age, vitamins are central to metabolic function and vital for cellular processes that support life. They not only influence small molecules within cells but help direct the organization of these cells and their programming to perform specific functions during embryo development.

For example, in a complex interplay, environmental conditions as well as nutrients and vitamins, such as folic acid, influence the DNA in our genes, turning them on or off. These early controls can impact our health in later life and even predispose us to risk of disease.

However, balance is key because you can have too much of a good thing with excessive levels of certain vitamins, like vitamin A, being toxic and can lead to birth defects.

Turning genes on and off is an example of the short-term effects of vitamins for individual people, but it is their long-term effects on human evolution that Lucock proposes in this new way of thinking about them. A prime example is the proposed evolutionary role of vitamin D and folate in skin pigmentation.

Both vitamin D and folate are sensitive to sunlight, but in opposite ways. Sunlight helps produce vitamin D in the skin whereas ultraviolet (UV) rays break down folate. Because both these vitamins are needed for reproduction, biological mechanisms have evolved over time to protect them and ensure survival of our species.

Evolutionary belief is that our ancestors originated in hot equatorial regions of Africa with strong sun and UV rays, so pigmentation in the skin increased to protect folate, leading to a darker skin. However, when our ancestors moved north where there was less sun, less pigmentation was needed to protect folate. Simultaneous changes in culture, especially the development of farming, may have also influenced this change.

As hunter gatherers, our early diet was rich in vitamin D (particularly from fish and meat), but after the development of farming practices, grains became a significant dietary component, leading to a deficit in vitamin D , explained Lucock. Given the importance of vitamin D in maintaining reproductive efficiency, natural selection will have favored a loss in skin melanin to allow for improved vitamin D photosynthesis in our skin.

These examples illustrate the contribution of vitamins beyond just health, and begin to paint a bigger picture of their importance to humans as a species.

Recent advances in laboratory techniques have allowed the measurement of thousands of cellular small molecules related to DNA, proteins, and metabolism. To understand these vast and complex interactions within biological systems, scientists are adopting a systems biology approach that looks at the bigger picture by analyzing these interconnected molecules to understand how they fit together and how whole systems work.

With individual roles in cell function, embryo development, and evolution, Lucock argues it is time to put the pieces together, and adopt an integrated approach when researching the role of vitamins in human biology.

Society will benefit from such a paradigm, which examines the larger picture (a tapestry of all the smaller pieces), explained Lucock. Previous generations tended to be reductionists, looking at taking these pieces apart. I think it will be easier for the average person to embrace the bigger picture than consider the minutiae when looking how living systems interact within and across the lifecycle.

We are still learning about the role of vitamins in these areas and this new concept may facilitate new learning.

New discoveries involving vitamins in molecular, developmental and evolutionary biology requires a more integrated perspective that embraces a broader, more attuned role for vitamins in life processes, explains Lucock. It is hoped that adopting this integrated approach will facilitate new scientific discoveries, kick starting a new era for vitamins.

Reference: Lucock, M, D, Vitomics: A novel paradigm for examining the role of vitamins in human biology, Bioassays (2023). DOI: 10.1002/bies.202300127

Feature image credit: Unsplash

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Biology

New Read & Publish consortia offer from The Company of Biologists – Research Information

October 16, 2023 medical

The Company of Biologists has announced a new three-year Read & Publish Open Access consortia offer with ZB Med Information Centre for Life Sciences, Germany.

This offer, which runs from 2024 to 2026, is available to 400 member institutions and 2,000 hospitals with discounted rates available depending on the number of participants. This is the Companys first consortium agreement in Germany and Missing Link Versandbuchhandlung eG, the Company's German representative, was instrumental in helping establish the agreement.

Corresponding authors at participating institutions in Germany can publish an uncapped number of research articles immediately Open Access (OA) in the hybrid journals Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology plus the fully Open Access journals Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open without paying an article processing charge (APC). Researchers at participating institutions also benefit from unlimited access to the Company's hybrid journals, including their full archives dating back to 1853.

Petra Labriga, Head of Strategic Licensing at ZB Med, said:In our role as the German Information Center for Life Sciences, ZB Med is strongly invested in helping German life scientists publish their work Open Access in an affordable yet highly professional environment. Focusing on Open Access and transformative agreements for German Life Sciences, we invite all interested German academic and research institutions and hospitals to join this consortium agreement with The Company of Biologists to take advantage of this non-APC based, uncapped author publishing opportunity.

Rich Blount, Regional Sales Manager at The Company of Biologists, said:We are delighted that our continuing partnership with Missing Link Versandbuchhandlung eG has helped us to develop this agreement with the ZB Med Consortium. Germany is one of our key markets and we are looking forward to expanding opportunities for more authors in Germany to publish fee-free Open Access research articles in all five of our journals.

Klaus Tapken, Chairman at Missing Link Versandbuchhandlung eG, added:As the distribution partner in DACH, we were able to accompany the consortia negotiations between ZB Med and The Company of Biologists. The result can be considered a considerable success both for scientific publishing and libraries as the next step on their journey towards Open Access.

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New Read & Publish consortia offer from The Company of Biologists - Research Information

Biology

Massive brain dump described as triumph of molecular biology – Cosmos

October 16, 2023 medical

Ten years ago, the USA government founded the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, a multi-billion dollar project to revolutionise our understanding of the brain.

The Initiative has just dropped a new trove of research, with an international team of hundreds of scientists publishing more than 20 papers across Science journals.

Among them are the first atlas of cells in the human brain, based on an analysis of 1.1 million brain cells across 42 different brain regions in 3 human brains. This has yielded a comprehensive picture of the DNA in the human brain: both the genes that play roles, and the changes to DNA through epigenetic modifications.

The researchers have concluded that people have more than 3,000 different types of brain cells.

Mapping out the different types of cells in the brain and understanding how they work together will ultimately help us discover new therapies that can target individual cell types relevant to specific diseases, says Professor Bing Ren, a researcher at the University of California, San Diegos school of medicine and senior author on one of the Science papers.

Other research looks at primate brains, to spot the similarities and differences between human brains and those of chimpanzees, gorillas, macaques, and marmosets.

Mapping the brains cellular landscape is a critical step toward understanding how this vital organ works in health and disease, said Dr Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

These new detailed cell atlases of the human brain and the nonhuman primate brain offer a foundation for designing new therapies that can target the specific brain cells and circuits involved in brain disorders.

Another branch of research has zeroed in on differences between human and mouse brains that might be evolutionary hotspots, liable to greater changes and more complexity in humans.

At its core, this body of work is a triumph of molecular biology, says Professor Ed Lein, a senior investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science and lead on several of the studies.

Differential gene usage can be used to define cell types, and the tools of genomics could be used to create the first drafts of high-resolution, annotated maps of the cells that make up the entire human brain.

The studies will feed data into the Human Cell Atlas, an international project to characterise every human cell.

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Massive brain dump described as triumph of molecular biology - Cosmos

Biology

A Boost for Biology Education – Endeavors – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

October 16, 2023 medical

A Boost for Biology Education - Endeavors The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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A Boost for Biology Education - Endeavors - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Biology

Nobel-Prize-winning researchers return to the basics of biology – Guilfordian

October 16, 2023 medical

On Oct. 2, scientists Katalin Karik and Drew Weissman were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for their joint research on the capabilities of mRNA in immunization. Their findings, once refined, led to the speedy production of the COVID-19 vaccines responsible for saving the lives of millions of people around the world.

The COVID-19 shots distributed across the globe are as historically significant as the pandemic itself. Unlike traditional vaccines that expose humans to a weakened version of the actual pathogen, the coronavirus vaccine introduces lab-altered mRNA into the bloodstream, instructing cells to produce proteins that stimulate an immune response with less overall health risks and development time as explained by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

It (the mRNA vaccine) is bypassing a lot of the things that the production of other vaccines requires, Michele Malotky, professor of biology at Guilford, said. It is more likely to be safer and faster to produce and modify to reflect changes in the virus over time.

Every time a pathogen is transferred between people, it has the chance to mutate and possibly leave vaccines ineffective. The mRNA vaccine, however, can be rapidly modified for new strains as scientists can simply alter the ingredients in RNA in a test tube within a couple of weeks, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute, shortening the traditional five to 10-year vaccine development and testing process reported by Johns Hopkins.

While this groundbreaking medical innovation has been praised for its rapid development, the path to reach it was constantly at risk of failure due to funding issues.

According to a biography on Karik by womenshistory.org, she moved to Pennsylvania from Hungary in 1985 when university funding for her research ran out. In 1989, Karik was hired to a low-level, untenured assistant professor position at the University of Pennsylvania where she was only able to conduct research by partnering with senior scientists.

In 1997, Weissman started working at the University of Pennsylvania and, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Coordination, received substantial support for his lab, whereas grant reviewers at the university were hesitant to fund Kariks mRNA research due to her lower-level doctorate and the perceived simplicity of her subject.

Within the scientists two distinct paths, Malotky points out common trends within the modern scientific community. She is amongst a large group of people who recognize the continued sexism in the field as Karik, who has become only the 13th woman to win the Nobel Prize out of 227 laureates, had to jump through various hoops to obtain adequate resources for her research in comparison to her male counterpart. Kariks lack of funding has also been attributed to a shift within educational expectations.

Her work was basic science research and a lot of people didnt recognize the value or application of this foundational work, Malotky said. To me, it reflects a troubling pattern we also see in higher education with discussions about the value of a liberal arts education. Too many people fail to recognize the important foundation that the liberal arts provide, looking to courses and fields of study that directly relate to their career goals.

Whether its a liberal arts education or basic science that will lead to wonderful discoveries like in this case, people just dont seem to recognize the fundamental value, focusing only on the endpoint, Malotky said. For funding in the sciences, you have to show what merit your research is going to provide. Well, some of that basic science we need to understand in order to get to that point, and people dont see that, and so she couldnt get funding for the work that eventually earned her a Nobel Prize.

Fortunately, Weissman saw the merit in Kariks vision, and the two decided to merge their paths after a friendly conversation over a copy machine. According to an article by the New York Times, she boasted to him that she could use mRNA for anything she wanted, including possibly making an H.I.V. vaccine which Weissman was currently working towards.

After facing issues with how the mRNA is received by the body, in 2005, they finally published their finding about adding the molecule pseudouridine to modified mRNA and shielding it from the immune system. Despite this research being vital in creating the life-saving COVID-19 vaccine, only the obscure publisher Immunity would accept their work as major companies deemed the findings too rudimentary.

The story behind these two scientists is one of perseverance and getting back to the basics. Due to their research, we find ourselves in a better position in combating ailments like H.I.V., cancer and discrimination in the sciences.

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Biology

Does Dunking Your Head in Water Ease Anxiety? Ask This … – UVA Today

October 16, 2023 medical

UVA Today checked in with assistant professor of biology John Campbell, whose neurobiology lab at the University of Virginia studies the vagus nerve, to see if such claims hold water.

Q. There is a social media trend of face dunking to calm anxiety. Does it work?

A. I do think theres truth behind that. Holding your breath and putting cold water on your face, or just an ice pack, will trigger the diving reflex, which dramatically decreases your heart rate. Essentially all mammals have this reflex, from mice to humans to blue whales, which likely helps us stay underwater longer.

Interestingly, recent research has shown that heart rate alone can affect anxiety, specifically that increasing heart rates in mice causes them to act more anxiously. Ongoing research in my lab suggests the opposite may also be true that decreasing heart rate can decrease anxiety. So, triggering your diving reflex will decrease your heart rate, which may make you feel less anxious.

Q. How does that relate to the vagus nerve?

A. The vagus nerve is a vital conduit of information between your brain and body. Many of the nerve fibers that make up the vagus nerve carry internal sensory information from your body to your brain, telling your brain, for instance, that there are nutrients in your gut, or that there's a change in blood pressure.

However, other vagal nerve fibers transmit signals from brain to the body. These descending nerve fibers control many of your other organ systems, including the cardiorespiratory, digestive and immune systems.

The diving reflex is one important reflex controlled by the vagus nerve, specifically by the vagal nerve fibers that go from your brainstem to your heart and slow its rate. There are many other reflexes that help the brain adapt organ function to the bodys ever-changing needs.

Q. Why is our brain wired to our gut, and in a way that also seems to relate to mood?

A. The vagus nerve tells the brain whats happening in the gut, from the presence and type of nutrients to whether there is an infection. The vagus nerve may also be sensing signals, directly or indirectly, from the gut microbiome, which is impacted by diet and stress and can affect our mood through the vagus nerve.

Of course, the vagus nerve carries information in the other direction, too, from brain to gut. This brain-to-gut signaling helps the body digest and absorb nutrients while preventing dangerous rises in blood sugar after a meal. Unfortunately, this system breaks down in a variety of diseases, from Parkinsons to diabetes. My lab is working to understand how it normally functions so that we can know how to treat it when it breaks down.

Q. Tell us more about your labs interest in the vagus nerve.

A. We are fascinated with how one nerve can have so many visceral functions, from decreasing heart rate, to managing blood sugar, to moving food through the gut. How is this system organized? Are there certain nerve fibers that, for instance, only decrease heart rate, and others that only increase insulin secretion from the pancreas? If so, how are they connected in the brain, how do they signal and how can we target them to treat heart disease, diabetes and anxiety disorders?

Q. Can you talk about your latest research with diving mice? Arent they afraid of water?

A. One of our ongoing projects is studying the diving reflex in mice to better understand the neurons involved, since they powerfully control heart rate. To naturally induce this reflex, we are training mice to voluntarily dive underwater and swim under a barrier, an assay that was developed by a previous undergraduate researcher in our lab, Veronica Gutierrez, working with our collaborator, professor Steve Abbott, in [the Department of] Pharmacology.

To make the experience less unpleasant for mice, we keep the pool water bathwater-warm. Still, when they dive underwater, we see their heart rate slow to about 25% of resting rate, a really striking change. While I cant say whether the mice like this activity or not, some will climb out of the water and then turn around and dive back in. All the mice weve studied so far have learned to dive and show a robust diving reflex.

As for mice being afraid of the water, Im not sure why thats the case. I suppose it could be related to maintaining their body temperature. Mice must use a lot of energy to prevent hypothermia and lose insulation when they get wet. For our diving mice, we keep the pool water warm and give the mice a warming lamp to help dry off after diving.

Q. What are you learning from your recent research?

A. Research in our lab and others is shedding light on the organization of the vagus nerve and how it controls heart and digestive functions. My lab has found that genetically distinct subtypes of neurons in the brainstem connect with different visceral organs through the vagus nerve, to control different organ functions.

While our diving studies are not published yet, our study shows that activating the descending brain-to-body nerve fibers of the vagus nerve decreases heart rate and anxiety in mice.

This research, led by a doctoral student from the neuroscience graduate program, Nicholas Conley, and a former undergraduate researcher, Lily Kauffman, is currently in peer review. Our research on the diving reflex was led by former undergraduate researcher Veronica Gutierrez, biology doctoral candidate Maira Jalil, and a former pharmacology doctoral student, Tatiana Coverdell. It will be submitted for peer review soon.

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Does Dunking Your Head in Water Ease Anxiety? Ask This ... - UVA Today