The Biotechnology Research Center announces its Fall 2013 Travel Grants. Recipients from Biological Sciences include:
* Faten Dhawi Almuhanna (Bio Sci) International Plant and Animal Genome XXII Meeting (poster)
* Ramkumar Mohan (Bio Sci) The Midwest Islet Club Meeting (poster)
* Aparupa Sengupta (Bio Sci) Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (podium)
Awards for other departments are in Tech Today.
Every year, more than 7 million people die from cancer worldwide. Our ultimate goal is to help developing gene-therapeutic drugs that can stop tumors from growing. This novel work will utilize fruit fly pigmentation patterns, which develop under the control of the same genes that cause cancer in humans. We chose the fruit flies as a model because they grow fast in large numbers and are amenable to a wide variety of genetic approaches.
Cancer is caused by genes that were originally “good” genes that have turned “bad”. Every organism needs these genes to develop from an egg into an adult, but when they mutate, they cause tumor development and growth. Fruit flies and humans share these genes and consequently also the cancer-causing genes. We will use fruit flies to study how cancer genes communicate with each other to form tumors. We previously discovered that one of the most notorious cancer genes (Wnt-1) in humans, which is involved in 70% of all human tumors, “paints” the black spots on the wings of the fruit fly Drosophila guttifera (see picture 2). Thus, wherever the cancer-causing gene is active, a black melanin spot will form on the wing, very similar to skin cancer that appears as black melanin spots on the human skin (Xeroderma pigmentosum). In this project, we will use black pigment spots on fruit fly bodies as a model to reveal how cancer gene communication networks function. The short-term goal of this study is to identify new genes that assist the already known cancer genes in the formation of tumors. This knowledge will set the stage for the long-term goal, which is to develop drugs that can switch the cancer genes off or block the the communication between themselves.
The objective of this proposal is to test what genes lead to the body pigment pattern of the spotted fruit fly Drosophila guttifera. We have very good reasons to believe that at least three independently acting cancer gene pathways are contributing to separate parts of the abdominal color pattern, making this fly a really exciting organism to study multiple cancer developmental pathways in parallel. Our research questions are:
1) What cancer genes are involved in the formation of pigment in this fruit fly species?
2) How do the genes interact with each other (and how can we interrupt their interactions)?
3) Where are the switches that turn these cancer genes on and off?
– See more at: http://www.superiorideas.org/projects/fruit-fly-pigmentation#sthash.gK9wUrRK.dpuf
From Tech Today
Aparupa Sengupta, a PhD student in biological sciences, took third place for her oral presentation “Using a Biological Remediation System to Address Antibiotic Contamination in Aquatic Sources” at the International Conference on Medical Geology Annual Meeting 2013, held Aug. 25-29 in Arlington, Va. She was selected from among 30-35 student presenters from around the world. Sengupta received a certificate, a book and $100 prize. Her coauthors were Adjunct Professor Dibyendu Sarkar and her advisors, Professor Emerita Susan Bagley and Associate Professor Rupali Datta (Bio Sci).
From 9 September Tech Today
| SURF End of Summer Presentations August 12 and 13
Biological Sciences has several presentations by either Biology majors or students being advised by Biological Science faculty. |
| Recipients of Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURFs) will present end-of-summer project updates Monday and Tuesday (Aug. 12 and 13), from 9 to 11 a.m., in Fisher 139. SURF recipients and projects are listed here. |
A view this morning of the docks at the Great Lakes Research Center.
From left to right, Michigan Tech’s S/V Polar, NOAA’s R/V Storm, Michigan Tech’s R/V Agassiz and the Michigan DNR’s R/V Lake Char.
Pictures from the Nancy Auer’s trip on the R/V Sturgeon.
The original article can be found here.
From 19 June 2013 Tech Today:
The US Geological Survey’s Research Vessel Sturgeon is coming to Michigan Tech next week to help scientists from the Great Lakes Research Center conduct three research missions.
While the R/V Sturgeon is here, GLRC researchers will study the terrestrial fingerprint of dissolved oxygen, with Assistant Professor Amy Marcarelli (Bio Sci) as chief scientist; the Upper Great Lakes Observing System buoy mooring retrieval and redeployment, Professor Guy Meadows (GLRC), chief scientist; and the Gay stamp sands, Professor Charles Kerfoot (Bio Sci), chief scientist.
The scientific expeditions are scheduled from Saturday, June 22 through Wednesday, June 26, including two weather days. The R/V Sturgeon will return to Cheboygan on Friday, June 28.
The research vessel is the newest ship to be added to the current fleet of four research vessels operate by the USGS Great Lakes Science Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. The boats are used to conduct fisheries and aquatic research across the Great Lakes basin. The R/V Sturgeon is a 101-foot vessel with a crew of three. It can support a scientific staff of seven for up to a 15-day mission (see online).
“This is the beginning of what we hope will be a long-lasting collaboration,” said Guy Meadows, director of Great Lakes Research initiatives at Michigan Tech.
The Graduate School is pleased to announce that two students have earned fellowships from The DeVlieg Foundation. The DeVlieg Foundation has generously provided support for graduate students pursuing research in engineering, wildlife and biology at Michigan Tech.
Current and past winners can be found at the Graduate School website.
The Biotechnology Research Center announced its Spring 2013 Travel Grants. Recipients include:
Post-doctoral Research Scientist Presentation:
*Kaela Leonard (ChE) Advances in Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (podium)
Graduate Student Presentations:
*Patrick Bowen (MSE) 2013 Minerals, Metals and Materials Society Meeting (podium)
*Katrina Bugielski (Chem) 245th ACS National Meeting and Exposition (poster)
*Weilue He (Bio Med) Gordon Research Conference-Nitric Oxide (poster)
*Na Hu (Chem) American Geophysical Union 2012 (poster)
*Robert Larson (KIP) Experimental Biology (poster)
*Yiping Mao (Bio Sci) Keystone Symposia on Molecular & Cellular Biology (poster)
*Sandra Owusu (SFRES) ASPB: 2013 Midwestern Section Annual Meeting (poster)
*Alison Regal (KIP) North American Society for the Psychology of Sport & Physical Activity (poster)
*Rafi Shaik (Bio Sci) Plant and Animal Genome XXI (poster)
*Ashley Shortz (CLS) IEE Annual Conference and Expo (podium)
*Amy Sieloff (ChE) AIChE 2012 Annual Meeting (poster)
*Srinivasa Rao Sripathi (Bio Sci) Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (poster)
*Huan Yang (KIP) Experimental Biology (poster)
*Nazmiye Yapici (Chem) 245th ACS National Meeting and Exposition (podium)
Undergraduate Student Presentations:
* Michael Bobian (Bio Sci) C. elegans Development, Cell Biology and Gene Expression 2012 (poster)
* Hal Holmes (Bio Med) Materials Research Society Annual Conference (podium)
*Angelea Young (Bio Sci) Experimental Biology 2013 (poster)
