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This newsletter will highlight initiatives and activities in the Department of Biological Sciences. With 30 faculty distributed at three sites (Davie, Jupiter, and Boca Raton), we play a large role in the development of FAU's life sciences. Our faculty focus on three main research areas: environmental science, neuroscience, and marine science. In 2016, they published 70 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and spent $2.6 million dollars in research grant funding. The Biological Sciences Department has strong collaborations with local research institutions. We plan to cover various areas and geographic units as the stories emerge.
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Biology Department Well-Represented at
Explore FAU
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The Biological Sciences Department had several faculty, staff, and students highlight numerous degree programs and research opportunities available to students at the FAU Expo for High School students.
This open house event showcases the areas of study and different colleges that FAU has to offer for interested, local high school students. Students had the opportunity to see engaging and interactive presentations of laboratory research projects and equipment as well as speak with Biology faculty and current students about their experience at FAU. The Biology Department would like to thank all of our faculty, staff, and students that volunteered their time to make this event a success! Read more
here
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Integrative Biology PhD Alumna Named 'Outstanding Young Owl'
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Dr. Chandana Buddhala
, received her doctorate from the Integrative Biology PhD program in 2012. Dr. Buddhala, along with seven other recipients, were recognized at the fourth annual Outstanding Young Owl Awards Ceremony and Reception to honor these exceptional young alumni. Buddhala is currently a senior scientist with the Department of Neurosurgery at Washington University in Saint Louis.She recently published work on neurotransmitter transporter deficits in multiple brain regions of end-stage Parkinson disease patients and on the analysis of cerebrospinal fluid protein levels in Parkinson disease patients. Read more
here
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Integrative Biology Students Win Big at the 3MT Competition
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This year the 3-Mintue Thesis competition comprised of 90 graduate students representing each college and a range of disciplines. Two
Integrative Biology PhD students placed in the championship round. Boris Tezak, who works in the laboratory of Dr. Wyneken, was named the Championship and People's Choice Winner for his talk entitled "
Sea Turtle Sex Ratios in a Changing Climate." Keith Murphy, who works under Dr. Dawson-Scully and Dr. Ja from Scripps Florida, placed First Runner-Up for his talk entitled "Using Light to Control Meal Size."
Read more
here
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University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), Nigeria Delegation Visits FAU
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The Vice Chancellor and the UNIMAID delegation has had many collaborations with Florida Atlantic University, driven in part by research collaborations established by Dr. Esiobu, Professor of the Department of Biological Sciences. FAU welcomed the Vice Chancellor, Dr. Ibrahim A. Njodi, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Dr. Aliyu Shugaba, the Coordinator of External Relations, Dr. Shehu Liberty, and the Director UNIMAID Consult, Dr. Adamu Umar Dzivama. These collaborations led to the establishment of a formal agreement between UNIMAID and FAU, where both parties signed a memorandum of understanding that has established a framework for educational cooperation in the areas of climate change and environmental studies, protection and conservation. Read more
here
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Prestigious Fellowship Awarded to Biology MS Student
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Danielle Dodge is a Biology Master’s student that works in the laboratory of Dr. Josh Voss, Assistant Research Professor at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and a member of the Integrative Biology PhD program faculty. Dodge is the second student at FAU to be chosen for the prestigious 30-year old National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship.
The Sea Grant Knauss Fellowship provides a unique educational and professional experience to graduate students who have an interest in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting those resources. Read more
here
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OwlGEMS Win Bronze Medal at the 2017 iGEM Giant Jamboree
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The FAU OwlGEMS team won a bronze medal at this year's iGEM Giant Jamboree! Over 5,300 people attended and 300 teams from across the globe competed at the iGEM Jamboree, the largest Synthetic Biology competition in the world with 43 countries represented.
OWLGEMS is a multidiciplinary team of students from three FAU Colleges and counting. This year, the graduate student leader of the OwlGEMS team is Douglas Holmes, a Biology graduate student that works in the laboratory of Dr. Esiobu. The undergraduate student leader is Rachel Van Zant, another of Dr. Esiobu's research students. The machine learning sub-team was led by Michael Teti and Rachel St Clair. Read more
here
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Dr. Greg Macloed
, Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Honors College, has received a four-year research grant from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke totaling $367,471 for the first year of his project entitled “The impact of synaptic cleft pH fluctuations on short term synaptic plasticity." Read more
here
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FAU Raised Its Grant Game
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Florida scientists secured a record haul of grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this year. For the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Florida researchers won $644 million - shattering the previous high of $528 million. The state’s 22 percent annual jump in grants far outstripped the national pace of 6.5 percent. FAU received $5.4 million, up from last year’s $4.9 million. FAU raised its grant game in large part by recruiting out-of-state scientists with NIH funding. Read more
here
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Integrative Biology PhD Alumnus Publishes in
Nature
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Two alumni of Dr. Rod Murphey’s laboratory have solved a long-standing problem in neuroscience. It has been known for 50 years that target-derived, retrograde signaling controls presynaptic transmitter release and thereby synaptic strength. Brian Orr, former student of Dr. Murphey, landed a postdoc position in the laboratory of Dr. Grae Davis, another Murphey laboratory alum, at University of California San Francisco. Davis and Orr published a paper entitled "Retrograde semaphorin-plexin signalling drives homeostatic synaptic plasticity" in the October 5th issue of
Nature
(vol 550; pg 109-113) showing that semaphorin-2B is the retrograde factor that regulates synaptic strength. Read more
here
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Dr. Marianne Porter Gets Cover of
Journal Experimental Biology
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Dr. Marianne Porter of the Biological Sciences Department had her research published and got the cover of the
Journal of Experimental Biology
. Congratulations to Dr. Porter and her students, Integrative Biology Ph.D. student Sarah Hoffmann and undergraduate researcher Matthew Warren.
Hammerhead sharks, with their strange-looking heads, have long fascinated humans. The scalloped hammerhead (
Sphyrna lewini
; pictured) and the bonnethead shark (
Sphyrna tiburo
) have similar whole-body velocities, and they vary amplitude and frequency along the length of their bodies. Hoffmann et al. (pp.
3336-3343
) show that both species also exhibit a double oscillating system, such that the frequency of head yaw is greater than that of the rest of the body. This unique system may allow them to increase the frequency of sensory inputs without increasing overall undulatory frequency (and the associated energetic costs). Read more
here
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Jonathan Rivera
, a senior in the College of Science majoring in Biology, received a Nambu REU scholarship that allowed him the opportunity to further his intellectual curiosity and continue his research project this summer. His research project involves characterizing head direction (HD) cells within the mammalian brain and determining their influence on spatial navigation, which may ultimately aid in the in the improvement of therapies for neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. He joined the laboratory of Dr. Bob Stackman of the Jupiter Life Science Initiative in the summer of 2016 when he began the Biological Sciences Honors Thesis Program. Jonathan has presented his research at several symposiums and received many awards including first place in the Basic Sciences category at the FAU Undergraduate Research Symposium and third place at the Life Sciences of South Florida Symposium last spring. His future goal is to be an MD and when asked about his research experience at FAU he said, "my forage into bench work has left me with the desire to pursue an MD/PhD and further motivates me to pursue my academic goals.”
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During my time in the Integrative Biology program in Dr. Steve Kajiura’s lab, I was able to take advantage of several opportunities that helped prepare me for my current academic position- I taught upper level courses such as Comparative Vertebrate Morphogenesis with Dr. Wyneken and Comparative Animal Physiology with Dr. Milton. I served as a member on committees in scientific societies, and worked as a research assistant on a large, funded project. These experiences helped me land an exciting postdoc position at Duke University where I worked on cephalopod camouflage for a Department of Defense funded project. I gained invaluable experience developing my own lecture-lab courses for a year at California State Fullerton and am now in my 3
rd year as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Georgia Southern University. I am directly applying my experiences as a student scholar and teaching assistant in my own Comparative Animal Physiology course as well as running my own research laboratory. I was recently awarded the Eugenie Clark Award, which is given to an early career female scientist for her achievements in elasmobranch (shark and ray) research. More rewarding than receiving this prestigious award is getting to enjoy my student’s successes when they are awarded their own grants and are recognized for their accomplishments. As I’m preparing to graduate my first graduate students - including a FAU biology alum! - my education and professional training are coming full circle.
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Meet the Jupiter Biology Staff
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The Biological Sciences Department staff is here to serve students, both majors and non-majors, across several colleges and campuses at FAU. We are always happy to assist as well as answer questions that you may have. For general information about the Biological Sciences Department on the Jupiter campus contact Marjorie at 561
- 799 - 8060 or mcazeau@fau.edu
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To feature exciting news and accomplishments in this newsletter,
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