Department News
June 16 2011
During the summer, Monday Messages have become Monthly Messages, with one issue in June, July, and August. Please be sure to submit any items you have to Dr. Murphy (Christopher.Murphy@indstate.edu)
News about us!
Because this is the first Monday Messages, I’m including news from this summer.
Amanda Jamison, a graduate student with Elaina Tuttle, was selected as a
recipient of an Indiana Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellowship.
Peter Scott and Rob Jean, a graduate student with Peter Scott are
co-authors on a paper in September issue of
Ecological Applications:
Grundel R, RP Jean, K Frohnapple, G Glowacki, PE Scott, N Pavlovic.
2010. Floral and nesting resources, habitat structure, and fire
influence bee distribution across an open-forest gradient. Ecological
Applications 20: 1678-1692.
Peter Scott, Rob Jean, and two former Scott lab graduate students,
Theresa Bordenkecher and Chia-Hua Lin, organized the "bee team" and
contributed to a two-day bio-blitz at Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area
this July. They found 35 species, approximately 8% of the state's bee
fauna.
Jenny Bodwell, graduate student, conducted a survey of breeding birds
and post-breeding water birds in various habitats of the new Wabashiki
Fish and Wildlife Area in West Terre Haute. Highlights included nesting
Pied-billed Grebes, Hooded Mergansers, Wood Ducks, and Black-crowned
Night-Herons, and counts of 620 Great Egrets and 120 White Pelicans.
Kathy Dannelly's graduate student, Deepak Kumar, successfully
defended his dissertation over summer.
Arun Seetharam and Yang Bai, graduate students, and their advisor,
Gary Stuart published “A survey of well conserved families of C2H2
zinc-finger genes in Daphnia”
in
BMC Genomics.
Graduate student Yang Bai accepted a postdoctoral position with David
Reisman at the University of Florida, Department of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology).
In May, Yang Bai and Gary Stuart presented a poster "Study on
conservation and distribution of C2H2 Zinc-finger genes in Eukaryotes"
at the International Society for Bioinformatics Research Applications at
the University of Connecticut.
Graduate student Vincent Keller was a co-author on the poster due
to his contributions to the work late last year as an undergraduate.
Arun Seetharam and Gary Stuart attended a two-week workshop in July
at Woods Hole, MA: "The
Workshop on Molecular Evolution."
Allan Albig submitted an RO1 grant proposal to NIH for $850,000,
submitted a manuscript to PloS One, and ran, for the third year, the
Basic Techniques in Cancer Research class during the summer honors
program.
Announcements
The Fourth Annual Bat Festival will be held this Saturday, September
18 from 10 – 5 in the Science Building and from 6-8 PM at Dobbs Park.
See
http://www.indstate.edu/biology/centers/batfestival.htm
for details.
Biology Undergraduates – Do you have an interest in conducting
research? Come to the
Biology office, and we’ll help you get started.
President Daniel Bradley will deliver his annual fall address at 3
p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15, in Tilson Auditorium located in Tirey Hall.
Cunningham Memorial Library annual Library Extravaganza will be held
on Thursday, September 16, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Learn more about
the resources and services the library provides.
There will be
food and prizes.
Birthdays this week
Professor Emeritus Dr. Henry Tamar – Wednesday, Sept. 15.
3-Week attendance reporting begins Monday, September 13. The
deadline for completion of the reports is Friday, September 17, at
4:00PM. Attendance information is entered via MyISU Portal. Complete
instructions for entering attendance information can be found at
http://www.indstate.edu/registrar/instructions_for_3-week_attendance.htm.
Please contact the Office of Registration and Records at x2020 if there
are any questions.
Proposals for Senior Research Grants from the Indiana Academy of
Sciences are due September 15, 2010.
See
http://www.indianaacademyofscience.org/Research-Grants/Senior-Research-Grants-Program.aspx
for details.
The grants are available for up to “$3000 to
Academy members or students they sponsor to purchase supplies, support
travel and field expenses, pay research assistants, and provide other
items required to conduct novel scientific research.”
New Members of
the Department
A warm welcome to the new members of our department!
MS Students:
Michael
Gerringer
graduated from Cedarville University in May 2007. He has
work since graduation for the Southern Ohio Council for
Higher Education (SOCHE)/Air Force Institute of
Technology, (AFIT), Wild Birds Unlimited, The Ohio State
University , Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University through the United States Geological
Survey/Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, Cornell Lab of
Ornithology, Braddock Bay Bird Observatory Banding
Station, and Cornell University,
His research will include testing radar systems
designed to provide real-time warnings about avian
hazards. His advisor is Dr Steve Lima.
Raghav Pandey
graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. degree in
Biotechnology. He will be working in Dr Allan Albig’s
lab. He is investigating the effects of cyclosporine on
angiogenesis using fish model and cell culture, testing
if cyclosporine is inhibiting angiogenesis through the
“notch” pathway, as well as its positive and
negative effects on JAGI and DLL4.
Michelle Baird
graduated from Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin in
2007. Since graduation, she has done ornithological
research for the University of Maryland in collaboration
with the Smithsonian Institute, Patuxent Wildlife
Research Center’s Bird Phenology Program, Archbold
Biological Centers Avian Ecology Lab and has interned
and had supervisory experience at the Second Chance
Wildlife Center.
She will be working with Dr. Tuttle on avian
behavior and genetics.
Vincent Keller
is a native of
our department graduating with a Biology degree with a
minor in Chemistry, from Indiana State University in
2009. He worked with Dr. Gary Stuart during his
undergraduate degree investigated phylogenetic
relationships among eukaryotes using bioinformatics.
He will continue his research with Dr. Stuart
developing methods to extract phylogenetic relationships
among eukaryotes using ISU’s high performance computer,
as well as creating a heritable means of temperature
induced gene expression in zebrafish (Danio
rerio).
Undergraduates
Calmal Courtney Blaire Webster Cassie Walden
LaRaya Dotson Nicholas Wine Shannon Wilson
Marquita Dunbar Brandon Withers
Cassandra Fisher Jennifer Bensinger
Nicholas Gallina Greta Lowry
Nicholas Graham Kelsey Marvin
Shanna Gross Daniel Montgomery
Sarah Harlow Jerrilyn Thompson
Nydra Harvey-Costello Nicole Kruswicki
Bailey Klir Jacob Anderson
Gabriel Laska Autumn Fuller
Melanie Lucas Kierstin Linton
Abby Miller Christopher Ndife
Mary Roberts Rebecca Norcross
Riley Sutherlin Charles Parker
David Tekulve Josaphine Riley
Caitlyn Trotter Kathleen Spicer
Web assistant
Anusha Gade,
a graduate student in Computer Science, will be helping to revise our
web page to make it a better communication tool.
January 29 2010
An Indiana State University biology professor began the year with a long-awaited recognition and it numbers 7,642,045.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Swapan Ghosh, professor of biology, and the university patent number 7,642,045 for a biomarker that could aid in determining disease.
"The university is very proud of the work of Dr. Ghosh in securing this patent," said Indiana State Provost Jack Maynard. "His research has been focused on this area for a number of years and it is great to see the results of the work so recognized. "
Ghosh and Nisreen Al-Shaibi of Qatar, then a doctoral student, worked on novel biomarkers that would help in tracking stem cells, called myeloid dendritic cells, which originate in bone marrow.
"Those stem cells can give rise to a type of white blood cells important for our immunological defense," said Ghosh, who conducts immunology research.
Working on those stem cells, Ghosh and Al-Shaibi discovered DP58, a previously uncharacterized protein biomarker.
"It could be used to help determine if someone has immunological deficiency of some sort or whether where a vaccine is able to recruit a type of white blood cells of innate immunity to help defend the body," Ghosh said. "In the absence of such biomarkers, it may be difficult to determine if stem cell differentiation has begun in the body in response to danger or other signals." Blood stem cells differentiate into disease-fighting white blood cells.
Ghosh's invention relates to a method of generating and identifying the dendritic cells and a biomarker.
Such biomarkers could be used in fighting inflammation during infection or tumor growth, and so are valuable in medicinal research.
"Although this study was done in mice, the protein exists in most vertebrates, including humans," Ghosh said.
Ghosh filed for the patent in Nov. 18, 2005. He credited the assistance of Edward Lentz of Brazil, who earned a master's degree in life science from ISU, for working as his attorney pro-bono.
"I am grateful to ISU and the Office of Sponsored Programs for their support," he said.
Contact: Swapan Ghosh, Indiana State University, professor of biology, at 812-237-2416 or Swapan.Ghosh@indstate.edu