News and Events

Latest News

Fall Fest 2009

At this event, biology undergrads took the opportunity for celebration of their research and creative activity as an invitation to vivid discussions and exchange of their research experiences with other students and faculty.

Our Ph.D. graduate, Lingyan Wang finds her new path in New York.

Lingyan Wang graduated in May 2009, and began working as a post-doctoral fellow in October, in the laboratory of Dr. Sandra Masur, Professor of Ophthalmology, at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine of New York University. She is responsible for the development of three-dimensional culture systems for use as corneal transplants. Good Luck Lingyan!

Our Ph.D. graduate, Kristina Gonzalez starts a new career at UMMC.

Kristina Gonzalez graduated in August 2009, and began working as a post-doc on November 2nd, in the laboratory of Dr. William Kobertz at UMMC. She will be synthesizing drugs (toxins) and using electrophysiology techniques to study their actions on ion channels in cardiac tissue. Good Luck Kristina!

Past Summer Research

• Biology graduate students and Hibbett lab members Brian Seitzman and Dimitrius Floudas and post-doctoral researcher Alfredo Justo were doing field work in north Florida during the week of August 23. Dimitrius was studying the phylogeny of fungal celullases, Brian was investigating the evolution of chitinases in beetles and the fungi they inhabit, and Alfredo was an expert on Amanita and related genera. The team was collecting fungi and Coleoptera in some of the most diverse and unique ecosystems in North America, including the last remaining habitat of the gopherwood tree (Torreya taxifolia), an endangered gymnosperm species of which only 1200 individuals remain.

• Clark graduate student Brian Seitzman and undergraduate researchers Maria Sandoval and Truc Duong have spent the summer 2009 working on an NSF-funded research project aimed at clarifying the nutritional modes of fungi of uncertain status. Overseen by Dr. David Hibbett and in collaboration with a team from the University of New Hampshire and Harvard Forest, the group has collected an extensive sampling of fungi and is currently sequencing DNA to estimate the fungal diversity in Harvard Forest. The project will continue this fall semester as Dr. Hibbett’s “Molecular Ecology of Forest Fungi” course.

New Grants

• David Hibbett's lab received two new NSF grants this year

Project title: MSB/PEET: polyPEET- enhancing taxonomic expertise in the Polyporales. National Science Fundation Systematics and Population Biology (DSH, PI).Funding period Jan.1,2010-Dec.31,2014.DEB- 0933081. $750,000

Project title: Collaborative Research: Fungal Life History Strategies and Evolution: Insights from Isotopic Measurements and Phylogenetic Analysis. National Science Foundation Integrative Organismal Systems (DSH, PI). Funding period Apr. 15, 2009-Sept. 30, 2011. IOS-0843278. $59,999

• Linda Kennedy has received a new NIH grant.

Linda Kennedy has received a new National Institutes of Health research grant. Project title: Experience induced changes in taste sensitivities for sweeteners and monosodium glutamate. Funding source: National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Linda Kennedy: “This new project uses psychophysical experiments with humans and behavioral experiments with wildtype and genetically created “knock-out” mice to investigate physiological mechanisms responsible for the effects of experience on taste sensitivities. Some of the human work is in collaboration with Dr. William Spillane at the National University of Ireland, Galway. The mouse work is in collaboration with Dr. Eugene Delay at the University of Vermont. The results will contribute to an understanding of peripheral nervous system and receptor mechanisms in taste. They also could lead to development of novel strategies for compliance in the prevention and management of obesity and nutrition related disorders.”

• Denis Larochelle has received a Nuclea grant.

Project title: Dictyostelium-based screen for novel drugs Funding source: Nuclea Biomarkers, LLCDenise Larochelle:"We are taking advantage of the molecular tractability of Dictyostelium discoideum to search for novel drugs that will specifically disrupt the cell division process. Such drugs have the potential of being very effective anti-cancer therapeutics. This work is being conducted in partnership with Nuclea Biomarkers, a local biotech company with labs on campus at Clark University, and a long-standing interest in oncology."

Professor Wiatrowski's paper was just noted as an “Editor’s choice” in Science magazine

Reduction of Hg(II) to Hg(0) by Magnetite Heather A. Wiatrowski, Soumya Das, Ravi Kukkadapu, Eugene S. Ilton, Tamar Barkay and Nathan Yee Environmental Science and Technology 2009, 43 (14), pp 5307–5313 This article was featured in Science Magazine’s July 3rd “Editor’s Choice” section under Geochemistry.

David Hibbett elected Vice President of Mycological Society of America

Prof. David Hibbett has been elected Vice President of the Mycological Society of America, a scientific society dedicated to advancing the science of mycology — the study of fungi of all kinds including mushrooms, molds, truffles, yeasts, lichens, plant pathogens and medically important fungi. Read more about MSA

First Year Seminar – BIOL108, Annotation of a Microbial Genome.

Professor Heather Wiatrowski was selected by the Education Department of the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) to take part on behalf of Clark in the Undergraduate Research Program in Microbial Genome Annotation. The program enables undergraduate life sciences students at Clark to analyze bacteria genomes as a new way of teaching bioscience curriculum standards.

Andy Wilson receives his Ph.D. and leaves for Chicago

Andy graduated in summer 2009, and headed off to the Chicago Botanic Garden , where he is pursuing post-doctoral research with “Dr.Mushroom” and Greg Mueller.

 

Post-doc Matt Wund departs for College of new Jersey in Ewing, NJ

We waved good bye to Matt who has worked as a post-doc in Foster/Baker lab till August 2009. Matt, along with several members of the lab (John Baker, Sophie Valena, Justin Golub, Brendan Clancy and Susan Foster) was examining the role of ancestral plasticity in the evolution of benthic and limnetic ecotypes in stickleback fish. Read more about Matt's work

Our Undergrads

• Julie Erthal '11 participated in the Invertebrate Zoology course at the Friday Harbor Marine Laboratories, University of Washington. Read more about Julie’s experience.

 

• Tara Devaraj , Jennifer Timmreck and Pauline Wu traveled to Namibia this summer as Steinbrecher fellows. Follow this link to learn more about their education project.

• Scientist Urges Students to Make Their Voices Heard (Fordham University news release 8/13/2009) Clark University junior Lily Hughes presented a research project on mosquitoes, at Fordham University’s Calder Summer Undergraduate Research Program (CSUR) 2009 symposium. “The CSUR program, which is funded by a four-year, $324,471 grant from the National Science Foundation, enables undergraduates to conduct hands-on research at the Calder Center and surrounding sites. …”

• Biology Major Darcy Young received a NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates position to conduct summer research at Chicago Botanic Garden.

• On April 2, 2009 Lily Hughes ’11 was offered a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduate position in the Calder Summer Undergraduate Research Program at Fordham University. She will be studying vector ecology with Dr. Richard Falco. Go Lily!

• Margaret Kettles '11 worked in Bosnia where she taught English and reconciliation skills at an orphanage in Mostar. She also led a series of diversity acceptance workshops at schools throughout Bosnia.

• Sam Sparks '10 is working on a segment of the IAPP peptide which is associated with type 2 diabetes. In the lab, he has learned how to synthesize, purify and analyze this peptide.

Hibbett's publication cited as a "New Hot Paper"

The big AFTOL classification paper (Hibbett et al. 2007; http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/dhibbett/AFTOL/AFTOL.htm was cited as a “New Hot Paper” in the field of “Plant & Animal Science” by Thomson-Reuters Sciencewatch.com site http://www.sciencewatch.com/ which states “Hot papers are selected by virtue of being cited among the top one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) in a current bimonthly period.” It is nice to know that taxonomy can still rank as hot science. David submitted a commentary, which can be viewed here: http://sciencewatch.com/dr/nhp/2009/09jannhp/ Welcome to Dr. Alfredo Justo, who has just joined the lab as a post-doctoral fellow, with support from a grant from the Autonomous Government of Gallicia, Spain. Alfredo is interested in systematics of Agaricales. His initial project in our lab concerns Torrendia, which is a secotioid derivative of Amanita with a disjunct distribution in Australia and southern Europe.

Pictures of Academic Spree Spree Day'09 »»