Science & Technology

Models based on an average cell are useful, but they may not accurately describe how individual cells really work. Molecular biologists use actual single-cell data to update the framework for understanding the relationship between cell growth, DNA replication and division in a bacterial system.

Far from orderly “brick-by-brick” assembly, the internal structures of cells are grown in stochastic bursts, according to physicist Shankar Mukherji in Arts & Sciences, author of a Jan. 6 study in Physical Review Letters.

Washington University is now a part of the Seattle Structural Genomics Center for Infectious Diseases Consortium, and received a subcontract award of up to $50,000 from Seattle Children’s Research Institute in support of a course on protein bioinformatics.

Richard D. Vierstra, the George and Charmaine Mallinckrodt Professor of Biology, received a four-year $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue his project titled “Phytochromes: Structural Perspectives on Photoactivation and Signaling.”

Joshua Yuan at the McKelvey School of Engineering is using quantum physics to develop technology to image photosynthesis in action without disturbing the process. The research has received support from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Colleen McDermott, a junior environmental analysis major in Arts & Sciences, discussed working with the “Humans of Tyson” project at Tyson Research Center during the recent 2022 Kansas and Missouri Environmental Education Conference.

Combining experts in wildlife ecology, animal movement and veterinary medicine, the new Forest Park Living Lab examines wildlife health, behavior and interactions in the mosaic of ecosystems in Forest Park. The project received a Living Earth Collaborative seed grant in 2020.

Erik Herzog, a professor of biology, was installed as the Viktor Hamburger Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences. His talk was titled “For Whom the Bells Toll: Networked Circadian Clocks and Clock Watchers.”

In Nature Communications, researchers in the laboratory of Robert Kranz, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, shared a new cryo-EM structure and proposed some common mechanisms of heme trafficking in the cell.

A new multidisciplinary center focused on biomolecular condensates — distinct molecular communities that make up the building blocks of life — has launched at the McKelvey School of Engineering.