Imaging method shows beating, development in human heart model
A research team led by Chao Zhou at the McKelvey School of Engineering has used a safe, noninvasive imaging technique to observe the development of a human heart organoid over 30 days.
Cellular Transformations
Between Architecture And Biology
“Cellular Transformations” presents a course developed for students who are interested in emerging technologies and cross-disciplinary approaches in design strategies. Relying on how advances in engineering and biology are influencing design production and implementation, professors Ram Dixit and Sung Ho Kim at Washington University in St. Louis explore the premise that structure (or form) and […]
Don’t smash that bug!
Bugs. We squish ’em, smash ’em, fear ’em, scare ’em, spray ’em, sweep ’em, flick ’em and generally misunderstand them. But perhaps it’s time we rethink our relationship to our tiny, multi-legged invertebrate friends who have been around since long before we humans got here — and will be here long after we’re gone. Insects […]
Brainy birds may fare better under climate change
Many North American migratory birds are shrinking in size as temperatures have warmed over the past 40 years. But those with very big brains, relative to their body size, did not shrink as much as smaller-brained birds, according to biologists in Arts & Sciences. The study in Ecology Letters is the first to identify a direct link between cognition and animal response to human-made climate change.
Herzog to test how cortical neurons, hormones regulate daily patterns of behavior
A five-year nearly $2 million project led by biologist Erik Herzog in Arts & Sciences will use machine learning and other tools to improve understanding of how the brain is organized as a network of synchronized circadian cells.
The great tree migration
A new study co-authored by biologist Jonathan Myers in Arts & Sciences provides key insights into how and why tree populations migrate in response to climate change. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Chalker to expand hands-on science in K-12 classrooms
Douglas Chalker, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, received a five-year $660,281 collaborative award from the National Institutes of Health to expand hands-on science efforts in K-12 classrooms.
The ‘surprisingly simple’ arithmetic of smell
Research from the lab of Barani Raman finds in locusts that the presence of smell can be determined by simply adding and subtracting the presence of certain neurons.
Understanding features that help cells stay organized
Work from the lab of Rohit Pappu at the McKelvey School of Engineering and colleagues at St. Jude continues to reveal novel findings about phase separation, the process cells use for organization.
A pathway emerges
Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis described for the first time the structure of a bifunctional protein, called CcsBA, that transports heme and attaches it to cytochromes. The study led by Robert Kranz, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, captured two conformational states of CcsBA, a bacterial and chloroplast protein, allowing researchers to characterize the enzyme mechanism.
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