Student News
SCSU Biotech/Syn-Bio Club Tours Yale
The SCSU Biotech/Syn-Bio Club will be touring the Yale Center for Genome Analysis in December 1st (Friday) at 3PM, and speaking with its Director, Dr. Shrikant Mane! If you are interested in health, personal medicine, &/or genomics, please be sure to join the club on 'OwlConnect', and signup with one of the Club officers so that they can ensure that you will have a seat in the van.
SCSU Biotech/Syn-Bio Compeats in IGEM
Congratulations to the SCSU Biotech Club members that formed the FIRST SCSU iGEM team and competed in Boston, MA for fall 2016! They won a bronze medal! They were also honored by the Mayor of New Haven over winter break for their project to create a cell-based breathalyzer to diagnose lung tuberculosis infections.
iGEM is the "International Genetically Engineered Machine" competition where interdisciplinary (usually Math, Physics, Biology, Computer Science, Chemistry) student teams perform a Synthetic Biology project over the summer to create or redesign genetic 'circuits' in living cells that allow the cells to perform a useful function for humans.
Summertime Research
Dr. Roberts and Dr. Silady were recently awarded an USDA grant to offer summer research internships in plant health. The deadline to apply is Feb. 28th , 2017, and much more information is available here.
Faculty News
Welcome New Biology Faculty Member
The department welcomes a new faculty member, Dr. Stephen Brady, who started at SCSU in the Fall of 2017!
Dr. Steven Brady joins the Biology Department most recently from Seattle, WA, where he worked as an environmental scientist with King County. There, Steven co-led a long-term biological monitoring program assessing the health of rivers and streams in the context of salmon recovery efforts. In complement to his conservation work, Steven's research is focused on developing understanding of biological responses to environmental change. In particular, Steven's work addresses the ways in which evolutionary processes shape amphibian population responses to road-adjacency and runoff. More broadly, Steven is also working to develop our understanding of maladaptive evolution, an outcome that appears to be increasingly common in an increasingly changing world. Students interested in developing research projects related to road effects on wetland communities should be in contact. He is also on Twitter!
The New B.S. BioTechnology Degree Program is Now Available!
Click here to download a brochure about the new program that includes course-embedded authentic undergraduate research experiences, and internships at regional biotechnology companies! Learn More from the catalog.
Dr. Grace is a Kelp Helper
Dr. Grace's efforts to study the decline of kelp forests in the NorthEast through the Kelp Ecosystem Ecology Network, have been publicized in the New Haven Register. You can read about it here.
Did you know that the SCSU Biology Department is involved in two national education programs?
Both programs seek to engage undergraduates and promote retention through performing authentic research that is embedded within a course (also called a 'CUR', 'CURE', or 'CRE'). Both courses in addition to providing content, seek to address a current real-world global problem, and fulfill degree program requirements in the ''Cell/Molecular" content category.
The 'Small World Initiative' (SWI) seeks to address the increasing problem of antibiotic resistant 'superbugs' or bacteria, by having students isolate soil microorganisms that may produce new antimicrobial products. The program was created at the Yale Center for Scientific Teaching. Dr. Roberts directs and incorporates the SWI program in the course BIO233 General Microbiology I for the first time in the spring of 2015, and annually thereafter.
The second program is called "SEA-PHAGES" and was created by Dr. Graham Hatfulland the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science Education Alliance division. The SEA-PHAGES acronym stands for "Science Education Alliance's Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science", and it is "a two-semester, discovery-based undergraduate research course that begins with simple digging in the soil to find new viruses, but progresses through a variety of microbiology [& molecular] techniques, and eventually to complex genome annotation and bioinformatic analyses." Dr. Edgington will be offering the SEA-PHAGES program to Biology Majorsin two new courses (BIO 298 Genomics I, & BIO386 Genomics II). SCSU freshman students have already isolated nearly 60 novel bacterial viruses called 'bacteriophages' through the program. BIO 298 'Genomics I' was offered for the first time in the fall 2015 term. If you are interested in taking it in the fall 2016, please email Dr. Edgington if you:
- are a Freshman or Sophomore who plans to take both courses sequentially
- have taken BIO102 or BIO103 ( BIO220 recommended)
- have an interest in contributing data to an international program through lab-based research.
- want to become a SCSU Phage Hunter!
Dr. Edgington
Congratulations to Dr. Edgington for being an author on a recent publication in Nature Microbiology entitled "Prophage-mediated defence against viral attack and viral counter-defence"!