Briefly Noted

A Sampler in Brief of the Movers and Shakers at the School of Biological Sciences

MARY C. BECKERLE, chief executive officer and director, Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI); and distinguished professor of biology and associate vice president for cancer affairs at the U was elected to the National Academy of Science in April. “I have the best job in the world,” she says, and whether it’s meeting with clinicians and donors, developing financial sustainability, or building relationships and teams, she’s working to turn ideas into action and meaningful progress. “We are at the most exciting time in history when it comes to the ability of scientific knowledge to improve health.” And while she’s had to reduce the time she spends in the lab to dedicate more time to leading HCI, she’s not slowing down when it comes to saving lives.

In a Journal of Mammology paper, SARA WEINSTEIN, lead author and post doc researcher in the Dearing lab found that the African crested rat is the only mammal known to sequester plant toxins for chemical defense. The team also uncovered an unexpected social life— the rats appear to be monogamous and may even form small family units with their offspring. The research was picked up broadly by the national and international press, intrigued by the existence of giant poisonous rats.

A new Capsicum (Solanaceae) species from the Andean-Amazonian Piedmont has been found and named. With her co-authors, SBS’s LYNN BOHS, also known as “Doctor Pepper,” announced the good news in a recently published paper which appeared in PhytoKeys. The chili pepper genus includes five species cultivated worldwide as vegetables, spices, and medicines.

BioUtah’s 2020 Utah Life Sciences’ Executive of the Year award went to SBS alumnus RANDY RASMUSSEN , PhD’98 “for his vision in founding and building a successful global diagnostic company to revolutionize testing for infectious disease.” Rasmussen is co-founder of BioFire Diagnostics in Salt Lake City. Two SBS faculty members, Sophie Caron and William Anderegg, have received the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award for early-career faculty. The Faculty Early Career Development award provides recipients with five years of funding to help them lay the foundation for their future research.

Distinguished Professor DENISE DEARING was selected to receive a Humboldt Research Award, conferred in recognition of the awardee’s entire academic record to date. Award winners are invited to carry out research projects of their own choice in cooperation with specialist colleagues in Germany.

In a new paper from RICHARD CLARK’s lab, analysis of the smallest known arthropod genome reveals a mechanism for genome reduction that appears to be driven by a specialized ecological interaction with plants. The article, in e-Life with SBS alumnus Robert Greenhalgh (PhD’18) as lead author, was selected as an editors’ choice by Science.

In March, OFER ROG's lab announced its first two publications. The lab studies the synaptonemal complex (SC), a conserved structure that underlies chromosome-wide behaviors during sexual reproduction. The SC has been observed in almost all eukaryotes— from yeast to worms to humans. One paper appeared in Current Biology and the other in PLOS-Genetics.

Post-retirement in 1997, Emeritus Professor DEL WIENS and his wife Carol were sailing around the home islands of Japan when their boat was boarded by heavily-armed Russian sailors. Apparently, the couple had inadvertently entered Russian territorial waters. Released after four hours, Wiens reported later to SBS on the episode saying, “we could take some satisfaction in knowing that we were likely the only American sailboat ever to be escorted by a Russian warship!”

NITIN PHADNIS and his colleagues won a 2020 Editors’ Choice Award for an outstanding population and evolutionary genetics article published in Genetics. The article was titled “Extensive Recombination Suppression and Epistatic Selection Causes Chromosome-Wide Differentiation of a Selfish Sex Chromosome in Drosophila pseudoobscura.”

Post Doctoral fellow ELENA BOER (Shapiro lab) won the Developmental Biology Outstanding Paper Award for her manuscript “Pigeon foot feathering reveals conserved limb identity networks” from the journal Developmental Biology. The prize was designed to promote the work of early career researchers who have published in the journal.

Led by SBS’s Associate Professor WILLIAM ANDEREGG, researchers found that human-caused climate change played a significant role in pollen season lengthening and a partial role in pollen amount increasing. Their research is published in PNAS. The paper, released in February, was broadly reported in the commercial press. In November, Anderegg was also tapped to present at the celebrated Frontiers of Science Lecture series, held virtually.

The U’s Academic Affairs office awarded a 2020 On-line Excellence Faculty Award to NAINA PHADNIS, assistant professor and assistant undergraduate director of SBS. She developed and taught the school’s first online/hybrid biology course in 2016. Last spring, Phadnis ran a workshop for her colleagues and consulted one-on-one to help others make the transition. In July 2020 the National Geographic Society designated Distinguished Professor Phyllis (Lissy) Coley a National Geographic Explorer. Coley is now SBS Distinguished Professor Emeritus. SBS’s Coley-Kursar Endowment celebrates the legacy of ecological research and graduate student training by Coley and the late Dr. Thomas Kursar. Funds support students conducting field studies.

Alumna MICHELE LEFEBVRE, PhD’05 is employed in Hilo on the big island of Hawaii as an environmental impact assessment specialist and project manager for Stantec, an international professional services company in the design and consulting industry. She coordinates baseline surveys, including biological and cultural inventories and works with stakeholders.

,Alumnus STEVE MIMNAUGH, MD BS’73 recently retired as an ER physician in Salt Lake City. He is a founding member of the beloved Disgusting Brothers Band as well as ‘SPLORE, a nonprofit dedicated to getting folks with disabilities out into white water rafting and other outdoor sports. A newlywed, he is busy writing a book about his time in the ER, informed by evolutionary theory.

THURE CERLING, with joint appointments in SBS and the department of Geology and Geophysics where he is also chair, was awarded a Geochemistry Fellows Honor by the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry. The honor is bestowed upon outstanding scientists who have, over some years, made a major contribution to the field. With SBS Distinguished Professor Jim Ehleringer, Cerling is deeply involved in Stable Isotope studies and for twenty years ran the international summer IsoCamp at the U.

Are you an alumni? Share with us updates on your career and/or personal life. Send your news with a headshot of yourself to development@biology.utah.edu