Biology Department

Interested in reading about fascinating new research in biology? Check out the following.

Stem Cells Let Kidney Transplant Patients Skip Rejection Drugs, Study Says

A recent issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine reports that kidney transplant recipients who also received donor stem cells have been able to stop taking the immunosuppressant drugs taken by all organ transplant recipients. The donor stem cells apparently mixed with the recipient's stem cells to create a chimeric immune system that did not reject the transplant. You can read more about this fascinating breakthrough at Bloomberg News.

Tim's still in Costa Rica!

Would you like to learn about Tim's sabbatical? If so check out his blog at: This Changing Life.

January 2012 trip to Costa Rica

by Tim Parshall

18 students + 2 faculty + 2 amazing guides = 1 incredible trip

You may have heard a BUZZ about Costa Rica just after returning from winter break. For the past two years, I’ve taken a group of students traveling across the landscape of Costa Rica … learning about its ecosystems, organisms, environmental issues, and culture. We'll likely be going again next January, too. Formally, it’s a “Special Topics” course on the Tropical Ecology of Costa Rica that any student on campus can take, but it is especially relevant for Biology and Environmental Science majors. Ask any of the students who traveled on the trip about it and they’ll probably give you an earful. There is a "Welcome Back" event on February 28th at 5pm in Scanlon for all the trips that traveled over the January Break. Please stop by!

Here are a few photos from our trip:

Blinking Bacteria Warn of Contamination

Bioengineers have created a microfluidic chip that resemble the pixels in LCD screens that contains 500 biopixels with 5,000 E. coli cells in each biopixel. The E. coli cells are engineered to respond to very small quantities of arsenic and then communicate among the biopixels and all flash in unison when they sense arsenic. Read more at Bio.Techniques.com