Professor in Biological News

University of Hawaii at Manoa professor published in science journal

Dr. Craig R. Smith, oceanography professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, recently published a paper in Marine Ecology Progress Series titled, "Biogeochemistry of a deep-sea whale fall: sulfate, reduction, sulfide efflux and methanogenesis." The research by Smith an...

SF State professor honored by President Obama for science mentoring

SAN FRANCISCO, -- For nearly 20 years, Frank Bayliss' mentoring work has made San Francisco State University a leader in training and educating minority students in the sciences. For his efforts, Bayliss has been awarded a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering ...

NTU professor discovers method to efficiently produce less toxic drugs using organic molecules

Nanyang Technological University (NTU)'s Associate Professor Zhong Guofu has made a significant contribution to the field of organic chemistry, in particular the study of using small organic molecules as catalysts, in the synthesis process called organocatalysis. Such synthesis process takes place...

WPI professor receives Fulbright Scholarship to work on tissue engineering in Ireland

WORCESTER, Mass. Kristen L. Billiar, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to work at the National University of Ireland Galway on research and education related to tissue engineering. Billiar, who will be ...

UAB professor receives HudsonAlpha Innovation Prize

Huntsville, Ala. Dr. Casey Weaver, University of Alabama at Birmingham professor of pathology, has been awarded the 2009 HudsonAlpha Prize for Outstanding Innovation in Life Sciences. The prize, which includes a $20,000 cash award, salutes Weaver's achievements in advancing understanding of immu...

From cars to cancer: UH professor employs auto industry tools for tumor therapy

An effort is under way at the University of Houston to use technologies with origins in the automobile industry to develop new tools that will help doctors and technicians better plan radiation therapy for patients with head and neck cancer. Dr. Ali Kamrani, founding director of the Design and ...

UC Riverside professor receives top scientific honor

RIVERSIDE, Calif. UC Riverside's Alexander Raikhel , a professor of entomology, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for his excellence in original scientific research. Membership in the NAS is one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in th...

Boston College chemistry professor Udayan Mohanty receives a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (April 13, 2009) Boston College Chemistry Professor Udayan Mohanty has been awarded a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for his theoretical studies of rare chemical reactions. Mohanty said he was honored to be among the 180 scientists, artists and s...

Tufts University professor receives IADR Pharmacology/Therapeutics/Toxicology Award

Alexandria, Va. The International Association for Dental Research (IADR) has selected Dr. Athena Papas, from Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, as the 2009 recipient of the Pharmacology/Therapeutics/Toxicology Research Award. The award will be presented at the IADR 87th General Session...

UC San Diego bioengineering professor trey ideker wins 2009 Overton Prize

University of California, San Diego bioengineering professor Trey Idekera network and systems biology pioneerhas won the International Society for Computational Biology's Overton Prize. The Overton prize is awarded each year to an early-to-mid-career scientist who has already made a significant co...

NJIT history professor receives national endowment for humanities

Richard B. Sher, PhD, a professor of history at NJIT and a former Guggenheim Fellow, has received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship to edit a volume of the correspondence of James Boswell, the eighteenth-century Scottish writer. Boswell was best known for his biography of Sa...

Florida professor creates endowment for insect scientists

Dr. Nan-Yao Su, a professor of entomology at the University of Florida, has donated $250,000 to the Entomological Society of America (ESA) for the establishment of an endowment to award creative entomologists who have demonstrated the ability to find alternative solutions to problems that signific...

Chemistry professor 1 of only 3 at UH to achieve prestigious AAAS status

HOUSTON, Dec. 22, 2008 B. Montgomery "Monte" Pettitt, the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics, Computer Science, Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston, has been awarded the distinction of Fellow from the American Association for the Adv...

NJIT professor finds engineering technique to identify disease-causing genes

Scientists believe that complex diseases such as schizophrenia, major depression and cancer are not caused by one, but a multitude of dysfunctional genes. A novel computational biology method developed by a research team led by Ali Abdi, PhD, http://www.njit.edu/news/2008/2008-367.php , associate...

University of Leicester professor adds new perspective to rainforest debate

The Head of Geography at the University of Leicester has addressed an international conference in Brazil on the use of modern radar technology for monitoring the rainforests. Professor Heiko Balzter told 200 scientists and foresters in Brazil "We need advanced radar satellites for monitoring tr...

Top biophysics award to Professor Ray Norton

The Australian Society for Biophysics has honoured Professor Ray Norton from WEHI's Structural Biology Division with the prestigious Bob Robertson Award. Conferred annually in Australasia, the award recognises outstanding research contributions to the field of biophysics. Professor Norton's gro...

Minnesota ecology professor wins international award for biodiversity and biofuels research

David Tilman, Regents Professor of Ecology at the University of Minnesota, has been named the 2008 recipient of the International Prize for Biology. Tilman will receive a medal, a $100,000 cash prize and a gift from Emperor Akihito of Japan in a ceremony in Tokyo on Dec. 8. Following the ceremony,...

University professor stresses links between US Navy sonar and whale strandings

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a series of lower court rulings that restrict the Navy's use of sonar in submarine detection training exercises off the coast of Southern California. The court is due to hear arguments in the case this week. For many years, George Mas...

UCSB chemistry professor receives top military award for life-saving gauze

UC Santa Barbara Chemistry Professor Galen Stucky has been honored for his role in the development of a blood-clotting gauze that is helping save soldiers who suffer severe, life-threatening injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Department of Defense's Advanced Technology Applications for Comb...

UCF professor develops vaccine to protect against black plague bioterror attack

A University of Central Florida researcher may have found a defense against the Black Plague, a disease that wiped out a third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages and which government agencies perceive as a terrorist threat today. UCF Professor Henry Daniell and his team have developed a...

UT Knoxville professor finds unexpected key to flowering plants' diversity

KNOXVILLE -- What began with an off-the-cuff curiosity eventually led Joe Williams to hang from the limbs of a tree 80 feet above the soil of northeastern Australia. The things Williams, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researcher found there may help explain the amazing diversity in the w...

National Institutes of Health award Williams professor $217,710 research grant

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., July 10, 2008 -- Thomas E. Smith, associate professor of chemistry at Williams College, has been awarded a $217,710 three-year grant by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health (NIH) for "Asymmetric Methods for the Synthesis of Pyran-Based Anticancer N...

NJIT architect professor advocates best-building practices for high wind regions

More than ever before, building design and construction can be significantly improved to reduce wind pressures on building surfaces and to help better resist high winds and hurricanes in residential or commercial construction, said NJIT architecture professor Rima Taher, PhD. Taher, who is also a...

McMaster University engineering professor receives Humboldt Research Award

Dr. Jamal Deen, professor of electrical and computer engineering at McMaster University, has been awarded a prestigious Humboldt Research Award for his work in electrical, electronic and communications engineering. Humboldt Research Awards are granted to outstanding scientists and scholars whos...

USF professor gives historical look at physiology and WWII air war

BETHESDA, Md. (April 11, 2008) World War II-era physiologists helped solve physiological problems related to flight, research that helped pave the way for an Allied victory in the air, according to Jay B. Dean, of the University of South Florida College of Medicine. Dr. Dean prepared a presenta...

NYU dental professor discovers biological clock linking tooth growth to other metabolic processes

This clock, or biological rhythm, controls many metabolic functions and is based on the circadian rhythm, which is a roughly 24-hour cycle that is important in determining sleeping and feeding patterns, cell regeneration, and other biological processes in mammals. The newly discovered rhythm, l...

MIT professor to discuss future of biofuels

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--High oil prices, energy security considerations and fears about global warming have helped revive interest in renewable energy sources like biofuels, which burn cleanly and can be produced from plants. But there are a few catches, particularly regarding biofuels like corn-base...

ASU professor helps solve mystery of glassy water

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Water has some amazing properties. It is the only natural substance found in all three states solid, liquid and gas within the range of natural Earth temperatures. Its solid form is less dense than its liquid form, which is why ice floats. It can absorb a great deal of heat witho...

JDRF awards University of Copenhagen professor with grant to conduct innovative diabetes research

Copenhagen, Denmark December 13, 2007 The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the world's largest charitable funder of type 1 diabetes research, awarded Professor Jens Hiriis Nielsen, from the University of Copenhagens Department of Medical Biochemistry and Genetics, a research grant for $495...

TAU professor finds global warming is melting soft coral

Tel Aviv University Professor (and alumnus) Hudi Benayahu, head of TAU's Porter School of Environmental Studies, has found that soft corals, an integral and important part of reef environments, are simply melting and wasting away. And Prof. Benayahu believes this could mean a global marine catastr...

K-State chemistry professor to receive Masao Horiba award

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- An award-winning Kansas State University chemistry professor's most recent honor comes from a Japanese company recognizing him for work on microfluidic devices. Chris Culbertson, associate professor of chemistry, has won a 2007 Masao Horiba Award for "Rapid Analysis of Indivi...

LSU professor studies army-ant-following birds

BATON ROUGE In the jungles of Central and South America, a group of birds has evolved a unique way of finding food by following hordes of army ants and letting them do all the work. Robb Brumfield, assistant curator of genetic resources at the LSU Museum of Natural Science and assistant profe...

KGI professor contributes new insights on 'jumping genes'

CLAREMONT, Calif., Oct. 4, 2007 Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) today announced that Dr. Animesh Ray, KGI professor and director of KGIs PhD program, has published a paper in the international online journal PLoS ONE that sheds new light on the evolution of moveable genetic elements, or jumping g...

'Bad carbs' not the enemy, University of Virginia professor finds

The latest common wisdom on carbohydrates claims that eating so-called bad carbohydrates will make you fat, but University of Virginia professor Glenn Gaesser says, thats just nonsense. Eating sandwiches with white bread, or an occasional doughnut, isn't going to kill you, or necessarily even lead...

ETH Zurich professor Ari Helenius awarded Benoist Prize

Why do we catch colds? How do viruses get into cells? In pursuing this central question, Ari Helenius, Professor of Biochemistry at ETH Zurich since 1997, and his team have pioneered research in this field. For his efforts, Professor Helenius has today been awarded the Swiss Nobel Prize in Bern, S...

UGA Odum School of Ecology professor receives grant to study West Nile Virus in NYC

Athens, Ga. When West Nile virus first struck New York City in 1999, news of the potentially fatal illness alarmed citizens and public health officials alike, showing that even affluent, urban societies are vulnerable to vector-borne diseases. Although West Nile virus has been widely studied, the...

LSU professor looks for life in and under antarctic ice

BATON ROUGE Antarctica is home to the largest body of ice on Earth. Prior to approximately 10 years ago, no one thought that life could exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheets, which can be more than two miles thick in places, because conditions were believed to be too extreme. However, Brent Chr...

Image processing and mathematical morphology in new text by NJIT professor

Image Processing and Mathematical Morphology: Fundamentals and Applications (CRC Publisher, 2009), a new reference book by NJIT computer science professor Frank Y. Shih http://web.njit.edu/~shih offers a comprehensive overview of morphological mechanisms and techniques and their relation to imag...

IADR Wilmer Souder Award presented to University of Colorado professor

Alexandria, Va. The 2009 Wilmer Souder Award is being presented to Dr. Jeffrey Stansbury, from the University of Colorado, Aurora, USA. The International Association for Dental Research (IADR) will present the award at its 87th General Session & Exhibition in Miami, Florida, USA, on April 1, 2009...

Evolution education for K-12 teachers needs beefing up, says CU-Boulder professor

A failure to grasp the fundamentals of biological systems may be leaving K-12 teachers and students vulnerable to claims by intelligent design creationists, new-age homeopaths and other "hucksters," according to a University of Colorado at Boulder biology professor. On the 150th anniversary of ...