Fall 2011 - the Department of Biology - Syracuse University

Faculty NewsMichael Cosgrove has beenpromoted to associateprofessor with tenure.Marvin Druger continueshis retirement by serving assecretary of the educationsection of AmericanAssociation for theAdvancement of Science,doing a radio programon WAER (Science on theRadio), teaching FreshmanForum, giving campus tours,reviewing grant applicationsfor the National ScienceFoundation, writing for 55-Plus Magazine, and promotingfour books, including thesoon to be released sequelto his Strange Creatures andOther Poems, titled EvenStranger Creatures and OtherPoems. Marvin and his wife,Pat, recently returned from atrip to the Galapagos Islands,where he claims to haveinterviewed a tortoise thatremembers Charles Darwin’svisit.Scott Erdman attendedthe 26th Fungal GeneticsConference sponsored by theGenetics Society of Americaand held in Asilomar,California, in March. Hepresented a poster and atalk entitled “Genome-widescreens using a naturalproduct saponin to identifythree PDR pathway targetgenes, PDR19, PDR20 andPDR21, which influence lipidhomeostasis and membranepermeability in Saccharomycescerevisiae.” During the pastyear he continued serving thedepartment as associate chairand director of undergraduatestudies.Jason Fridley’s grant proposal“Will climate change alterrates of old field successionacross the U.S. easterndeciduous forest? A crosslatitudeexperimentalnetwork.” was recentlyfunded. This study involvesexperiments on tree seedlingstrying to “invade” old fieldsacross a climate gradient,with study sites in Syracuseand Florida. Jason spent Juneconducting research in theUnited Kingdom and attendeda conference on vegetationresponse to climate change inLyon, France.James Hewett was electedto serve on the Council ofthe American Society forNeurochemistry, and alongwith Sandra Hewett, wasrecently awarded a grant fromthe NIH titled: “Constructinga Conditional Slc7a11 (xCT)Null Mouse.”Sandra Hewett the newlyarrived inaugural BeverlyPetterson Bishop Professorof Neuroscience traveledto Turkey in September tospeak at the first TurkishInternational Stroke Meeting“Novel Therapeutic Strategiesand Targets for the Treatmentof Stroke” held September29-October 2, 2011 at AntalyaPapillon Ayscha Hotel andConvention Center. Thetitle of her presentation was“The Janus-faced effects ofastrocyte IL-1beta signaling:system xc- at the crossroads ofprotection and injury.”Dean George M. Langford,research associate TorstenWollert, and MichaelCosgrove, along withcollaborators from DartmouthCollege, the Marine BiologicalLaboratory at Woods Hole,and the McLaughlin ResearchInstitute, report in the Journalof Biological Chemistry thediscovery of a motor protein(Myo5a) associated with thetransport of neuronal synapticvesicles. In conjunction withanother protein called myosin-VA, Myo5a attaches to vesiclescontaining neurotransmittersand moves them to the cellsynapse as part of a “motorcargo” system. The study hasimplications in understandingmalfunctioning transportationsystems and the action ofneurotoxins that result ininsufficient or excessiverelease of neurotransmitters.Katherine Lewis gave a talkat a conference organized bythe Belgium Society for Celland Developmental Biology inJuly in Rochehaut, Belgium,and also attended theInternational Brain ResearchOrganization Conference inFlorence.Melissa Pepling gave a talkat Utica College in Octobertitled “Estrogen signalingand regulation of primordialfollicle formation.” Shealso served on the Cellular,Molecular and IntegrativeReproduction NIH studysection in February. In Julyshe attended the annualSociety for the Study ofReproduction meeting, andchaired a session there.Also attending and givingpresentations were hergraduate students RobinJones and Sudipta Dutta andundergrad Marta Dzyadyk.Scott Pitnick along withgraduate students andpostdoctoral fellows Outi Ala-Honkola, Dawn Higginson,Stefan Lüpold, and MollieManier gave research talks atthe 2011 Society for the Studyof Evolution Conference inPortland, Oregon, and will begiving talks at the Biology ofSpermatozoa Conference inEngland.Scott Pitnick, John Belote,and Mollie Manier had theirresearch on fluorescentDrosophila sperm highlightedon NSF’s Science Nation inAugust, and were awardeda grant from the NationalScience Foundation “Geneticand functional analyses ofsperm length evolution inDrosophila.”Ramesh Raina assumedthe position of chair of theDepartment of Biology in July.John Russell has steppeddown as chair of theDepartment of Biology after12 remarkably successfulyears, but will continue as amember of our faculty. Hisclosing remarks as chairare included in this issue ofBIO@SU (see page 2).Kari Segraves has beenpromoted to associateprofessor with tenure.Tom Starmer notes that aftermany years of waiting foryeast taxonomists to gettheir “stuff” together, thethree-volume The Yeasts:A Taxonomic Study, 5th ed.Elsevier (Kurtzman, C.P., J.Fell and T. Boekhout, eds.) hasbeen published. Included inthis treatise is a review titled“Yeast Ecology” by Tom andhis long-time colleague AndréLachance.Jason Wiles presentedresults of a study on howevolution is viewed andtaught in predominantlyIslamic nations during the2011 annual meeting of theAmerican Association forthe Advancement of Sciencein Washington, D.C., onFebruary 18. Jason notes thatthoughts about evolutionare just as diverse in the24 THE DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY