Who?

Milo Lin
Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science

https://sites.google.com/site/milomlin/

What?

Starting at the organism level and magnifying to the organ, cellular, and macromolecular scales, biology happens along the entire spectrum of sizes ranging from a meter to a billionth of a meter. Amazingly, life manages to be both complex and reproducible over this vast spectrum of lengths. The root of this complex robustness can be traced, at the smallest scale, to proteins, which are the cleaners, builders, motors, messengers and transporters of the cell.… Read the entire snippet

http://titan.princeton.edu

What?

Research in the area of protein folding aims to determine the 3-dimensional structure of a protein, given its amino acid sequence. Protein structure prediction is the inverse to protein design, where one tries to find the sequence that will fold into a desired structure.

There are more than 23,000,000 protein sequences that have been identified through genomic sequencing approaches which aim to determine an organism’s entire DNA sequence.  Only ~84,000 of them have been experimentally determined (~0.3%).… Read the entire snippet

Emily Monosson, Freelance Environmental Toxicologist
emonosson@gmail.com

http://toxicevolution.wordpress.com/

What?

Toxicology, the study of adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms, is a broad field that brings together biology, chemistry, medicine, and other fields such as ecology. My research is focused on synthesizing the vast body of literature in this field to collect existing studies that approach toxicology from an evolutionary perspective.  It is important to make these studies accessible and available to other toxicology researchers so that they might consider the systems they study in the context of evolution.… Read the entire snippet

Who?

Brian J. Abraham, Pre-Doctoral IRTA Fellow, Graduate Student
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Boston University
bja3917@bu.edu

http://people.bu.edu/bja3917/

What?

All cell types, from skin cells to blood cells, come from stem cells, and so these diverse cell types all contain the same set of DNA letters and genes. Despite this similarity they can have very different functions. This differing functionality is accomplished in part by the fact that certain genes are “turned on” in some cell types and “turned off” in others.… Read the entire snippet

Who?

Zi Chen, Society in Science – Branco Weiss Fellow
Washington University in St. Louis
chen.z@seas.wustl.edu

http://taberlab.seas.wustl.edu/index.php/zi-chen

What?

The fundamental questions we are trying to address include: (1) the role of mechanics in morphogenesis (the creation of forms in nature) in plant and animal development, and (2) how this information can inspire designs for nano-fabrication techniques and bio-mimetic devices (devices with intelligent, functional responses to environmental stimuli). The more specific aims of our research include understanding how mechanics and geometry can be inter-related, e.g., in spontaneous formation of helical structures which can be related to the shape of  helical seed pods and “bistable morphing structures” (structures that can switch/morph between two different stable states).… Read the entire snippet

Who?

Matthew Ko, Research Intern
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
matthewko@verizon.net

What?

Magnetic fusion is a highly studied potential source of energy in the future. In magnetic fusion, fuel particles are formed into a highly energetic plasma and confined using magnetic fields in a tokamak (a doughnut-shaped magnetic “bottle”). The confined plasma is heated; the fuel particles fuse, and a large quantity of energy is released.

One of the most significant issues impacting current attempts to develop magnetic fusion into a viable source of energy is edge turbulence in the plasma.… Read the entire snippet

Who?

David Smith, Assistant Scientist
Department of Engineering Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
drsmith@engr.wisc.edu
http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~drsmith/

What?

Magnetic fusion energy is a promising energy development program with advantages like abundant fuel and carbon-free energy production not dependent on weather conditions.  To generate magnetic fusion energy, magnetic fields confine plasma (ionized gas) at high temperatures to initiate nuclear fusion reactions.  Plasma turbulence, one of the primary obstacles to fusion energy, can enhance the transport of heat and particles out of plasma and inhibit fusion energy production.  My research activities cover experimental and computation investigations of plasma turbulence to support the pursuit of magnetic fusion energy, and the results may lead to strategies for mitigating the undesirable effects of plasma turbulence.… Read the entire snippet

Meha Jain, Ph.D. Candidate
Columbia University
mj2415@columbia.edu
http://www.columbia.edu/~sn2121/People/Jain/Jain.html

What?

My research examines if smallholder farmers in rural India are able to adapt and cope with current climate variability. Specifically, I aim to identify which socio-economic (e.g. access to capital), biophysical (e.g. soil type), perceptional (e.g. risk aversion), and demographic (e.g. family size) factors are associated with farmers who are able to adapt to current climate variability. This will help identify which farmers will be able to adapt to future changes in climate and which farmers will be the most vulnerable to impending climate change.… Read the entire snippet

Who?

Patricia Melloy, Assistant Professor, Biology
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison campus, and Visiting Research Collaborator, Princeton University
pmelloy@fdu.edu
http://view.fdu.edu/default.aspx?id=3317

What?

Our lab is interested in understanding what genes control membran?e fission in budding yeast, the same kind of yeast used to make beer or bread.  In particular, we are looking at control of nuclear envelope fission just prior to cytokinesis (the separation of the cytoplasm to form two cells from one cell).  Little is known about the genetic control of nuclear envelope fission in budding yeast.  It is important to understand the regulation of nuclear envelope fission and cytokinesis because similar genes are often found to orchestrate similar events in higher eukaryotes, such as humans.  Also, many different kinds of diseases have been linked to defects in cell division.… Read the entire snippet

Who? 

Andy Dobson, Professor
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
Dobson@princeton.edu

http://www.princeton.edu/~dobber/index.html
and http://andydobson.smugmug.com/  and Twitter Andy2Dobson

What?

Understanding the structure and dynamics of food webs is one of the central scientific challenges of the 21st Century; parasites and pathognes play a potentially huge role in linking free-living species together and regulating their abundance.  Preliminary estimates suggest that considering parasites increase the number of species in food webs by 40% and the density of links between species by a factor of 3.  My research focuses on developing a quantitative and qualitative understanding of the abundance and diversity of parasites and pathogens in natural ecosystems.  The work is undertaken in salt marshes along the coast of California, in Serengeti in Tanzania and in Yellowstone NP, Wyomimg.  All of the work is collaborative and seeks to develop a mathematical understanding of the way that the ‘dark matter’ of parasites and pathogens determines the rates at which free-living species interact to drive natural ecosystems and the services they provide to humans.… Read the entire snippet