Seminar
The Department of Biology sponsors a weekly seminar series during the Fall and Spring semesters. Seminars are held each Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. in Biological Sciences Building East (BSBE), room 115. In addition to this weekly seminar series, the department hosts the Walker Endowed Lectureship. If you would like to be added to our weekly seminar e-mail reminder, please send your name and e-mail address to McKensie Le Fevre at mlefevre@bio.tamu.edu.
BIOLOGY SEMINAR SERIES
Emily and Robert Walker ’45 Lectureship in Biology
Originally formed as the Frontiers in Biology lecture series, the Departmental lectureship was established in 1984 as a mechanism to attract prominent scientists to Texas A&M University for an extended visit with our faculty and students. This program of formal seminars and relaxed one-on-one interactions has enabled faculty and students from our department as well as other departments on campus to hear first-hand about the forefront of biological research from the leading figures of various biological disciplines. In 2009, the Frontiers in Biology Lecture became the Emily and Robert Walker ’45 Endowed Lectureship in Biology.
Emily Walker is a resident of Dallas, Texas. Robert Walker, a world-renowned clinician and educator, passed away on April 28, 2011.
Emily attended UT and is a weaver. An active member of the Spinners and Weavers Guild in Dallas, she grows her own cotton in whiskey barrels in the backyard and has it ginned at the TAMU Extension Service.
Robert began at TAMU in 1941 just before the U.S. entered World War II. He had a strong interest in the Department of Biology’s program in pre-medicine and pre-dentistry. Although he was a member of TAMU’s class of ’45, he was drafted into the army in 1943 and assigned to the Baylor College of Dentistry in 1944. He earned a DDS degree there in 1947, and had a general practice in Waco, Texas, until 1951. He then was called back into the army during the Korean War. In 1953 he went to Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and from 1954-56 he did a residency in oral surgery at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
He was appointed to the Department of Surgery, UT Southwestern Medical School in 1956 to create the Division of Oral Surgery where he remained throughout the rest of his career, training over 200 residents. Among his many professional honors, he is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in England and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. Over the years, Dr. Walker retained close ties with TAMU, and he was actively involved in many of its organizations and advisory boards.
The Emily and Robert Walker ’45 Endowed Lectureship in Biology was established in 1995 to bring to the attention of the TAMU community outstanding research in the biological sciences.
The Frontiers in Biology lecture series in the Department of Biology was established in 1984 as a mechanism to attract prominent scientists to Texas A&M University for an extended visit with our faculty and students. This program of formal seminars and relaxed one-on-one interactions has enabled faculty and students from our department as well as other departments on campus to hear first hand about the forefront of biological research from the leading figures of various biological disciplines. In 2009, the Frontiers in Biology Lecture became the Emily and Robert Walker ’45 Endowed Lectureship in Biology.
2018
Wallace Marshall, Professor in University of California -San Francisco, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2014
John Avise, Distinguished Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences,
University of California at Davis
Fall 2011
Eric N. Olsen, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
“Heart Making and Heart Breaking: New Strategies for Heart Repair and Regeneration”
“MicroRNA Control of Muscle Development and Disease: From New Biology to New Therapeutics”
2010
Steve Block
2009
John Nichols
SPRING 2007
Cynthia Kenyon, Department of Neuroscience, University of California-San Francisco
FALL 2004
Jim Hudspeth, HHMI Investigator, F.M. Kirby Professor, The Rockefeller University
FALL 2002
David Baulcombe, The Sainsbury Laboratory, John Innes Center, United Kingdom
“Everlasting tomatoes and a cure for cancer – A short history of gene silencing”
“Mechanisms of gene silencing and disease resistance in plants”
SPRING 2001
Sydney Kustu, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley
“Regulation of nitrogen metabolism in enteric bacteria: genomic and structural studies”
“Regulation of nitrogen metabolism in enteric bacteria: physiological and biochemical studies”
FALL 2000
Michael Young, Laboratory of Genetics, Rockefeller University
“Life’s 24 hour clock: molecular control of circadian rhythms in animal cells”
“New parts for Drosophila’s circadian clock”
SPRING 2000
Marc H.V. Van Regenmortel, Immunochemistry Laboratory, Institut de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire du CNRS
“The Limits of Reductionism in Molecular Biology and Medicine”
“Analyzing Molecular Recognition and Structure-Function Relationships with Biosensors”
“The Potential of Synthetic Peptides as Viral Vaccines”
Andy McMahon, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University
“The role of Hedgehog signaling in constructing the mammalian embryo”
“Hedgehog actions and interaction at the cell surface”
SPRING 1999
Masakazu “Mark” Konishi, Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology
“Brain Mechanisms of Sound Localization in Owls”
“Recent Advances in Birdsong Research”
Martin Heisenberg, Theodor-Boveri-Institut fuer Biowissenschaften, Lehrstuh fuer Genetik
“Flies, brains and the biological origin of the mind”
“Pattern recognition with stabilized eyes: Genetic approach to Drosophila brain function
FALL 1998
Ton Bisseling, Department of Molecular Biology, Agricultural University, Dreijenlaan Wageningen Netherlands
“The phylogeny of nodulation: A comparison of legume nodulation and common plant development”
“Microspectroscopic approaches to studying nod factor signaling in living root cells”
Jeff Hall, Department of Biology, Brandeis University
“Molecular neurogenetics of rhythms in Drosophila: The midst of the fly’s circadian system and outward”
“Special topic for the rhythm system of Drosophila: Inward to the clock from environmental signals”
SPRING 1998
Marv Wickens and Judith Kimble, Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“Signal transduction, growth control and the decision between mitosis and meiosis in C. elegans”
“3′ UTRs and development”
FALL 1997
Jose Antonio Campos-Ortega, Univerität zu Köln, Institute für Entwicklungsbiologie
“Mechanisms of a cellular decision in Drosophila: epidermogenesis or neurogenesis”
“Neurogenesis in zebrafish”
SPRING 1997
Corey Goodman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
“Wiring up the brain: Genetic analysis of the mechanisms that generate neural specificity”
“To cross or not to cross: Genetic analysis of axon guidance at the midline”
Woody Hastings, Harvard University, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
“The circadian biological clock from man to microorganism”
“Molecular and cellular organization of dinoflagellate bioluminescence: A luciferase with three active sites in one molecule”
FALL 1996
Brian Staskawicz, University of California-Berkeley, Department of Plant Pathology
“Evolving concepts in plant-pathogen interactions”
“Signal transduction events specifying plant disease resistance”
SPRING 1996
Ken Keegstra, Michigan State University, DOE-Plant Research Laboratory
“Chloroplasts are not green mitochondria: Differences and similarities in their protein import systems”
“Targeting proteins into and across the chloroplastic envelope membrane”
Chris Somerville, Stanford University, Carnegie Institute, Department of Plant Biology
“Genetic dissection of membrane and storage Lipid Composition and Function in Arabidopsis”
“Production of polymers in transgenic plants”
FALL 1995
Lucy Shapiro, Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Developmental Biology
“The global control of cellular differentiation: The cell cycle”
“Temporal & spatial control of cell polydifferentiation”
Steven Reppert, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Biology
“Melatonin: The hormone of the 90’s”
“Molecular analysis of the period gene in silk moths”
SPRING 1995
Carol Gross, University of California, San Francisco, Division of Oral Biology
“Regulation of the heat shock response”
“RNA polymerase: Initiation, elongation and termination”
Gordon Shepherd, Yale University School of Medicine, Section of Neurobiology
“From odor molecules to odor maps: The molecular basis of olfactory perception”
“Current issues in the analysis of odor processing”
FALL 1994
John Gerhart, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology
“Organizing Spemann’s Organizer”
“Dorsalization of the Xenopus egg”
Paul Berg, Stanford University School of Medicine, Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Biology
“Genes and disease”
“Repair of deletions and double strand breaks in DNA by recombination in eukaryotes”
SPRING 1994
Elliott Meyerowitz, California Institute of Technology, Division of Biology
“Genetic and molecular control of flower development: How to build a flower from parts”
“Genetic control of cell & organ number in developing flowers”
Tom Silhavy, Princeton University, Department of Molecular Biology
“Genetic analysis of protein secretion”
“Signal transduction in the purin regulon”
FALL 1993
Michael Rosenfield, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Diego
“Space and time: Transcriptional regulation of mammalian organogenesis”
“A tale of two receptors: Codes of transcriptional activation”
Sharon Long, Stanford University, Department of Biological Sciences
“Rhizobium-Legume symbiosis: From pliny and prosopis to plasmids”
“Bacterial nod signals and plant cell responses in the rhizobium-legume symbiosis”
SPRING 1993
Adrienne Clarke, CSIRO, Plant Cell Biology Research Centre, University of Melbourne
“Self-incompatibility in flowering plants: An overview”
“Gametophytic self-imcompatibility in the solanaceae”
“Extracellular secretions of the female pistil in Nicotiana alata, an ornamental tobacco”
FALL 1992
Brian Hall, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
“Epigenetics: Waddington’s legacy and evolutionary developmental biology”
“Embryos and fossils”
“The developing skeleton: Models and mechanisms”
SPRING 1992
Chris Leaver, University of Oxford, Department of Plant Science
“Mitochondrial genome organization and expression in higher plants”
“The molecular and biochemical basis of cytoplasmic male sterility”
“Genetic and metabolic regulation of glyotylate cycle genes in higher plants”
FALL 1991
Ghillean Prance, Royal Botanic Gardens, United Kingdom
“The conservation and utilization of the Amazon rainforest”
“The varied vegetation of the Amazon region”
“Application of pollination and dispersal data to plant systematics”
Eric Davidson, California Institute of Technology, Division of Biology
“The sea urchin: Molecular basis of founder cell specification”
“How embryos work: A general and comparative interpretation of early embryogenesis”
“DNA binding regulatory factors of the sea urchin embryo”
SPRING 1990
Robert Day, University of Delaware, Department of English
“How to write and publish a scientific paper”
“The history of scientific writing”
FALL 1990
Melvin Simon, California Institute of Technology, Division of Biology
“Signal transduction in simple organisms”
“G proteins and signal processing in eukaryotic organisms”
“Interesting odds and ends”
SPRING 1989
Dale Kaiser, Stanford University, Department of Biochemistry
“Regulation of gliding motility in Myxococcus xanthus
“A regulatory logic for multicellular development in Mycococcus xanthus”
“Doing genetics with underdeveloped microbes”
Robert Bakker, University of Colorado, University Museum
“Hot- and cold-running dinosaurs”
“Dinosaurs: Bringing them back alive”
“Suboptimal evolution”
FALL 1989
Michael Menneker, University of Virginia, Department of Biology
“Biological clocks of man and beast”
“Circadian organization among the vertebrates”
“The Tau mutation in hamsters as a tool in circadian analysis”
Stuart Kaufmann, University of Pennsylvania, Santa Fe Institute, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
“Evolution and co-evolution on rugged fitness landscapes”
“Evolution of order in genetic regulatory networks”
“The four color wheels model of Drosophila development”
SPRING 1988
Jeffrey Palmer, University of Michigan, Division of Biological Sciences
“Transposition and rearrangement of chloroplast and mitochondrial genes in plants”
W.J. Peacock, CSIRO, Division of Plant Industry
“Control of anaerobic gene expression in plants”
Paul Kaesberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Molecular Virology Laboratory
“Role of viruses in present day molecular biology”
FALL 1984
Eric Davidson, California Institute of Technology, Division of Biology
CURRENT SEMINARS
Spring 2025
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/14/2025 | Gillian Imrie
Jorden Holland |
Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | Astrocytic store-released calcium signaling regulates cortical synapse development and function
Identifying the Transcription Factors that Mediate the Immediate Response to Fibroblast Growth Factor (Fgf) |
Haley Bennett |
| 1/21/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 1/28/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 2/04/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 2/11/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 2/18/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 2/25/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 3/04/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 3/11/2025 | Spring Break | |||
| 3/18/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 3/25/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 4/01/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 4/08/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 4/15/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| 4/22/2025 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
PREVIOUS SEMINARS
Fall 2024
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/20/2024 | Angela Mitchell | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | Enterobacterial Common Antigen’s Role in Outer Membrane permeability and Antibiotic Resistance | Joe Sorg |
| 8/27/2024 | Daniel Paredes-Sabja | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | Clostridioides difficile Spores´ Role in Persistence and Disease Recurrence | Joe Sorg |
| 9/3/2024 | Merilyn Beebe & Amy Tan | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | MB: Phenotypic Characterization of C. difficile ribotypes
AT: Early environmental conditions shape epigenetic changes in Strongylocentrotus purpuratus |
BioGSA |
| 9/10/2024 | M. Celestee Simon | Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine | Can Altered Tumor Metabolism be Exploited for New Cancer Treatments? | Tapasree Roy Sarkar |
| 9/17/2024 | Michael C. Abt | Department of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania | Immune-Microbiota Interactions in defense against Clostridioides difficile | Daniel Paredes-Sabja |
| 9/24/2024 | Kerwyn C Huang | Departments of Bioengineering and Microbiology & Immunology, Stanford University | Predicting the Assembly of the Gut Microbiome | Angela Mitchell |
| 10/1/2024 | Jessica Bernard | Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University | Flipping the brain upside down: Novel insights into aging from studying the cerebellum. | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 10/8/2024 | Fall Break | |||
| 10/15/2024 | Vishal Gohil | Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Texas A&M University | Mitochondrial Copper Biology: From Yeast Genetics to Menkes Disease Therapeutics | Richard Gomer |
| 10/22/2024 | Beth Archie | Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame | Social and Early Life Determinants of Survival in Wild Baboons | Courtney Fitzptrick |
| 10/29/2024 | Wenshe Liu | Departments of Chemistry, Translational Medical Sciences, Biochemistry & Biophysics, Cell Biology & Genetics, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, TAMU | Phage-Displayed Noncanonical Amino Acids for Drug Discovery | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 11/5/2024 | Anita Devineni | Department of Biology, Emory University | Neural processing for flexible feeding behaviors in Drosophila | Alex Keene |
| 11/12/2024 | Jeremy Rock | David Rockefeller Graduate Program, Rockefeller University | Compensatory Evolution in NusG improves fitness of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis | Joe Sorg |
| 11/19/2024 | Harold Sontheimer | Department of Neuroscience, University of Virginia | Perineuronal Nets – Old Structures New Functions | Isabella Farhy-Tselnicker |
| 11/26/2024 | Jeffrey M Gross | Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Texas at Austin | Using Zebrafish to Understand Regeneration and Neuroprotection in the Eye | Jennifer Dulin |
Spring 2024
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CANCELED: 1/16/2024 | Yuhan Huang and Srutha Venkatesan | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | Yuhan Huang, Zarin Lab: “Neural Control of Swing and Stance Phases of Foot-Like Structures During Drosophila Larval Locomotion”
Srutha Venkatesan, Nan Lab: “How Bacteria Maintain Cell Integrity and How We Disrupt It” |
BioGSA |
| 1/23/2024 | Amanda Larracuente | Department of Biology, University of Rochester | Intragenomic Conflicts in Drosophila: Satellite DNA and Meiotic Drive | Mahul Chakraborty |
| 1/30/2024 | Vidyadhara D.J. | Yale School of Medicine | Presynaptic endolysosomal system dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease. | Jen Dulin |
| 2/6/2024 | Hongjie Li | Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine | Time flies, How? Unlocking the Secrets of Aging | Alex Keene |
| 2/13/2024 | Karen Gamble | Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham | Unmasking the Hidden Rhythms: Dopaminergic Neuron-Specific Bmal1 Knockdown Disrupts 24-h Patterns and Reveals Ultradian Dynamics in Substantia Nigra Neuronal Activity | Jeff Jones |
| 2/20/2024 | Lu Sun | Department of Molecular Biology, UT Southwestern | Cellular and Molecular Dissection of Neuron-Glia Interactions | Bella Farhy |
| 2/27/2024 | Michael Landis | Department of Biology, Washington University St. Louis | Phylogenetic methods to model spatial evolution | Heath Blackmon |
| 3/5/2024 | Will Hwang | Department of Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School | Single-Cell and Multi-Modal Spatial Approaches to Study Human Oncology | Tapasree Roy Sarkar |
| 3/12/2024 | Spring Break | |||
| 3/19/2024 | Yuhan Huang and Srutha Venkatesan | Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina Charlotte | Yuhan Huang, Zarin Lab: “Neural Control of Swing and Stance Phases of Foot-Like Structures During Drosophila Larval Locomotion”
Srutha Venkatesan, Nan Lab: “How Bacteria Maintain Cell Integrity and How We Disrupt It” |
Angela Mitchell |
| 3/26/2024 | C. Andrew Frank | Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Iowa | How Discrete Homeostatic Signals Stabilize Synapse Function | Aref Zarin |
| 4/2/2024 | Greg Reeves | Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University | Towards a Quantitative Understanding of Cellular Decision-Making in Tissue Development and Beyond | Bruce Riley |
| 4/9/2024 | Joseph Zackular | Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania | Pathogen-Microbiota Interactions during Clostridioides difficile Infection | Joe Sorg |
| 4/16/2024 | William Prinz | Department of Cell Biology, UT Southwestern | A novel mechanism of regulating plasma membrane fluidity and function requires bridge-like lipid transport proteins | Larry Griffing |
| 4/23/2024 | Deb Bell-Pedersen | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | Connections between the Circadian Clock, Translation Fidelity, and Aging | Paul Hardin |
Fall 2023
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/29/2023 | Ben Herman | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | It’s Not Just a Science Thing: Factors Associated with Socioscientific Issues Engagement | Joe Sorg |
| 9/5/2023 | Jen Dulin | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | The Biology of Neural Progenitor Cell Transplantation for Spinal Cord Injury | Joe Sorg |
| 9/12/2023 | Kira Delmore | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | Speciation, Behavior, and Hybrid Zones | Joe Sorg |
| 9/19/2023 | Christine Merlin | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | The incredible journey of the migratory monarch butterfly: a new model system for circadian rhythms, seasonal migration, and magnetosensation | Joe Sorg |
| 9/26/2023 | Miranda Leal & Sara Maynard | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | SM: “Calcium signaling in plants: photostimulating the ER-chloroplast membrane contact site” ML: “L-selectin shedding is critical for regulating neutrophil function and long-term recovery after spinal cord injury”” |
BioGSA |
| 10/3/2023 | Kartik Venkatachalam | Department of Integrative Biology & Pharmacology, UTHealth – Houston | Multimodal Interrogation of Neurological Diseases | Jen Dulin |
| 10/10/2023 | Christophe Herman | Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine | Transcription Errors Drive Phenotypic Variability from E. coli to SARS-CoV-2 | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 10/17/2023 | Susanne Brander | Oregon State University | Micro and Nanoplastic Effects in Marine and Estuarine Organisms, Deciphering Responses to Better Understand Mechanisms of Toxicity | Maureen Hayden |
| 10/24/2023 | Elena Gracheva | Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology & Neuroscience, Yale University | Cellular, Molecular, and Physiological Adaptations of Hibernation | Christine Merlin |
| 10/31/2023 | Ashok Shetty | Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, TAMU School of Medicine | Promise of Human Neural Stem Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles for Treating Alzheimer’s Disease | Tom McKnight |
| 11/7/2023 | Jun Wang | NEXT Department, TAMU | Neural Circuit Mechanisms of Substance Use Disorders | Bella Farhy |
| 11/14/2023 | Dustin Rubenstein | Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University | Linking Genotype, Phenotype and Environment in Social Evolution | Kira Delmore |
| 11/21/2023 | ZOOM: Andrea Graham | Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton | Where the Wild Things Are: Interacting Effects of Genetics, Environment, & Behavior on Immune Function | Jenna Hulke |
| 11/28/2023 | Ira Blader | Department of Microbiology and Immunology, SUNY Buffalo | TOXOPLASMA INFECTIONS OF THE BRAIN: MAKING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR PHD | Lamba Sangaré |
| 12/5/2023 | Ronald DePinho | Department of Cancer Biology, MD Anderson Cancer Center | Precision Oncology & Tumor Biology | Tapasree Roy Sarker |
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/17/2023 | Sven van Teefelen
(Zoom) |
Department of Microbiology, University of Montreal | On Growth and Form, 100 Years After D’Arcy Thompson: Towards a Fundamental Understanding of Cell Shape and Size Using Rod-Shaped Bacteria as Model Systems | Beiyan Nan |
| 1/24/2023 | Matt Kayser | Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Medical School | Using Fruit Flies to Study Sleep Regulation and Function Across Development | Alex Keene |
| 1/31/2023 | Elena Gracheva | Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology & Neuroscience, Yale University | Cellular, Molecular, and Physiological Adaptations of Hibernation | Christine Merlin |
| 2/7/2023 | Natividad Ruiz | Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University | Lipid Transporters that Build the Outer Membrane in Gram-Negative Bacteria | Angela Mitchell |
| 2/14/2023 | Paul Bollyky | Department of Medicine, Stanford University | Bacteriophages in Human Health and Disease | Jolene Ramsey |
| 2/21/2023 | Swathi Yadlapalli | Department of Cell & Development Biology, University of Michigan | Understanding How Clock Condensates Control Circadian Rhythms | Christine Merlin |
| 2/28/2023 | Kasuni Daundasekara & Hailee Nerber | Department of Biology, TAMU | HN: The small acid-soluble proteins of Clostridioides difficile regulate sporulation through a downstream protein, SpoIVB2. KD: Identifying serpentine adaptation genes by tracing evolutionary-genomic history of Streptanthus, Caulanthus, and their allied genera (Brassicaceae) |
TAMU BioGSA |
| 3/7/2023 | Thomas Clandinin | Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University | How Does Vision Interact With Locomotion? | Aref Zarin |
| 3/14/2023 | Spring Break | |||
| 3/21/2023 | Richard Dixon | Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas and Department of Biology, TAMU | Plant Cell Wall Engineering: Prospects and Problems | Wayne Versaw |
| 3/28/2023 | CANCELED: Harald Sontheimer | Department of Neuroscience, University of Virginia | TBA | Bell Farhy |
| 4/4/2023 | Joel McGlothlin | Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech | Ancient enemies: The evolutionary origins of the predator-prey arms race between snakes and newts | Courtney Fitzpatrick |
| 4/11/2023 | Eric Skaar | Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, Vanderbilt University | Clostridioides difficile Eats Your Blood and Uses It as a Shield | Joe Sorg |
| 4/18/2023 | Nobuaki Kikyo | Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development, University of Minnesota | Inhibition of Cell Reprogramming by Inflammatory Macrophages Under Circadian Regulation | Shogo Sato |
| 4/25/2023 | Trisha Davis | Department of Biochemistry, University of Washington | Reconstituting the Kinetochore From Microtubule to Chromosome | Lisa Campbell |
Fall 2022
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/30/2022 | Hongmin Qin | Department of Biology, TAMU | Mechanisms of agricultural pest crape myrtle bark scale infestation, and engineering protein nanoarray systems for synthetic biology | Joe Sorg |
| 9/6/2022 | Craig Ellermeier | Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Iowa | Cell Envelope Stress Response in C. difficile | Joe Sorg |
| 9/13/2022 | Matthew Breuer & Aishwarya Sahasrabudhe | Department of Biology, TAMU | MB: “The antidepressant sertraline induces the formation of supersized lipid droplets in the human pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans”
AS: “Rhythmic systemic signals drive rhythmic gene expression through mTOR signalling in the mouse liver” |
Ebi Preh |
| 9/20/2022 | Mostafa Zamanian | Department of Pathobiological Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison | Leveraging advanced transcriptomics and heterologous systems for anthelmintic discovery | Jenna Hulke |
| 9/27/2022 | Elizabeth Hobson | Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cincinnati | Dominance hierarchies, fight decisions, & social support as windows into animal social cognition | Courtney Fitzpatrick |
| 10/4/2022 | Joe Lutkenhaus | Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics and Immunology, University of Kansas | Regulation of Bacterial Cell Division | Angela Mitchell |
| 10/18/2022 | Ilia Karatsoreos | Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, U. Mass Amherst | From Brain to Body and Back: Consequences of Disrupted Body Clocks on Health | Christine Merlin |
| 10/25/2022 | Mayssa Mokalled | Department of Developmental Biology, Washington University School of Medicine | Comparative approaches reveal regenerative cell identities in the spinal cord | Dylan McCreedy |
| 11/1/2022 | Chun Han | Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University | Phagocytosis-Driven Neurodegeneration and New CRISPR Tools in Drosophila | Aref Zarin |
| 11/8/2022 | Borden Lacy | Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center | Molecular mechanisms of toxins in Clostridioides difficile pathogenesis | Michael Acheampong Debrah |
| 11/15/2022 | Jennifer Evans | Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University | A Time for Change: Plasticity in Circadian Clock Circuits | Jeff Jones |
| 11/22/2022 | Lauren O’Connell CANCELED |
Department of Biology, Stanford University | Ecological Tuning of Animal Behavior and Physiology: Lessons from Poison Frogs | Alex Keene |
| 11/29/2022 | Gaby Maimon | HHMI/ Rockefeller University | How Brains Add Vectors | Wanhe Li |
| 12/6/2022 | Tobias Dörr | Department of Microbiology, Cornell University | Molecular Mechanisms of Cell Wall Turnover and Antibiotic Tolerance in Gram-negative Pathogens | Beiyan Nan |
Spring 2022
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/18/2022 | CANCELED: Ilia Karatsoreos | Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts at Amherst | From Brain to Body and Back: Consequences of Disrupted Body Clocks on Health | Christine Merlin |
| 1/25/2022 | Jing Chen | Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech | Who Is to Thank for the Rhythms of My Tail? A Mathematical Study of Circadian Rhythmicity in Poly(A) Tail Length | Beiyan Nan |
| 3/1/2022 | Murray Blackmore | Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University | Gene Therapy for Spinal Cord Injury: New Molecular Targets and Improved Delivery | Valerie Dietz |
| 3/8/2022 | Bin Wu & Justin Palermo | Department of Biology, TAMU | BW: To eat, or not to eat, that is the question.
JP: A human to fly pipeline: Functional validation of sleep GWAS in Drosophila. |
Sara Maynard |
| 3/15/2022 | Spring Break | |||
| 3/22/2022 | CANCELED: Craig Ellermeier | Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Iowa | Cell Envelope Stress Response in C. difficile | Joseph Sorg |
| 3/29/2022 | Dion Dickman | Department of Gerontology, University of Southern California | Induction Mechanisms of Homeostatic Synaptic Plasticity | Aref Zarin |
| 4/5/2022 | Thomas Bernhardt | Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School and HHMI | Cell Surface Assembly in Corynebacteria | Beiyan Nan |
| 4/12/2022 | John Hogenesch | Division of Human Genetics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital | Building Circadian Medicine in a Pediatric Hospital | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 4/19/2022 | Xinhua Chen (via Zoom) | Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School | C. difficile Infection – What Remains Difficult? | Daniel Paredes-Sabja |
| 4/26/2022 | Raghu Kalluri | Department of Cancer Biology, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center | Exploiting the Biology of Tumor Stroma and Exosomes for Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer | Tapasree Roy Sarkar |
Fall 2021
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/31/2021 | Jerome Menet | Department of Biology, TAMU | Mechanisms underlying the timing of gene expression across the day | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 9/7/2021 | Heath Blackmon | Department of Biology, TAMU | The evolution of genome architecture | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 9/14/2021 | Young-Ho Jung & Whitney Roberson | Department of Biology, TAMU | YJ: Exploring unexpected phenotypes and changes in transcriptional state caused by small nucleotide changes in the Sex-lethal early enhancer
WR: The Role of pax2 Transcription Factor in Development and Maintenance of Sensory Hair Cells in the Zebrafish Inner Ear |
Sara Maynard |
| 9/21/2021 | Cynthia Whitchurch (via Zoom) | Quadram Institute Bioscience, University of East Anglia, England | Shape-shifting superpowers of Pseudomonas aeruginosa | Ry Young |
| 9/28/2021 | Craig Ellermeier -CANCELLED | Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Iowa | Cell Envelope Stress Response in C. difficile | Joseph Sorg |
| 10/5/2021 | Wesley Grueber (via Zoom) | Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics and Neuroscience, Columbia University | Establishment of subcellular synaptic specificity: lessons from the Drosophila somatosensory system | Aref Zarin |
| 10/12/2021 | Pam Brown | Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri | Exploring Cell Elongation and Division in the bacterial plant pathogen Agrobacterium tumefaciens | Beiyan Nan |
| 10/19/2021 | Seth Walk | Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Montana State University | Understanding and manipulating gut microbiome residency | Joseph Sorg |
| 10/26/2021 | Nicholas Shikuma (via Zoom) | Department of Biology, San Diego State University | A tale of phage tails and tubeworms: How bacteria stimulate animal metamorphosis | Angela Mitchell |
| 11/2/2021 | C. Brandon Ogbunugafor (via Zoom) | Yale University | Environment by everything interactions: from protein evolution to indirect transmission in modern epidemics. | Jenna Hulke |
| 11/9/2021 | Katie Lotterhos (via Zoom) | Department of Marine and Environment Sciences, Northeastern University | Adaptation and climate change: what are we missing? | Kira Delmore |
| 11/16/2021 | Matt Harris | Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School | Lurking just below the surface: exposing latent potential for limb development in a fish | Bruce Riley |
| 11/23/2021 | Paul Kubes (via Zoom) | Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Calgary School of Medicine | Understanding how immune cells help repair injured tissues | Dylan McCreedy |
| 11/30/2021 | Tamra Mendelson (via Zoom) | Department of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland at Baltimore | Beauty and speciation in North American freshwater fishes | Courtney Fitzpatrick |
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/19/2021 | Xiuren Zhang | Biochemistry and Biophysics, TAMU | Homeostatic Mechanisms of RNA Silencing in Arabidopsis | Tom McKnight |
| 1/26/2021 | John Tuthill | Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington | Neural Mechanisms of Limb Proprioception | Aref Zarin |
| 2/2/2021 | Karine Gibbs | UC-Berkeley | Micro-crowdsourcing: How swarming bacteria use a local sense of identity to assemble and move as a community | Debby Siegele |
| 2/9/2021 | Brie Myre & Runshi Xie | TAMU Biology | Runshi: Life Table and Mating Behavior of Crapemyrtle Bark Scale (Acanthococcus lagerstromiae) Brie: A New Approach to an Old Question: Evaluation of Ecological Breeding Strategies in Sea Turtles |
BioGSA |
| 2/16/2021 | Seth Walk | Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Montana State University | Understanding and Manipulating Gut Microbiome Residency | Joe Sorg |
| 2/23/2021 | Nina Salama | Human Biology and Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutch | Beyond Mutation: Bacterial Carcinogenesis Through Niche Remodeling | Beiyan Nan |
| 3/2/2021 | Christina Stallings | Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine | Molecular mechanisms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogenesis | Ashley Hudson & Steve Lockless |
| 3/9/2021 | Ruifeng (Ray) Cao | Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Minnesota Medical School | Translational Control of Circadian Physiology and Dysfunction in Neurodevelopmental Disorders | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 3/16/2021 | Spring Break | |||
| 3/23/2021 | Shu-Bing Qian | College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Ithica, NY | Mysteries of Translation Initiation | Matt Sachs |
| 3/30/2021 | Kirt Onthank | Department of Biology, Walla Walla University | Eight arms and acid: A tale of octopuses and environmental change | Maureen Hayden |
| 4/6/2021 | Joy Ward | Case Western Reserve | Impacts of rising CO2 on plants: from the last glacial maximum through the future | Alan Pepper |
| 4/13/2021 | Sophie Helaine | Department of Microbiology, Harvard Medical School | Salmonella Persisters During Infection | Angela Mitchell |
| 4/20/2021 | Joseph Dougherty | Department of Genetics, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis | Alternative Translation and Local Translation in CNS Glia | Isabella Farhy |
| 4/27/2021 | Ian Molineux | Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Texas at Austin | Seeing is believing and can even be instructive – Visualizing the initiation of bacteriophage infection | Rene Garcia |
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/25/2020 | Beiyan Nan | TAMU Biology | The Origin of Rod Shape in Bacteria | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 9/1/2020 | Vaughn Cooper | Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine | Life in the Crowd: How Biofilms Alter the Evolution of Antimicrobial Resistance | Katrina Hofstetter |
| 9/8/2020 | Hiroki Ueda | Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo | Systems Biology of Mammalian Sleep: Phosphorylation Hypothesis of Sleep | Paul Hardin |
| 9/15/2020 | Carole Parent | Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan | Live Imaging of Signal Relay During Chemotaxis and Its Relevance to Inflammation and Cancer | Kristen Consalvo |
| 9/22/2020 | Sean Crosson | Department of Microbiology, University of Chicago | Bacterial Adaptation to Shifting Environments | Beiyan Nan |
| 9/29/2020 | Leonie Moyle | Department of Biology, Indiana University Bloomington | The invasion of charismatic wild tomato, Solanum pimpinellifolium, onto the Galapagos islands: A case of evolutionary theft | Kira Delmore |
| 10/6/2020 | Shonna McBride | Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University | Activation of Sporulation in C. difficile | Joe Sorg |
| 10/13/2020 | Christoph Thaiss | Dept of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania | Microbiome Dynamics in Metabolic Disease | Jerome Menet |
| 10/20/2020 | Manuel Amieva | Department of Pediatrics, Stanford | Specialized Bacterial Hideouts Control Helicobacter pylori Colonization, Persistence, and Disease in the Stomach | Daniel Paredes-Sabja |
| 10/27/2020 | Samantha Iiams & Lunda Shen | Department of Biology, Texas A&M University | SI: Clock regulation of photoperiodic responsiveness in the monarch butterfly LS: The near-atomic structure of the translating ribosome with the inhibitor cycloheximide directly demonstrates the drug’s mechanism of action |
Graduate Student Association |
| 11/3/2020 | Jorge Galán | Department of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale University School of Medicine | Salmonella and Intestinal Inflammation: A Pathogen-Centric Affair | Angela Mitchell |
| 11/10/2020 | Greg Demas | Department of Biology, Indiana University | To Everything There Is a Season: Neuroendocrine Control of Seasonal Sickness and Immunity | Paul Hardin |
| 11/17/2020 | Jeffrey Good | Department of Wildlife Biology, University of Montana | The evolution of seasonal camouflage | Heath Blackmon |
| 11/24/2020 | Ehab Abouheif | Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada | What Soldier and Supersoldier Ants Teach Us About Development and Evolution | Bruce Riley |
| Date | Name | Institution | Title | Host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/27/2019 | Shobhan Gaddameedhi | Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Washington State University, Spokane, WA | Circadian Clock Integrates with Genomic Stability and Cancer | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 9/3/2019 | Joseph Sorg | TAMU Biology | Pseudoprotease regulation of Clostridium difficile spore germination | Deb Bell-Pedersen |
| 9/10/2019 | Dan Wall | Department of Molecular Biology, University of Wyoming | Self-recognition and social discrimination in myxobacteria | Beiyan Nan |
| 9/17/2019 | Peter Lepage | Department of Physics, Cornell University | Large-Scale Pedagogical Change and Sustainability at a Large Research University (See video via link) | Tom McKnight |
| 9/24/2019 | Fabienne Poulain | Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina | Destroy to build: selective axon degeneration for the wiring of neuronal circuits in vivo | Jen Dulin |
| 10/1/2019 | Enrique Rojas | Department of Biology, New York University | Physical Regulation of Bacterial Proliferation | Beiyan Nan |
| 10/8/2019 | Christopher Randle | Department of Biology, Sam Houston State University | A model for variation in local host preference in the wide-ranging oak mistletoe (Phoradendron leucarpum) | Angela Hawkins |
| 10/15/2019 | Joseph Rodriguez | National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NC | Visualizing regulation of the estrogen response in single living cells | Jerome Menet |
| 10/22/2019 | Yufeng Wan & Andrea Martinez Aguirre |
TAMU Biology | Identification of the probabilistic parameters during C. elegans male mating behavior & An in-vivo and in-vitro approach for elucidating the roles of Clostridium scindens, C. hiranonis and C. leptum on Clostridium difficile infections. |
Amy Tan |
| 10/29/2019 | Samer Hattar | National Institute of Mental Health, MD | Retinal and brain circuits underling the effects of light on mood and circadian rhythms | Christine Merlin |
| 11/5/2019 | Louis-Charles Fortier | Département de microbiologie et d’infectiologie, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada | “New Insight into Phage-Host Interactions in Clostridioides difficile” | Joseph Sorg |
| 11/12/2019 | Ardala Katzfuss | Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, TAMU | Phosphoribosyltransferases as targets for the treatment of Chagas’ Disease, Sleeping Sickness, and Malaria | Tom McKnight |
| 11/19/2019 | Alexandra Byrne | Department of Neurobiology, U. Mass Med School Worcester | Shared Mechanisms of Axon Regeneration and Degeneration | Rene Garcia |
| 11/26/2019 | Gregory Demas | Department of Biology, Indiana University Bloomington | To Everything There Is a Season: Neuroendocrine Control of Seasonal Sickness and Immunity | Paul Hardin |
FACULTY CHALK TALKS
Where and When: The 3rd Friday of the month at 3:30 pm in Butler 103
Purpose: These talks are meant to be informal chalk talks covering what you are working on, what you are thinking about, what you plan to work on, etc. in order to get constructive feedback on your ideas. Everyone is responsible for finding an alternate speaker if you cannot talk on your scheduled date.
2024
Jan 19 Beiyan Nan
Feb 16 Alan Pepper
March 22 Lamba Sangare
April 19 Mike Smotherman
May 17 Charles Criscione
June 21 Jim Smith
July 19 Richard Gomer
Aug 16 Heath Blackmon
Sept 20 Jeff Jones
Oct 18 Jerome Menet
Nov 15 Tapasree Roy Sarkar
Dec 13 Mary Wicksten