Hello Biosinq followers :)
We had a great Zoom Mixer and heard a wonderful short talk by Dr. Varner. Here is the link to the meeting recording :) It's not to late to donate, we raised over $500 at the Mixer!
Meeting Recording:
Access Passcode: Bats2020!
Weeks Lab Update 2020
Boreal Toads, an endangered high elevation species, and a CMU student were benefited by the BIOSINQ award in 2020. My lab received funds for a mini centrifuge, parafilm, and a DNA extraction kit. These supplies were requested to support project opportunities for students working with a deadly fungal pathogen, the chytrid fungus, that affects the skin of amphibians. Boreal Toad populations have suffered greatly in Colorado from this pathogen and they are now locally endangered with only one known remaining breeding population left in the Grand Mesa National Forest. In early 2020, dozens of Boreal toads emerged from hibernation in a captive breeding facility with this fungal infection and needed treatment. In collaboration with Colorado Parks & Wildlife, they were brought to CMU to be monitored and treated using an anti-fungal bath regiment. To ensure that the treatment worked, the skin of the toads needed to be swabbed and analyzed in the lab. The supplies provided by this BIOSINQ award allowed a CMU student to be a part of this process. During this time, she was prepared for a summer internship program in biological research (SIPBR) by learning husbandry & handling of the animals, how to collect swab samples, and how to analyze the data. These toads were cured of the fungus and 73 of them were released into the wild.
The BIOSINQ financial support for the supplies helped to create the opportunity for student enrichment and saving the lives of sick animals.
Thank
you to the donors who made this possible!
Connors Lab Update 2020
As a
new faculty member at CMU, the funds from last year’s BIOSINQ helped lay the
foundation of my undergraduate research program here in the Biology Department.
Broadly, my research lab is investigating the ecological physiology of small
mammalian herbivores. Specifically, I am testing the commonality of
temperature-dependent toxicity, or the phenomenon whereby warmer ambient
temperatures increase the potency of plant toxins ingested by woodrats or
packrats. BIOSINQ funds were used to
purchase consumable supplies for field work and remote HOBO temperature dataloggers. These supplies were used by my research
students, Jacob Kernc and Jada Mulford, to profile environmental temperatures
in biologically relevant microhabitats of local woodrats. My previous research suggests that access to
cooler microclimates could mitigate negative physiological effects of increased
plant toxicity. Therefore, these BIOSINQ
funds were instrumental to successfully start a long-term ecological study
while also providing field-work experience to multiple undergraduate students.
Thank you, donors, for supporting authentic research experiences for students and basic research activities in biology here at CMU!
Becktell Lab Update 2020: Supplies to help determine the bioactivity and mode of action of petunia sucrose esters against the late blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans
The BIOSINQ
funding that I received for the 2019-2020 academic year ($795) was used to help pay for a vacuum
manifold for solid phase extraction of multiple SPE columns at one time (see
picture below). The vacuum manifold allows
us to process 12 columns at one time and was only used one time in the spring
of 2020 (before we were shut down due to COVID-19). However, this equipment will continue to be
used to purify extracts from petunias and will make our extraction efforts much
more efficient! We are working to understand the mechanism of action of lytic
compounds in the petunia extracts that result in the lysis of zoospores of the
plant pathogen Phytophthora infestans.
Thank you to our donors!
Dr. Margot Becktell
Last year, we received funds from BIOSINQ originally to support two students to attend the American Society of Mammalogists conference in Boulder, CO. Since that conference was COVIDerailed, I used the funds instead to purchase a kit of stress hormone assays for one student (Troy Muzzio) to learn how to extract stress hormones from pika scat in the lab and to analyze samples collected in 2020 from the La Sal mountains and from a collaborator in Alaska. The remaining funds were used to purchase temperature sensors that will be deployed in the La Sals next summer.
Below is a photo of Troy in the lab conducting this research.
We are profoundly thankful for all donations to this account!
