MCB Professional Science Master’s Summer Biology Courses

Exciting opportunities offered through the MCB Professional Science Master’s (PSM) program this May term and Summer Session. Hands on training on state-of-the-art instruments through short, intense modular training courses.

This summer we will be offering nine modules. In the intermediate and advanced modules, students will be trained on a next generation sequencing instrument, the Illumina MiSeq.

Please see Announcement for more information or contact elaine.mirkin@uconn.edu.

The Teschke’s lab recently published a review article in a special 60th anniversary issue of Virology.

April 20, 2015

Announcement of the issue:
”It is with great pleasure and pride that we announce the 60th anniversary of Virology this year. Since its establishment in 1955, the journal has been dedicated to publishing world-class scientific papers that advance the understanding of virus biology. To celebrate this milestone, Virology will publish a “Diamond” Special Reviews Issue in the spring of 2015. This truly historic issue will feature sixty invited reviews by renowned virologists, with a mixture of articles on exciting advances in many of the virus families covered in Virology in addition to advances on viral immunity, on viral evolution and ecology, and on viral processes important across multiple virus families.  “These reviews will highlight some of the most important developments in the field of virology both recently and over the past 60 years,” says Virology’s Editor-in-Chief, Michael Emerman.”

Suhanovsky, M., Teschke, C. (2015) Nature׳s favorite building block: Deciphering folding and capsid assembly of proteins with the HK97-fold. Virology doi:10.1016/j.virol.2015.02.055.

Congratulations to Klara Reisch, from Dr. Papke’s lab, for receiving a 2015 Holster Award!

The Holster Scholars First Year program is a highly selective enrichment opportunity for first-year Honors students. Beyond some basic requirements, projects are self-designed. Klara’s project will test the effects of glycoproteins in archaea on their ability to mate. Research has shown that there are several genes in the model organism, Haloferax volcanii, responsible for glycoprotein production. In order to test their effect on mating efficiencies, these genes would be silenced through a series of genetic knockouts. Once the mutants have been constructed, a series of mating experiments will be performed using a common filter-based technique to determine whether the targeted genes do indeed affect genetic transfer rates using the parental strains as comparisons.

From this award, Klara has received $4,000 of summer research funding. Congratulations, Klara!