The University of Dayton chapter of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, presented two biology department members with awards at its annual dinner. Biology professor Dr. John Rowe received the Sigma Xi Nolan Faculty Research Award for recognition of his outstanding research accomplishments. A long-time advocate for research at UD, Rowe improved the biology graduate program and increased research productivity during his tenure as department chair from 1992-2007. Since that time Rowe launched a nanotoxicology initiative that has earned NSF funding, resulted in over ten publications, and provided reserach support for faculty, postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students. He was also instrumental in developing TREND, the Center for Tissue Regeneration and Engineering at Dayton, which includes 20 researchers from six academic departments and the University of Dayton Research Institute. These researchers perform more than $1 million annually in sponsored research and have compiled more than 500 peer-reviewed articles. It is now a Center of Excellence for the state of Ohio. 
Biology student Anna McCrate won the Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research Award. She has been working in the laboratories of biology professor Dr. Mark Nielsen and chemistry professor Dr. Shawn Swavey since her freshman year. McCrate is supported by a AAAS/Merck Undergraduate Research Award, which funds a UD biology and chemistry collaboration on photodynamic therapy focusing on porphyrins, ring molecules that absorb light and release energy that can damage DNA and preferentially kills cancer cells. McCrate studied the ability of different porphyrins to cleave DNA, and made an exciting discovery that one porphyrin can cleave DNA in the absence of oxygen, a novel mechanism that may allow advances in the use of these therapies on deep tissues.
UD biology student awarded American Physiological Society research fellowship
April 12, 2010
Biology major Matthew Puccetti, whose research advisor is biology professor Dr. Carissa Krane, has been named a 2010 Undergraduate Research Fellow by The American Physiological Society (APS). During the summer, each Fellow will participate in hands-on research experience in the lab of an established investigator and APS member learning to develop a hypothesis, design and troubleshoot experiments, collect and analyze data, and write up and present results.
A University of Dayton biology professor may be on his way to answering the old proverb: Can a leopard change its spots?University of Dayton professor Thomas Williams and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin have identified the biological source of spot pattern development on a fruit fly's wings, which may help explain the developmental and evolutionary processes that have contributed to the remarkable variety of color patterns in other animals, such as butterflies, or even leopards.
Nature published the research findings online April 7 in an article titled "Generation of a novel wing colour pattern by the Wingless morphogen." The article will appear in print in a later issue of Nature. Read more...
TREND named Ohio Center of Excellence
March 08, 2010 -