BioScience 113

Dr. Christine Sprunger is an Associate Professor of Soil Health at Michigan State University and is currently serving as Interim Associate Director at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS). Dr. Sprunger is a faculty member in the Department of Plant, Soil, and Microbial Sciences and is based at KBS. Dr. Sprunger is also a member of MSU’s Plant Resilience Institute. Her research focuses on the intersection of agriculture and the environment, where she investigates how climate change impacts crop production, nutrient cycling, soil food webs, and rhizosphere dynamics.

Dr. Noorsher (Noor) Ahmed’s research focuses on harnessing high-content optofluidic robotics and computer vision to investigate the flow of genetic information within cells at genome scale. By utilizing spatial transcriptomics and developing custom computer vision software, Noor aims to reveal insights into how the localization of RNA and protein molecules influence cellular decision making. During his PhD, Noor contributed to Bento and the scverse software ecosystem for single-cell genomics, and trained one of the fastest cell segmentation AI models in the field.

In humans, the relationship between epilepsy and aggression has a long and controversial history, from relatively common postictal aggression to anecdotal reports of aggression in patients with chronic epilepsy. However, linkages of epilepsy to aggression, if they exist, are complex and may inadvertently stigmatize people with epilepsy if they are not fully understood or described.

Ferns boast an independent gametophyte generation that apparently lacks effective means of regulating water loss. Specific mechanisms of fern gametophyte survival in dry regions remain unknown. We seek to understand fern adaptation to seasonal drought by examining gametophyte response to desiccation in situ. During seasonal desiccation, we measured microclimate drivers (humidity and temperature) and physiological response (thallus area and dark-adapted chlorophyll fluorescence).

Dr. Ite Offringa was born in the Netherlands but lived in Spain, Venezuela, and the Caribbean before pursuing her BS, MS, and PhD at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, she started her lung cancer research lab at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, at the University of Southern California in 1996. Dr. Offringa is an expert in the molecular biology and epigenomics of lung cancer and has led and participated in many interdisciplinary collaborations with clinicians, epidemiologists and biostatisticians.

Streptococcus agalactiae (Group B Strep, GBS) infections in neonates are often fatal and strongly associated with maternal GBS vaginal colonization. The use of preventive intrapartum antibiotics, while effective against early onset diseases, have their own pitfalls and have no effect on late onset neonatal GBS diseases. As such, a more long-term strategy such as vaccination is required to contain GBS infections. Here, we investigated the role of a previously uncharacterized but highly conserved protein, BvaP, in GBS vaginal colonization.

Walter Adams is an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at San José State University where his lab studies how to prevent the respiratory pathogen S. pneumoniae from causing severe disease. By investigating how specific host and bacterial factors impact lung epithelial integrity, the Adams Lab aims to develop novel treatments for patients with respiratory infections.

Dr. Zachary Silver’s research explores the evolutionary origins of social cognition through an exploration of domestic dogs’ ability to make social decisions, solve novel problems, demonstrate inhibitory control, and interpret human emotions. By comparing social cognition in domestic dogs to that of humans, nonhuman primates, and non-domesticated canid species, Silver’s research seeks to understand the role of artificial selection, social environment, and training history on the roots of sophisticated social cognition and reasoning.

There is a rich history of plant-animal interactions within seagrass meadows. As foundation species, seagrasses host a diverse array of associated fauna. Although the direct positive impact of seagrass habitat structure on faunal diversity and abundance is widely acknowledged, the role of animals on seagrass productivity and resilience range dramatically from positive to negative. Often these plant-animal interactions even involving the same species change along gradients of environmental stress.

Elasmobranch fishes are a subclass of cartilaginous fishes which have a distinct metabolic physiology when compared to other vertebrates. In addition to their different metabolism, elasmobranchs have a unique immune system with reportedly low instances of disease. Elasmobranchs are commonly targeted as sportfish by recreational anglers and caught as bycatch in recreational fisheries. This capture typically involves physical restraint, human handling, and air exposure.