AY 2012-13 begins this week with seven new members of IE² –

Welcome to our new students:

Rudy, Felipe, Allison, Kyle, Andrew, Christine & Dan!

2012_IE2_Students

The University of Oregon has received a five-year, $10.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch a systems biology research and education center.

The UO’s Microbial Ecology and Theory of Animals Center for Systems Biology (META CSB) will be devoted to understanding how animal-associated microbial communities assemble, interact, evolve and influence human health and diseases.  Funded by the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), the center will include 12 UO researchers from four institutes and four departments, said biology professor Karen Guillemin, who will head the facility.

Leaders of the center with Guillemin will be: Brendan Bohannan, biology and the Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE); John Conery, computer and information Science, IEE; William Cresko, biology, IEE; Judith Eisen, biology and the Institute of Neuroscience (ION); Jessica Green, biology, IEE; Eric Johnson, biology, IMB; David Levin, mathematics; Peter O’Day, neuroscience, ION; Raghuveer Parthasarathy, physics, Material Sciences Institute and IMB; Patrick Phillips, biology, IEE; and John Postlethwait, biology, ION.

Funding for the new UO center comes from the NIH as grant number P50 GM098911.

Read more…

The 2012-2013 officers are:

President:                     Ann Womack 

Vice  President:          Ashley Bateman

Secretary:                    Keaton Stagaman

Treasurer:                    Thom Nelson

Please feel free to contact the GrEBES officers at grebes@uoregon.edu

for any GrEBES-related matters this year.

GreBES is an ASUO-funded group with a mission to:

1. Enhance graduate student communication and relationships among

graduate students, the Biology Faculty and the GTFF.

2. Encourage academic leadership among graduate students by hosting

seminar speakers, subsidizing travel to scientific meetings, and

providing funds for undergraduates to conduct research under GrEBES

mentorship.

3. Provide graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and

undergraduates with career-building advice through a series of

informal workshops and seminars.

4. Participate in community service and outreach.

Liz Perry attended the annual meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution June 23-26, 2012 in Dublin.  She was selected as one of eight final contestants to present a talk titled “Repeatability in evolution varies with scale, organism, and the nature of selection” during the Walter M. Fitch Symposium and was selected the 2012 winner of the Walter M. Fitch Award.

Clayton Merz, MS Defense

Bradshaw/Holzapfel Lab, IE²

Monday, June 18, 2012, 10:00 am in 327 Pacific Hall

“Independent replication of Phylogeographies”

This Wednesday (6/13) GrEBES (Graduate Evolutionary Biology and Ecology
Students) will host the first annual UnderGrEBES research symposium!
UnderGrEBES is a scholarship program funded by the ASUO and the Department
of Biology to support undergraduate research under the mentorship of IE²

graduate students. The UnderGrEBES have been working away in the lab and in
the field for the past two terms, and now they'll present their progress and
findings at a public symposium.
Each student will give a brief presentation (10-12 minutes) of their work
followed by audience questions/discussion.

Please come out and help support undergraduate research at UO!

When: Wednesday (6/13/12), 5 - 6 pm
Where: Pacific 327

GrEBES selected four strong undergraduate proposals to receive $500 in
support this academic year.  The recipients were:
1) Helen Rappe (mentored by Alida Gerritsen)
2) Robert Steury (mentored by Adam Burns)
3) Matthew Davis (mentored by Roo Vandegrift)
4) Jonas Frankel-Bricker (mentored by Becky Mueller)

Hope to see you there!

Ann Womack

UnderGrEBES Committee Chair

Monday, June 11, Room 327 Pacific Hall

 2:00 PM – Thom Nelson

2:15 PM – Holly Arnold

2:30 PM – Lucas Nebert

2:45 PM – Ashley Bateman

The Graduate Evolutionary Biology and Ecology Students group (GrEBES) invites you to the second talk of our exciting, free, 2012 lecture series. Please join us!

What are microbes? What do they do, and where do they live? How do they interact with humans, and how can understanding them improve our health and quality of life?

These questions, along with new insights from studies of these tiny neighbors, will be covered in a three-part lecture series, “Microbes and the Modern World: From the Globe to the Gut,” that continues Tuesday, May 08, at the University of Oregon. The talks are open to the public.

Tuesday, May 8: Dr. Jessica Green, “The ecology of indoor environments.”

Admission is free.
7 p.m. for each talk
Lillis Business Complex,
Lillis Hall, Room 182,
955 E. 13th Ave.

The final talk will be:
Tuesday, May 29: Dr. Karen Guillemin, “Molecular dialogues with the microbes inside us.”
Same time and place!

The first talk was:
Tuesday, April 17: Dr. Brendan Bohannan, “A scientist in Who-ville: new perspectives on the invisible world of microbes.”
And is now available online as a webcast!

For more information see:
The attached flier!
http://pages.uoregon.edu/grebes/microbes/
http://uonews.uoregon.edu/archive/news-release/2012/4/public-lectures-series-uo-campus-explore-world-microbes

Three IE² grad students gave talks at the Evo-WIBO meeting in Port Townsend, WA Sunday:
Dave Anderson, Bryn Gaertner, and Kristin Sikkink. All three won best talk awards (out of four provided).

In addition, Kate Ituarte from the Cresko/Phillips labs won one of the four best poster awards.

A really terrific showing by our students, who clearly showed who’s the best in the Northwest.

‘Microbes and the Modern World’ begins tonight Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 7 p.m.
Lillis Business Complex, Lillis Hall, Room 182, 955 E. 13th Ave.

Dr. Brendan Bohannan, “A scientist in Who-ville: new perspectives on the invisible world of microbes.”