July 2017 July 23—Congratulations to Carla Cervantes, a high school student working in the Schvarzstein lab, for her gold medal at the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) regional competition in New York and her silver medal at the national ACT-SO competition in Baltimore. June 2017 June 21–25—Congratulations to Anthony James and Erlyana Clarke, who presented their research from the Schvarzstein lab at the Genetics Society of America C. elegansmeeting at the University of California Los Angeles. Erlyana recently graduated from the Schvarzstein lab with honors in biology. June 3—Theodore Muth and Jessica Joyner will host a group of budding young scientists as part of the World Science Festival’s Microbiologist Apprentice Day at Brooklyn College. Elementary school students from across the city will join the Muth lab for a day, and learn about what it means to be a microbiologist. May 2017 May 22— The Department of Biology recently announced its list of student awardees for the spring 2017 semester. The department awarded more than $25,000 in awards to our students on the basis of outstanding academic performance, departmental service, and financial need. Congratulations to all! Undergraduate Awardees—Carlos Barreto, Chelsea Batista, Maria Bederoff, Alena Chernenko, Chaya Fastow, Raquel Fleming, Jerry Jose, Jeffrey Nussbaum, Malka Rosenberg, Natalia Ryabenkova Graduate Awardees—Mahwish Ashfaq, Glennon Bythrow, Hulgrid Gourgue, Jingbo Kan, Rabina Lakha, Rachele Rameau May 18—The Department of Biology will host an end-of-semester celebration at 12:30 p.m. on May 18 in 113 Ingersoll Hall Extension to celebrate the end of the semester, recognize outstanding students, and honor of our graduating seniors. Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to come out to recognize our colleagues, and to honor a job well done! May 4—Gavin Lecture in Cell and Molecular Biology (113 Ingersoll Hall Extension, 12:30–1:30 p.m). Lucy Shapiro ’61, Ludwig Professor in Cancer Research at Stanford University and winner of the 2011 National Medal of Science, will discuss “The 3-D architecture of cell cycle regulation.” The lecture will be followed by a small reception. May 2—Spring semester biology student poster session. Graduate and undergraduate students who have been involved in research projects over the past semester will present their work at 1:15 p.m. on May 2 outside the Biology Department office on the second floor of Ingersoll Hall Extension. All are welcome. This is a great opportunity to learn more about ongoing research in the Department of Biology. April 2017 Cat McEntee—making a difference in the classroom, one student at a time. As part of a recent article on the broader importance of science in contemporary society, Erin Williams highlighted how Dr. McEntee’s no-nonsense approach to science at Brooklyn College was instrumental in changing the course of her life. Congratulations to Amna Aslam, a high school student working in the Saxena Lab, who presented her research at the recent Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.in Washington, D.C., and was recently been accepted into the undergraduate program at New York University. All the best, Amna! Congratulations to Mahmoud Abouelkheir, a Midwood High School student working in the Biais Lab, who placed first in the microbiology category at New York City Science & Engineering Fair and will represent New York at the International Science and Engineering Fair (May 14–19) in Los Angeles. Good luck, Mahmoud! Congratulations to Chelsea Batista, a biology senior and member of the Macaulay Honors College, who recently received word that she has been accepted into 11 of the top medical schools in the country. A difficult (but very pleasant) decision awaits! March 2017 Congratulations to Jimiane Ashe from the Wilson Lab, who has been awarded an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant for her project, “Isolating a Mechanism for Microbial-Host Local Adaptation,” to support research investigating the relationship between adaptive immunity and environmental microbes in New Zealand seahorses. February 2017 Congratulations to Mahmoud Abouelkheir, a high school student working in the Biais Lab, who received second prize in the Annual High School Poster Competition at Saint Joseph’s College. Congratulations to Amna Aslam, a BCStep student working in the Saxena Lab, who received second prize in the Annual High School Poster Competition at Saint Joseph’s College. Congratulations to Hufsa Tasnim, a high school student working in the Schvarzstein Lab, who received second prize in the Junior Mathematics, Science and Humanities Symposium at York College. January 2017 Congratulations to Jonathan Perelmuter from the Forlano Lab, who received the Otto Kinne award for Best Student Presentation in Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in New Orleans. Congratulations to Naomi Lewandowksi from the Basil Lab, who received an NSF EAPSI grant, “Human impacts on squid reproductive behavior in coral reefs: field and laboratory studies,” to perform research in the laboratory of Yuzuru Ikeda at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, this summer. The Biais Lab, together with colleagues from Simon Fraser University and Dartmouth College, published an article in PLoS Pathogens demonstrating that toxin-coregulated pili of the human pathogen Vibrio cholera exert physical forces essential for infection. Read more here. The Biais Lab, together with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Complex Systems, published a mathematical model in the New Journal of Physics describing how pili mediate the movement and interaction of bacterial cells. Read profiles of this research here and here. The recent research of the Wilson Lab was profiled on NPR’s Science Friday, and Radio Canada’s Découverte.
