biology – Page 15 – College of Arts & Sciences

Professor-Surgeon team headed to third phase clinical trials

October 30, 2014

Carol Duffy is proof that changing your mind is not only acceptable, but that doing so can often lead to something momentous. Duffy, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, is headed somewhere that very few faculty members have the chance to go – to a third phase clinical trial for a drug combination that has shown promising results to treat not only one, but several painful and debilitating illnesses. How have researchers not found this far-reaching treatment […]

Expanding the Reaches of Medicine

October 30, 2014

While hordes of pre-health students scramble to prepare for medical school interviews and perfect their already polished applications, a University of Alabama senior has taken a different approach to pursuing his passion for medicine. Brian McWilliams, though beginning his third year of college, will graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in biology. By the end of his fourth year he will receive his master’s in business administration. He also leads a student organization that ships medical supplies overseas and […]

Lipid Deficiency Linked to Parkinson’s

October 10, 2014

From the October 2014 edition of Desktop News | A study co-authored by researchers in The University of Alabama’s Caldwell Lab focuses on the potential roles lipids have in the death or malfunction of dopamine-producing neurons, which leads to symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease. The study was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was led by senior researcher Dr. Stephan Witt at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. The University of Alabama’s lead author […]

Investigating Birth Defects

September 11, 2014

From the September 2014 edition of Desktop News | Kristin R. Di Bona, a doctoral candidate and graduate research assistant in the Department of Biological Sciences, received an award and cash prize for her research related to birth defects. The Marie W. Taubeneck award is given annually by the Teratology Society in recognition of scholarship in the study of birth defects and developmentally-mediated disorders. Di Bona earned the distinction for her graduate research, which focuses on the developmental and reproductive […]

Student Named Scholar Athlete of the Year

September 10, 2014

From the September 2014 edition of Desktop News | Junior Hayden Reed, a redshirt sophomore on UA’s track and field team, was named the men’s outdoor field events NCAA Division I Scholar Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. He is majoring in biology with a 3.52 grade point average (GPA) and is the first man from Alabama to win the award since its inception in 2007. The Orange, Texas, native claimed the […]

Expeditions in Ecuador

August 11, 2014

From the August 2014 Desktop News | Some of the world’s most prominent botanists have named a tree species found in western Ecuador the Gustavia johnclarkii after a University of Alabama professor. The most interesting part? This is the sixth species to be named in his honor. Dr. John L. Clark, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and curator and director of the University of Alabama Herbarium, has made frequent trips to Ecuador since he served as […]

Meeting of the Minds

July 7, 2014

From the July 2014 Desktop News | Imagine meeting the winner of a Nobel Prize. Now imagine spending an entire week with 38 Nobel Prize winners. That is the opportunity of a lifetime that Brandon Hill, a doctoral student in the Department of Biological Sciences, had this summer. Along with about 600 other young researchers from 80 countries, Hill was selected from a group of some 1,500 applicants to attend the 2014 Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany, […]

Summer Reading List

July 3, 2014

What are you reading this summer? Here are eight books by College faculty — plus the latest by distinguished scientist and UA alumnus Dr. Edward O. Wilson. These books by faculty members in the College’s humanities and social sciences departments represent a tiny sampling of the hundreds of publications produced by A&S faculty each academic year. Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town, Ellen Spears In the mid-1990s, residents of Anniston, Ala., began a legal fight against the […]

Biology and Classics Graduate Finds Home in Oil Industry

May 27, 2014

From the 2014 Celebrating Excellence | What do Colombia, Gabon and Brazil all have in common? For one thing, Lauren Wilder, a UA graduate with a bachelor’s degree in biology and classics, helped negotiate exploration rights for oil and gas in all three places. Wilder’s first trip abroad as a land negotiator with Hess Corporation was to Lima, Peru. She traveled with two other Hess employees, “experienced professionals” she calls them, who had been to Peru dozens of times. “I […]

Traveling by Innate GPS-like Signals

April 11, 2014

From the April 2014 Desktop News | One of the most captivating mysteries in biology is the long-distance migrations of animals, particularly young animals that travel more than thousands of kilometers to specific, uncharted locations without older, more experienced migrants to guide them along the way. A College of Arts and Sciences alumnus is changing the way scientists understand one such phenomenon – the migration of Pacific salmon. Dr. Nathan Putman, a 2006 graduate of the Department of Biological Sciences […]