year report - School of Life Sciences | experiment to contain life sciences within a structure...

SOLSyear report

Vision, 1

Discovery, 4Biotechnology and Biomedicine, 4Ecology and Environment, 7Evolution, 11Human Dimensions of Biology, 14Behavior and Neuroscience, 17Cell and Developmental Biology, 20Urban Ecology and Sustainability Science, 22

Research Funding Highlights, 26

Honors and Achievement Highlights, 29

People, 30Biomedicine and Biotechnology Faculty, 31Basic Medical Sciences Faculty, 32Cellular and Molecular Biosciences Faculty, 33Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Sciences, 34Genomics, Evolution and Bioinformatics, 35Human Dimensions of Biology, 39Organismal, Integrative and Systems Biology, 43

Engagement in Undergraduate Training, 46

Undergraduate and Post Baccalaureate Research, 47

School of Life Science Undergraduate Research (SOLUR), 48Minority Research at Arizona State University (MARC), 49Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), 49Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP), 50

Graduate Learning, 55Graduate Student Support, 56Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training program (IGERT), 56Frontiers in Life Sciences (FILS) Conference Series, 58

Outreach, 60Graduate Partners in Science Education (GPSE), 61Ask A Biologist, 61

Resources for Discovery, 63Natural History Collections, 63

Core Facilities, 66School of Life Sciences Bioimaging Facility, 67DNA Laboratory, 68Grass Roots Studio, 68Honey Bee Research Facility, 68Visualization Laboratory, 69Computer Teaching Facilities, 69

Connections, 69Centers and Institutes, 69

Appendices, 701: ASU Demographics, 702: SOLS Funding Summary, 713: Leadership, 71

Global Engagement, 72

5-year reporttable of contents

SOLS Founding Director:Robert E. Page, Jr.

Editor: Margaret Coulombe

Design: Jacob Sahertian

Images: Gro Amdam, Apple Inc., Arizona State University: Libraries, Embryo Project Encyclopedia, Natural History Collections; Page Baluch, Douglas Chandler, Margaret Coulombe, Pierre Deviche, Sabine Deviche, James Elser, William (Bill) Engstrom, Frances L. Fawcett, Leah R. Gerber, Anthony Gill, Bert Hölldobler, Charlotte Johnston, Lisa Jones-Engel, Charles Kazilek, Kenro Kusumi, Leslie R. Landrum, Jacob Mayfield, NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Center, Susanne Neuer, John C. Phillips, Angela Picco, Robert Roberson, Jacob Sahertian, Siri-Christine Seehuus, Valeria Souza, TimeTree Consortium: timetree.org and Tom Story

Contributors: ASU Research Magazine, John Alcock, Carol Bear, Dave Brown, Mike Butler, Arianne Cease, Josephine Clark-Curtiss, Sharon Crook, Skip Derra, James Elser and the RTI Committee, Jennifer Fewell, Anna Fields, Elaine Finke, Carol Hughes, Kate Ihle, Barbara Kennedy (Penn. State), Sudhir Kumar, Barbara Markley, Kevin McGraw, phil.cdc.gov (public domain), Stephen Pyne, Patricia Sahertian, Scot Schoenborn, Wendi Simonson, Judith Smith, Philip Tarrant and Marcella Welton

sols.asu.edu

The School of Life Sciences is an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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visionA message from Robert E. Page, Jr., Founding Director

In the last five years, the School of Life Sciences (SOLS) has provided a vital hub for creative excellence at Arizona State University, with more than 670 faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff, and research that ranges from studies on biodiesel and biohydrogen to vaccine development and the conservation of whales. As ASU’s first academic unit to fully reflect President Michael Crow’s integrated, interdisciplinary vision for the New American University, the School of Life Sciences offers active and evolving platforms for collaborative, cutting-edge research and faculty whose discovery is freed from traditional institutional boundaries.

vision

School of Life Sciences counts among its faculty a Pulitzer Prize winning author, a Thomson ISI highly cited author and Fellows of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, German Academy of Sciences – Leopoldina, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Association for Women in Science, Linnaean Society, Royal Society, Fulbright, MacArthur and Guggenheim Foundations. These leaders and up-and-coming leaders are at the heart of many key initiatives and research centers at ASU, including sustainability, origins, biodesign and others. The School of Life Sciences faculty also serve as directors for leading centers of innovation on campus, including the Biodesign Institute and its Centers for Evolutionary and Functional Genomics, Infectious Disease and Vaccinology, and Innovations in Medicine, the Center for Biology and Society, the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, the Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes, the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, the ecoSERVICES group and, within the business community, the Translational Genomics Research Center.

One of the school’s central achievements can be found in its investment in undergraduate and graduate research. It is home to SOLUR, MARC, preMARC, PREP, REU and IGERT programs, teaching science as it is practiced, with focus on empowerment of those traditionally underrepresented. In 2003-2008, the faculty and students published more the 1,106 publications and pushed ASU’s rank to sixth in the nation for research and publication efforts, according to Thomson Scientific’s U.S. University’s Top 10, for ecology and environmental sciences (2001-2005). School of Life Sciences has also developed the Social Insect Research Group, a collaborative guild whose work with ants, bees, wasps and termites has established ASU internationally as the top research institute in sociobiology and social insect studies. Social insect research at ASU now offers new insights into aging, epigenetics and development of disease, as well charting the basis for the evolution of social behavior from genes to superorganisms.

School of Life Sciences strives to provide leadership and input globally, in education, scholarship and research on seven continents, coincident with investment in outreach. The school projects knowledge and enthusiasm about the life sciences to the public, recognizing an increasing need for reliable and digestible information tailored for a range of audiences. It works extensively with local and regional schools with flagship programs, such as Graduate Partners for Science Education and Ask A Biologist. It aims to engage life-long learners and teach science communication skills to students via its award-winning SOLS Magazine and Science Studio podcast, SOLS Takes a Hike and ASU Darwinfest events. The School of Life Sciences serves the community directly via a multi-year commitment to programs such as the Rock & Roll Paint-a-thon, Chrysalis Shelter and Camp Kesem, which benefit the elderly, disabled, women and children displaced by domestic violence and children in families suffering from cancer.

The first five years of SOLS have been years of discovery. The experiment to contain life sciences within a structure without disciplinary boundaries has succeeded beyond expectations. The school has made great strides in teaching, research and outreach. But, what will the next five years bring? Certainly they will be challenging and be centered on adapting to a rapidly changing and evolving ASU and, most certainly, the School of Life Sciences will continue to be central to the vision of President Crow and the mission of the university.

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School of Life Sciences (SOLS) at Arizona State University was founded on the vision that the future of biology lies at the interfaces: of traditional life science disciplines, of natural and social sciences, and of basic and applied research. SOLS is dedicated to training the future scientists, scholars and entrepreneurs who will work at these intersections, developing solutions to issues of pressing human concern, such as the ecological impacts of urbanization, the need for affordable vaccines in the developing world and sustainable bioenergy systems, endangered species and ecosystem conservation.

During the past five years, life sciences faculty and students have sought to bring this vision into tangible form with commitment to cutting-edge work, both within core disciplines and at disciplinary boundaries. A focus that has inspired both “curiosity-driven” and “use-inspired” approaches (and everything in between), spanning domains from the biological physics of a molecular motor to the environmental history of fire.

One mechanism that propels faculty achievement is the flexible academic structure of the school. Faculty members are organized into seven “faculty groups” that focus on broad areas of biology and where important decisions for hiring, retention and curriculum can originate. Faculty are also encouraged to pursue their scholarship in various inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary endeavors, such as affiliations or joint appointments with other academic (School of

Sustainability, Barrett, The Honors College, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University) and non-academic units (Biodesign Institute, Global Institute of Sustainability).

Life science faculty have also played a leading role in the development of new, university-wide interdisciplinary graduate programs, including Biological Design, Environmental Life Sciences and Neuroscience. Providing a new model for cross-campus collaboration, SOLS-led graduate programs in behavior and in evolution are currently underway.

School of Life Sciences is deeply dedicated to training at the undergraduate level, teaching science as science is practiced. Thus, SOLS faculty emphasize the importance of hands-on learning in classroom laboratories and are dedicated mentors to students, involving them in the most fundamental work in the research laboratories. Teaching in the school reaches an ever-growing number of life sciences majors as well as a broad cross-section of other ASU students for whom biology is an important part of their education.

An evolving work-in-progress, SOLS seeks a unified understanding of living systems, improving the human condition and communicating it to the future. This report offers a snapshot of the most recent innovations, adaptations and diversifications on this journey.

The fragmentation of biology is ending

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discovery

Biotechnology and BiomedicineThe sequences of large numbers of genomes, including humans, other vertebrates and most of their pathogens, are either known or will be in the near future. This “genomic revolution” has transformed biology into a science that is limited largely by our ability to process and utilize the almost bewildering amount of available sequence data. Our main challenges are to assign functions to newly discovered genes and to describe how they interact with environmental signals to produce diverse biological phenomena. Moreover, we now have the tools to take this wealth of information and apply it to benefit humans and the environment by developing innovations in medicine, agriculture and engineering.

Microorganisms rule the world and many infectious ones have plagued mankind for centuries. Pathogenic organisms are evolving resistance to antibiotics and finding new host and environments to live in; however, the rapid evolution of new pathologies, infectious or not, leaves telling genetic traces. To meet the challenges presented by this rapidly changing microbial world, School of Life Science faculty and students are engaged genetic engineering, vaccine innovation and discovery in infectious disease research and understanding of emergent disease, as well as, developing new tools and new approaches, including space travel.

Core faculty and students in life sciences are also employed in basic and applied bioenergy research leading to the conversion of solar energy to chemical energy by photosynthetic organisms and increased biofuels yield (e.g., diesel and hydrogen). Such studies are interdisciplinary and include, for example, metabolic engineering, microbiology, biochemistry, -omics (genomics, proteomics and metabolomics) and microbial ecology.

Energy of the Future: alternative fuels and the storage of chemical energy

What comes after oil? Let’s be direct and go for the sun. Nothing is more direct than photosynthesis – the process that made oil in the first place. No organism is easier to grow or more direct in its ability to harvest solar energy than photosynthetic bacteria, the evolutionary ancestor of plants.

These are the tenets held by Willem Vermaas and Jens Appel. Cyanobacteria are photoautotrophic organisms able to live just by using sunlight, water and some minerals. Found on land and sea, they also have a genome that is open to manipulation by standard molecular biological techniques and provide an efficient means to utilize solar energy without competing with agriculture and food production. The goals of Vermaas and Appel are two-fold. They work via genetic engineering to get cyanobacteria to make fuel-like lipids rather than sugars, which can then be extracted to produce a new form of diesel, and they tinker with their enzymes, which have the capacity to produce biohydrogen. In the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, they have demonstrated new features of the photosystem proteins in these bacteria and shown the capacity to enhance hydrogen evolution.

Investing in global public health challenges

Malaria kills a child somewhere around the world every 30 seconds and is responsible for 350-500 million clinical cases and one million deaths each year. Ananias Escalante uses advanced mathematical models and experimental data to study the spread of malaria – the number one killer of the tropics. The first alert to new developing pathogens as well as analysis of how to best combat established diseases is through epidemiology and evaluation of drug effectiveness. For that reason, Escalante has been enlisted by the National Institutes of Health to undertake several studies of malaria. One global comparative study focuses on the evolution of antimalarial resistance, in order to understand which types of populations are most prone to the emergence of drug resistance or to the reemergence of drug sensitivity. He hopes this work will provide theoretical tools to evaluate potential drug policies (e.g. combination therapy or drug rotation) in situations likely to be encountered in different endemic areas. His papers in Infection, Genetics and Evolution and Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy demonstrate that drug susceptible parasites do not reappear after drug use is stopped – making drug resistance a longer-term problem than previously recognized. Escalante is also studying the evolution of malarial parasites in Asian macaques and simian retroviruses in Bangladesh, hoping to solve some of the genetic mysteries behind the host shift of disease from animals to humans. His research involves a network of U.S. partners, including the Center for Disease Control, and international collaborators in Bangladesh, Cameroon, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru, Tanzania and Venezuela.

Discovery: Biotechnology and Biomedicine


Developing biosensing nanodevices to revolutionize disease detection

Arizona State University researcher Wayne Frasch has developed a biosensing nanodevice for standard screening of the human body for disease. It is hoped the device may eliminate long lines at airport security checkpoints and revolutionize health screenings for diseases like anthrax, cancer and antibiotic resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Even more incredible than the device itself is that it is based on the world’s tiniest rotary motor: a biological engine operating at the molecular scale. Frasch and his colleagues published an article outlining the technology entitled: “Single-molecule detection of DNA via sequence-specific links between F1-ATPase motors and gold nanorod sensors” in the journal Lab on a Chip, and featured in the online journal Chemical Biology. Frasch’s motor involves the enzyme F1-adenosine triphosphatase, better known as F1- ATPase. F1-ATPase breaks down adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to adenosine diphosphate (ADP), releasing energy. This enzyme, only 10 to 12 nanometers in diameter, has an axle that spins and produces torque. This tiny wonder is part of a complex of proteins key to creating energy in all living things, including photosynthesis in plants. It was through his own detailed study of the rotational mechanism of the F1-ATPase, which operates like a three-cylinder Mazda rotary motor, that Frasch conceived of a way to take this tiny biological powerhouse and couple it with science applications outside of the cell.

Antibacterial clay: the next topical penicillin?

Clay is most commonly associated with the sublime experience of the European spa where visitors have been masked, soaked and basted with this touted curative since the Romans ruled. If ASU microbiologist Shelley Haydel’s research on the antibacterial properties of clays realizes its full potential, smectite clay could one day rise above cosmetic use to take its place comfortably with antibacterial behemoths like penicillin. “We use maggots and leeches in hospitals, so why not clay?” Haydel poses. “I had a professor in graduate school say, ‘Maybe perhaps once in your life, in your scientific career, you’ll come across something that can change the world.’ Sometimes I think: Is this it? Will this help some people?” Haydel has been awarded a $1.6 million grant by the National Institutes of Health to investigate how minerals from clay inhibit pathogens. The hope is that these clays could provide inexpensive, highly-effective antimicrobials to fight methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. These “superbugs” are increasingly resistant to multiple antibiotics and cause thousands of deaths each year. The clays could provide easily stored and transported, topical cures to other skin diseases, such as Buruli ulcer, which affects communities in central Africa and leads to amputation, infection and disfigurement.

Discovery: Biotechnology and Biomedicine

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Ecology and EnvironmentLife sciences research in the 21st century will bring exciting leaps in our understanding of how genes and the environment, evolution and development shape the functions of molecules, cells, brains, organisms, behaviors, ecosystems and societies, as well as the conceptual and social foundations of science. From Gila monsters, giant insects and conservation genetics of bison to global cycling of nutrients and emergent disease (and on all seven continents), SOLS researchers are on the forefront of studying the co-evolution of organisms and their environments.

School of Life Sciences is a core center for environmental sciences at ASU with faculty and students engaged in trans-disciplinary research, collaborating with urban planners and policy makers, and as key participants within the Global Institute of Sustainability and School of Sustainability. Faculty at the intersection of policy and the environment ask a diverse range of questions, from how socioeconomic processes drive land use and land cover change in North America and China, to how trade impacts invasive species, emergent disease and bioeconomics, to how farming done centuries ago in the American Southwest impacts landscapes today. A non-traditional setting that is a rich environment for life sciences biologists has been the city itself. Phoenix is one of two NSF-funded urban Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites nation-wide.

Experts are also working to unravel the fundamental relationships between the elemental composition of microbes and their environments (biogeochemistry). In coordination with the NASA Astrobiology Institute

at ASU, life sciences’ biologists partner with planetary geologists to assess the potential for life (astrobiology) on Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons hypothesized to hold a vast ocean underneath its icy shell, and examine the evolution of the earliest of life on earth. In the field of environmental physiology, faculty and students explore the physiological potential of plants, animals and microbes in environments ranging from high altitudes to deserts and grasslands, and even in ancient scenarios, such as the late Paleozoic.

Imagining the current and future fingerprints of our current land-use practices, including effects on nutrient cycling, conservation practices and policies, our oceans and water resources, is driving discovery, innovation and solutions to the challenges of the future.

Discovery: ecology and environment

discovery8 SOLS 2009 | 5-yeAr reporT

Discovery: Ecology and Environment

Global Climate Change: How giant insects once ruled the planet

Change in Earth’s atmosphere is not, surprisingly, new. Big swings in atmospheric oxygen range from 30 percent to 13 percent in Earth’s ancient past, to today’s 21 percent. So why the current concern? Such past changes have also been linked to profound outcomes, such as gigantism in insects in the Permian age and catastrophic extinctions of species in the Triassic period – the evolution of all we see around us. It gives one pause when considering the future. What will the shift in the present day greenhouse gases and UV radiation ultimately mean? A pair of scientists in School of Life Sciences thinks the answers might be found through the creation of mini-worlds.

Professor Jon Harrison and post doctoral fellow John VandenBrooks are leading an effort to establish a Variable Atmosphere Laboratory (VAL) on ASU’s Polytechnic campus that would support 50-70 mini-worlds and enable the small scale creation of atmospheric conditions found from inner cities to Mount Everest to Mars. In each of the VAL modules, scientists could manipulate a wide range of atmospheres, creating conditions that might exist in the future or recreating those of ancient Earth, notes VandenBrooks. By having the capacity to manipulate trace gases like ozone, temperature, humidity, UV radiation, barometric pressure and carbon dioxide, they could examine the effects of inner-city pollution or even simulate extraterrestrial atmospheres.

The inspiration to create the Variable Atmospheric Laboratory grew out of needs and questions intrinsic in VandenBrooks’ and Harrison’s own research studies. The duo investigates the effects of atmospheric oxygen on the development and evolution of insects, in particular the apparent correlation between the presence of high oxygen levels in ancient earth and gigantism in insects in the Carboniferous and Permian periods.

At the intersection of water, diversity and deserts

Wesley Powell, the great explorer of the American West, noted that if it was possible to spread all available surface water evenly across the western U.S., there would still be a desert very similar to the one Powell encountered on his journeys. Powell’s insights were nearly prophetic. Since Powell’s adventures, almost all of the great rivers in the American West have been dammed, diverted or tapped for groundwater for the sake of agriculture and municipal water supplies. Nowhere are these changes more poignant and relevant than in Arizona. John Sabo’s research employs large scale field experiments, stable isotopic tracers and lab physiology to understand links

between the water cycle and animal performance, abundance and species diversity. Most of his work focuses on riparian and river food webs. For example, his students study links between ground water aquifers and animals in riparian forests. Here they are finding that riparian trees deliver groundwater and alleviate water-stress to riparian animals via a daily rain of green, water-laden leaves. Sabo also has projects that examine the effects of dams on energy flow through aquatic food webs. One aspect of this work is to understand how dams alter the relative dependence of top predators on aquatic and terrestrial sources of carbon, and thus energy. All of this work is geared towards understanding the sustainable management of water resources for humans and biodiversity.

discovery 9SOLS 2009 | 5-yEar rEport

Visualizing microorganisms from space

What if you could spy on something only a few millionths of a meter (microns) across from space? Seem far-fetched? Scientists studying phytoplankton in the oceans have discovered when enough of these tiny unicellular organisms come together, they become visible from space. In fact the reason phytoplankton are easier to see from space (than something significantly larger, like the Great Wall of China) is because they photosynthesize. By absorbing some wavelengths of light and reflecting others, the photosynthetic pigments in these micro-organisms produce distinctive colors.

Large numbers of phytoplankton (a thimble of water can contain tens or even hundreds of thousands of individuals) floating together in the ocean change the color of the light that reflects back into space. It is this change in color that is visible to specially designed satellite sensors passing high above the Earth.

Susanne Neuer’s group in the School of Life Sciences uses satellite imagery to support research projects aimed at increasing understanding of phytoplankton

ecology and how it affects primary production and carbon flux in the ocean. One of the key satellites used for measuring ocean primary production from space is SeaWifs (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of view Sensor). Neuer is now also adapting this process to include microorganisms in smaller bodies of water, such as the Salt River reservoirs in Arizona.

The growing population of the Phoenix metropolitan area will increase the demand for water in central Arizona. Resource management authorities recognize that the limited water supply stored in our reservoirs is a precious resource. Neuer hopes that by combining views from space with views through the microscope, SOLS can contribute to ongoing efforts to improve water quality in all the reservoirs across Arizona. More significantly, if these experimental monitoring techniques prove to be successful, they have the potential to provide similar benefits to understanding of watersheds across the planet.

Discovery: ecology and environment

MoDIS image (4 km resolution) showing chlorophyll a levels for 2006 (purple areas indicate low productivity while high productivity is indicated in red)


EvolutionWith apologies to Dobzhansky, nothing in SOLS makes sense except in light of evolution. Evolutionary perspectives permeate our work. Why did social behaviors arise in some species and not others? When did humans and chimpanzees diverge during the history of life? How can we establish and keep track of the world’s species and their evolutionary relationships? How do new infectious diseases emerge to threaten humans? How do old nemeses like malaria change over time? What do whales and hippos have in common? How does life cope with extremes of temperature and aridity and how does this relate to a future world affected by climate change?

Discovery: evolution

A virtual world expands species discovery

Quentin Wheeler broke new “ground” when he launched ASU’s International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE). Wheeler, ASU vice president and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, developed IISE to engage museums and research institutions globally, blending computer engineering with taxonomy to build cyberinfrastructure – virtual connections between collections – that will assist scientists, enlist the public and accelerate species discovery. Two projects, the Top 10 New Species and the State of Observed Species (SOS) report, have captured the public imagination and heightened awareness of the biodiversity crisis. The SOS is a “report card on the state of knowledge of the earth’s species.” In 2008, it revealed the discovery and description of 16,969 new species, in partnership with the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, the International Plant Names Index and Thompson Scientific (the publisher of Zoological Record). IISE’s key partners include Spain, the United Kingdom, China, Belgium, Slovakia, Russia, Mexico and Australia. In addition to developing new tools and advancing access and species identification online, IISE is actively expanding physical museum collections. Some of Wheeler’s own recent discoveries include new species of beetles that he has named to honor of Roy Orbison (2008) and television’s host of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert in 2009.

“We are surrounded by such an exuberance of species diversity that we too often take it for granted. Charting the species of the world and their unique attributes are essential parts of understanding the history of life and is in our own self-interest as we face the challenges of living on a rapidly changing planet” – Quentin Wheeler

Faculty and students investigative approaches run the gamut of the evolutionary sciences, including high-level bioinformatics analyses of genomics databases, theoretical simulation, population genetics, comparative anatomy and physiology, taxonomy and experimental evolution. Key connections and collaborations relevant to evolution occur through numerous Centers, Institutes and research programs, including: the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, the Center for Evolutionary & Functional Genomics (Biodesign), the Center for Infectious Disease & Vaccinology (Biodesign), the International Institute for Species Exploration and ASU’s Astrobiology Institute (NASA).

Research during the past five years has produced more than 90 peer-reviewed scientific publications (Thomson ISI Web of Science), including seven since 2005 that qualify as “highly cited” (citation frequency in the top 1% of the discipline; in this

case, ISI Ecology and Environment). A variety of substantial and influential books with evolutionary themes have been authored or edited by SOLS faculty members in recent years, including “The Timetree of Life,” “From Embryology to Evo Devo: The History of Developmental Evolution” and “Bird Coloration: Function and Evolution,” “An Enthusiasm for Orchids: Sex and Deception in Plant Evolution” and the “Organization of Insect Societies: From Genome to Sociocomplexity.”

Meanwhile, undergraduate courses and research highly relevant to evolution include bioinformatics and molecular evolution; genes, development and evolution organic evolution origins, evolution and creation and the Darwinian revolution. At the graduate level, 2009 will see the launch of a new Ph.D. degree program in Evolutionary Biology, an inter-disciplinary effort that connects SOLS researchers to colleagues across the ASU campus.

Illustration of orbison whirligig beetle

Shocking pink millipede Desmoxytes purpurosea


Discovery: evolution

Insect study revolutionizes understanding of social systems and disease

ASU’s currency in social insect study is rising faster than the Euro against the dollar on the world scene, as host to School of Life Sciences’ Social Insect Research Group, led by Pulitzer Prize winning author and scientist Bert Hölldobler. The group has built strong interdisciplinary ties and long-standing institutional relationships with universities and research institutes globally. Focusing on social insects as model systems for understanding behavior, faculty and students explore biology’s most complex problems, such as the development and evolution of social systems and aging.

Social insects play a dominant role in terrestrial ecology and their astounding evolutionary success is based on remarkable systems of division of labor involving hundreds and thousands of individual organisms. “Such cooperative organizations can only work by means of integrating communication systems,” Hölldobler says. “One of the frontiers in experimental sociobiology is the exploration of the genetic foundation of this remarkable cooperative behavior, and tracking the feedback loops within these societies that make them to highly integrated ‘superorganisms’.” SOLS scientists have also discovered links between behavior, epigenetics and aging, taking understanding of human systems in new directions. Faculty and students in the group pursue a host of novel research programs, from behavioral ecology, neuroscience, biomedicine to building understanding around the evolution of genes, ecosystems, social systems, networks and complex adaptive systems.

DarwinfestSOLS evolutionary biologists are playing an important role in public education through their involvement in ASU’s 2009 Darwinfest celebrations (darwinfest.asu.edu), which include Darwin Distinguished Lecture Series, The Future of Evolution Lecture Series, speakers in the School of Life Sciences Seminar Series and a workshop developed to empower teachers, Translating Evolutionary Science into the Public Classroom.


Human Dimensions of BiologyUnlike many science departments, the School of Life Sciences is unique among biology programs in its systematic focus on the human dimensions of biology. Historical, philosophical, conceptual, ethical, legal and policy considerations are integrated into teaching and research throughout the school. Such research challenges show biology to be much more nuanced and much more humanly engaged than it might seem. Through research and outreach projects, courses, workshops and reading groups, faculty and students are challenged to think not only about how science works and how it changes over time, but also about the people who carry out the science, the institutions in which they work, about their conceptual and methodological assumptions and the practices they adopt. Furthermore, they think about the broader implications of their scientific work, including its ethical aspects and what it means to carry out research responsibly.

Researchers focused on human dimensions in biology lead the exploration at the intersection of biology and society, carrying questions into classrooms and collaborations. As leaders in professional societies and in informing decisions related to science policy and law, SOLS faculty engage in the examination of interactions of humans and the environment in diverse ways. Faculty explore core questions that underpin the discussions of “Life,” studying the interplay of people, practices and policy, applying biology to human problems so that we can leave the legacy of life to our future generations.

edmund Beecher Wilson, 1856-1939embryo project encyclopedia

Discovery: Human Dimensions of Biology

The Embryo Project

Led by Jane Maienschein, Regents’ Professor, President’s Professor and Parents Association Professor at ASU, faculty leader and director of the Center for Biology and Society, an ambitious group of philosophers, bioethicists, historians, scientists, lawyers and policy experts have launched a detailed study of the history of embryo research to understand how society, technology and culture have affected the course of science. The Embryo Project, which examines embryology and developmental biology in its scientific, cultural and legal contexts over time, offers a cutting-edge digital encyclopedia (embryo.asu.edu) in conjunction with the ASU Library, the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory and the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science. The project is developing not only a repository of digital objects centered around embryo research, but also new solutions to bridge the divide between traditional scholarship in the humanities and the explosion of information in the digital universe.

The Embryo Project group includes SOLS professors Manfred Laubichler, Gary Marchant, director of the Center for Law, Science and Technology, Jason Robert and Andrew Hamilton and librarian John Howard and other colleagues at ASU, in the U.S. and Europe.

Documenting World’s Mammals in Crisis

From majestic African elephants to tiny and often unappreciated rodents, mammals on Earth are in a state of crisis. One in four mammal species on Earth is being pushed to extinction, according to the Global Mammal Assessment, the most comprehensive assessment of the world’s mammals.

Writing in the October 2008 issue of Science, (“The Status of the World’s Land and Marine Mammals: Diversity, Threat, and Knowledge”) and unveiling a “Red List” of endangered mammal species (at the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain), the researchers who worked on the exhaustive study say that from 25 percent to 36 percent of species may be in danger of extinction.

Whose View of Life? Embryos, Cloning and Stem Cells

A 2004 Independent Publisher Book Awards Finalist in the Science Category, Maienschein’s “View of Life” brings “current debate into sharper focus by examining developments in stem cell research, cloning and embryology in historical and philosophical context and by exploring legal, social and ethical issues at the heart of what has become a political controversy.” (Harvard Press).


Discovery: Human Dimensions of Biology

“It is frightening that after millions and millions of years of evolution that have given rise to the biodiversity of mammals we are perched on a crisis where 25 percent of species are threatened with being lost forever,” said SOLS’ Andrew Smith, who played a key role in the mammalian assessment. Smith and his research assistant, Charlotte Johnston, are two of the 103 authors of the Science paper.

The Global Mammal Assessment was conducted by more than 1,800 scientists from more than 130 countries working under the auspices of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It was made possible by the volunteer help of IUCN Species Survival Commission’s specialist groups and collaborations between top institutions and universities, including Arizona State University, Texas A&M University, University of Virginia, Conservation International, Sapienza Università di Roma and the Zoological Society of London.

Hungry lions on the savanna or porpoises in the sea work as teams to catch prey. Schooling fish dart in unison to escape a predator. Even “Meerkat Manor” depicts complex groups with clearly defined duties. What do these complex activities all have in common? For Stephen Pratt, assistant professor in Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences, they represent different aspects of the hunt, but in ways that most people could barely begin to imagine.

ASU and Pratt hosted engineers, computer scientists, biologists and social scientists at a recent workshop – Heterogeneous Unmanned Networked Teams (HUNT) – that focused on developing bio-inspired solutions to engineering problems.

The workshop is part of a five-year project of the same name funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The effort is led by 10 engineers and computer scientists from the University of Pennsylvania, University of California, Berkeley, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, in addition to ASU’s Pratt, who is the sole biologist in the group. Why would naval research and other engineering research institutions look to nature for bio-inspired solutions? “Robustness, scalability and the ability to function without complex central control are things that are really desirable in an artificial system,” Pratt points out. “All kinds of natural systems have them; from the movement of fish in schools and birds in flocks to social insects building specific, complex nest structures.”

A Guide to the Mammals of China, Andrew T. Smith and Yan Xie (eds)

Not just another guidebook, this 527-page volume describes every mammal found in the fourth largest country on earth. Containing 61 plates, six maps and 25 habitat photos (all in color), a glossary and a key to the orders of Chinese mammals, this book is a comprehensive compilation of the systematics, identification, distribution, natural history and conservation status of more than 550 species. Highly readable, beautifully illustrated and easy to use. Published by Princeton University Press (2008).

Engineers seek out bio-inspired solutionsStephen Pratt’s ants carrying a force sensor, allowing him to develop understanding about teamwork and measurable collective effort for application in robotics.


Behavior and Neuroscience

The study of animal behavior is one of the most interdisciplinary enterprises in biology. As Niko Tinbergen pointed out, long ago, to explain any behavior fully requires information about its development, its underlying physiological mechanisms, its adaptive value and its evolutionary origin and modifications. Therefore, genetics, developmental biology, physiology, ecology and evolutionary biology must all be employed to most fully understand behavior. In addition, building an understanding of behavior also involves an examination of the molecular, cellular and cognitive systems that underpin the relationship between behavior and the brain.

School of Life Sciences employs an integrative and interdisciplinary approach in studies of behavior and neuroscience, examining fundamental questions at different levels of biological organization, with an eye on the interconnections between the mechanisms and their evolution. For example, core faculty explore the complex social systems of ants and honeybees on multiple levels, from genes to social interactions to modeling of human systems. Other faculty consider the adaptive value of color patterns exhibited by birds and butterflies while also looking at the physiology and development of the systems that produce the color patterns. Still other researchers work with an increasingly sophisticated array of tools and animal, cellular and insect models to expand understanding of how nervous systems adapt to their environments and develop models for human neurological conditions. Relationships with other academic units at ASU, such as the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, Center for Biology and Society, and partners offsite, such as Barrow Neurological Institute and other clinical partners, make ASU one of the broadest and strongest centers for behavior research in the nation and a burgeoning center of growth in neuroscience.

‘Sniffing’ out cheaters

An “honest indicator” has been discovered by a scientific team at Arizona State University that reveals reproductive cheating. But before you run out to buy an infidelity identification kit, know that it only works for ants. While it’s well-known that workers in ant colonies typically support one reproductive female – a queen, it turns out that cheating can be a problem, and not just for humans. Cheating is found in all sorts of animal and insect groups, including other highly organized social organisms, such as ants.

Humans cheat on their partners roughly 15-18 percent of the time (according to scientific studies). However, worker ants that stray from acceptable celibate social norms rarely, if ever, are successful. Cheaters are actively weeded out by other workers and brought back into line, through a process called policing. But how can workers in an ant colony, with hundreds to thousands of sister-workers around them, locate one cheater in an ant hill?

Through fertility hydrocarbons, says Jürgen Liebig, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences and member of the Center for Social Dynamic and Complexity in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. According to research findings published in the journal Current Biology, hydrocarbons on the outside cuticle of fertile ants form “a particular chemical signature blend.” A cocktail that an ant apparently can’t deny, cover up or lie about and which brands a cheater much like the red “A” on the bosom of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.”


Sound discoveries in brain health

Great discoveries—how are they made? Sometimes, you have to “kick out the jams” and take risks. Other times it’s relentless patience and methodical testing. Of course, sometimes a mere accident holds the key.

William (Jamie) Tyler says that his “Aha” moment occurred in graduate school during an aural overload of the bands “Dr. Dre” and “Rage Against the Machine.” His revolutionary discovery?; that ultrasound can be harnessed to remotely stimulate brain circuits, making the noninvasive modulation of the activity of neural circuits in the intact brain possible. Tyler says the technique opens new doors in uses that range from medical treatments to video gaming.

“The prospects are exhilarating,” Tyler says. “The improved patient access that low-intensity, low-frequency ultrasound confers over surgical intervention or gene-therapy means that literally millions of people might be helped through use of ultrasonic neuromodulation.”

Tyler and his colleagues are now carefully characterizing the influence of ultrasound on intact brain circuits and pursuing translational neuroscience research. The goal is to take low-intensity ultrasound from the laboratory bench into pre-clinical trials.

“There was a time when I thought that making a novel discovery in the lab was the hard part. I’ve found that’s only where it begins,” Tyler says. “The real challenge, effort, time and money come into play when transforming that discovery into a medical treatment.”

Large scale modeling of nervous system function?

Computational models based on detailed neuroanatomical and electrophysiological data have been used for many years to aid in understanding nervous system function. Increasingly, large-scale models are essential tools for bridging multiple levels of organization; however, different parts of a complex nervous system model are implemented optimally in different simulators. Since 2002, Sharon Crook has been actively coordinating an effort to develop standards for describing these types of models in order to facilitate exchange and to create a language that promotes interoperability between different simulators and other tools. In 2005, to aid in this process, the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) was established with the goal of fostering scientific interaction and knowledge by developing, maintaining and evaluating international programs, standards and infrastructure for neuroinformatics in 14 countries around the world. Recently, the INCF established a program for Large-Scale Modeling, which focuses on setting standards for simulator interoperability. Crook has been appointed to the Oversight Committee for Description Standards in Neural Network Modeling as part of this effort (neuroml.org).

Discovery: Behavior and Neuroscience


Cell and Developmental BiologyIn the last five years, the School of Life Sciences has nearly doubled its faculty in cell and developmental biology, with a strong emphasis on neurobiology, infection and immunity. Teaching and research activities in the areas of genetics, cellular and developmental biology focus on understanding the fundamental molecular events that are at the

core of all life. These pursuits cover a broad range of specialized disciplines, including biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology,

structural biology, genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, cell biology, developmental biology, tumor biology, microbiology, immunology and pathogenesis.

Faculty and students examine sperm-egg interaction during fertilization, the telomerase ribonucleotide complex, the molecular mechanisms of proteins involved in intercellular signaling, and the regulation of gene expression in Drosophila, Salmonella typhimurium, Escherichia coli and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Other model organisms include plants, fish, arthropods and vertebrates and provide new tools and information for use in applied fields from medicine to

alternative fuels.

In the area of prokaryotic research, studies focus on elucidating the molecular mechanisms of transport of molecules into and out of bacterial cells, assembly and

function of outer membrane proteins, resistance to host antimicrobial peptides, understanding the

antibacterial effects found in natural clays, the effects of space flight on microbial physiology, the mechanisms of pathogenicity of significant human pathogens and transitions from active growth to persistence or latency. From insights about the development of birth defects and scoliosis to discovery of how low frequency ultrasound can remotely stimulate neurons, the diversity of research and innovative approaches is also reflected in the range of technical approaches, including sophisticated techniques of bioinformatics, molecular

genetics, functional genomics, modeling, mass spectrometry and bioimaging.

Sick flies shed light on human immunity

Strong parallels exist in the regulation of immune system function in animals as diverse as flies, mice and humans. Salmonella infection is not a positive experience in either humans or, as it turns out, flies. By infecting the common laboratory fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster with a Salmonella strain known for causing humans intestinal grief, researchers in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University have shed light on some key cell regulatory processes—with broad implications for understanding embryonic development, immune function and congenital diseases in humans.

Frandsen, J., Gunn, B., Muratoglu, S., Fossett, N. and Newfeld, S.J. (2008) Salmonella pathogenesis reveals that BMP signaling regulates blood cell homeostasis and immune responses in Drosophila. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105:14952-14957.

How to mimic outer space on Earth: Space ills and Earth cures

The technology created by NASA scientists and engineers has done plenty to help humanity over the past five decades. All that brainpower and technical know-how has spawned and improved satellites. It has also led to the creation of flat-screen televisions, robotic wheelchairs, water purification systems and cell phones. Could it now also hold the key to what ails us here on Earth?

Cheryl Nickerson has bet her career on it. Nickerson is an earthbound microbiologist in the School of Life Sciences and researcher in the Biodesign Institute at ASU. Her NASA-funded research supports the development of innovative experimental models for infectious disease and drug development, on Earth and in space.

Nickerson wants to transform our understanding of the forces that shape nasty pathogens and their ability to cause disease.

“Those tax dollars we invest in NASA’s manned space programs propel new product discovery that impacts our lives on a daily basis, including advances in health and medicine,” Nickerson says. “So the fact that we have the potential to provide novel cures and therapeutics to treat infectious diseases as a result of the manned space program should come as no surprise.”

Douglas Chandler has built a career investigating all the bits and pieces and nuance that promotes romance in the pond. Frogs are his subject of study. The ASU scientist has isolated a sexual chemoattractant in the eggs of female frogs. The substance is exactly what it sounds like, a chemical that helps female frogs attract their charming prince. Appropriately, Chandler named the substance Allurin. He says that his find is the first such discovery in vertebrates. The chemical is 184 amino acids that say: “Hey Daddy, come to Momma!”

In frogs, these peptides act like designer perfumes. Males are lured to the right spot to meet Princess Froggy. If it’s good enough for frogs, what about humans?

Chandler has cloned Allurin. He has also sequenced it genetically and found that it is structurally related to a number of mammalian sperm binding proteins. Recent studies have show that it also attracts mammalian sperm.

“Intensive study of the relationships between these sperm attracting proteins and mammalian

reproductive mechanisms may spawn new ways to enhance fertility or ensure contraception,” says Chandler, a professor in the School of Life Sciences.

Bioimaging plays a major role in Chandler’s research and he, along with co-author Robert Roberson, has published a new reference and text in the field titled “Bioimaging: Current Concepts in Light and Electron Microscopy.”

Froggy goes a-courting: Chemical in frog eggs lures males to mate

Discovery: Cell and Developmental Biology


Urban Ecology and Sustainability Science

The School of Life Sciences fosters a culture of basic research and teaching with an eye toward applicability. This is perhaps nowhere as conspicuous as in the cross-cutting interest of our faculty and students in promoting sustainability of our planet’s resources and the natural and social systems it hosts. A wide range of scientists and students pursue conservation biology to molecular biology through this lens, tapping into resources and producing tools, services and information that informs policy from whales in the open ocean to bacteria in the clinic. Many labs in life sciences, and collaborating units and partners across ASU, are active in the area of bioeconomics, bioenergy and ecoservices. Within the large umbrella of ecosystem ecology, which encompasses the study of fluxes of elements and energy in ecosystems, researchers

work on processes that directly or indirectly affect sustainability science, studying the role and effects of climate change and human activity on a variety of ecosystems that range from the open oceans to deserts and lakes. Importantly, and rather uniquely, ASU has long been focused on the biogeochemistry and sustainability of a city’s rapidly evolving urban ecosystem system. The focus on urban ecology in School of Life Sciences has attracted key researchers and vaulted ASU to the forefront in this field, with the school providing leadership in the Central Arizona Long-Term Ecology Research program (CAP LTER) in urban ecology, thus connecting SOLS efforts with those of the Global Institute of Sustainability, the School of Sustainability, the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis and key initiatives across ASU.

Juliet Stromberg and Barbara Tellman’s 2009 publication “The Ecology and Conservation of the San Pedro” examines one of the last undammed perennial rivers in the Southwest and illustrates important processes common to many desert riparian ecosystems. Although historic land uses and climatic extremes have led to aquifer depletion, river entrenchment and other changes, the river still sustains a rich and varied selection of life. Resilient to many factors, portions of the San Pedro have become increasingly threatened by groundwater pumping and other impacts of population growth.

An interdisciplinary team of fifty-seven contributors – biologists, ecologists, geomorphologists, historians, hydrologists, lawyers, political scientists – weave together threads from their diverse perspectives to reveal the processes that shape the past, present and future of the San Pedro’s riparian and aquatic ecosystems. They review the biological communities, stream hydrology and geomorphology, then look at conservation and management challenges along three sections of the San Pedro. From the headwaters in Mexico to its confluence with the Gila River, the authors describe the legal and policy issues and their interface with science; as well as activities related to mitigation, conservation and restoration; and a prognosis of the potential for sustaining the basin’s riparian system, as well as important lessons for restoring physical processes and biotic communities to rivers in arid and semiarid regions. (Excerpt from University of Arizona online review)

Ecology and Conservation of the San Pedro River

What fingerprints are our current land-use practices leaving?

Urban ecological studies offer pivotal insights in how to navigate a sustainable urban future. As soon-to-be dominant ecosystems, cities harbor a wealth of ideas and creative accomplishments, as they have over centuries of urban living. Increasing public understanding that cities are more than miles of roadways, steel and glass means that urban ecosystems can be managed and that costs to citizens and environments can be understood and balanced. Cities can transform ecosystems in multiple ways, through modification of land use, land cover and watersheds and exposure to altered physical, chemical and biological conditions characteristic of urban environments. Phoenix is one of two NSF-funded urban Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites nation-wide. The project involves extensive collaboration, partnering scientists with urban planners, policy makers and other academics. Researchers Nancy Grimm and Sharon Hall are working in connection with LTER, Global Institute of Sustainability and School of Life Sciences to create new understanding about the interplay between cities, their inhabitants and the environment.

Have you ever thought about the ecology of a culverted city stream? Nancy Grimm, LTER co-director and professor in the School of Life Sciences, and her colleagues study structure and function of ecosystems, predominantly streams, in arid lands ranging from pristine to very urban. Her latest work, published in the journal Nature, has shown how critical small streams are in the removal of nitrogen that would otherwise contaminate rivers, bays and oceans.

Hall’s projects focus on how human activity has altered nutrient cycling. Her group has found, for example, that desert-scaped yards function very differently than outlying deserts despite having a remarkably similar appearance. Hall has also examined the long-term effects of human-altered landscapes, but over a pre-historic time-scale. The fingerprint left by farming done centuries ago can still be found in the American Southwest. Hall’s latest project will soon take such questions overseas, to the Fynbos shrublands in the Cape Town metropolitan area, South Africa.

Grimm N.B., Faeth S.H., Golubiewski N.E., et al. Global change and the ecology of cities. Science 319(5864): 756-760 (2008).

Hall S.J., Ahmed B., Ortiz P., Davies R., Sponseller R., Grimm N.B. Urbanization alters soil microbial functioning in the Sonoran Desert. Ecosystems, in press (2009).

Discovery: Urban ecology and Sustainability Science


Wooing sustainable collaborations in China

Jianguo (Jingle) Wu, James Elser and their students work at the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station (IMGERS) as part of an ASU-China collaborative, supported by funds from the National Science Foundation and Chinese National Science Foundation (NSFC) to study the world’s largest grassland. They hope to develop a better understanding of this semi-arid ecosystem and thus improve local and regional management practices. In addition, this research effort is expected to provide significant educational, cultural and research experiences for U.S. and Chinese students, and establish “a long-term scientific platform in the Inner Mongolia Grassland for U.S.-China collaborations on ecological research, particularly in biocomplexity and sustainability science for years to come,” says Wu, professor in School of Life Sciences, School of Sustainability, member of the Global Institute of Sustainability and advisor to the ASU President’s Office on China Affairs. At ASU, Wu has created the Landscape Ecology and Sustainability Laboratory to study the “relationship between landscape pattern and biodiversity/ecosystem processes, urbanization and its ecological consequences, land use and land cover modeling, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, scaling and integration of ecological, economic and social processes for developing sustainable landscapes.” Wu was selected as a Leopold Leadership Program Fellow in 2009 for his scientific excellence, leadership qualities and desire to expand his communication and outreach skills beyond traditional scientific circles. Wu says. “My selection is reflective more of the overall strength of our interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary programs than anything that I have accomplished as an individual.”



‘Sex in the city’: finch feathers and physiology in Phoenix

“Do the birds in my backyard look the same as those in your backyard?” Bird-lovers often marvel (and compete!) over the beautifully colored species they attract to their feeders and windows, but at a local bird club meeting Kevin McGraw proposed a variation ofthis question. Within a species, might there be differences in the color intensities of individuals from one backyard to the next? If so, how might where you live - in the city or the desert, say – impact the colors of backyard bird visitors?

So began a new line of research in his laboratory, integrating years of research on the color patterns of male house finches with an urban-ecology approach to studying native wildlife in this rapidly growing city of Phoenix. Male house finches display unrivaled color variability – from deep red through intermediate orange to drab yellow – and females have been favored over time to prefer the reddest males as mates, as these individuals are in superior health and condition. Historically, house finches inhabited the desert ecosystems of Mexico, Arizona and California, but, as their name connotes, they have taken to human habitations and now can be found in nearly every one

of the lower 48 states. The fact that they do well both in natural and urban settings begged the question of whether or not finch colors varied as a function of their proximity to humans. Given the close link between feather coloration and individual health, there are several reasons to suspect that pollution, habitat modifications and heat-island effects, among other things, in urban environs might decrease an individual’s health and consequently induce them to grow less-attractive plumage.

McGraw undertook the first studies on this topic in early summer 2006. A striking pattern emerged – desert dwellers were much redder in coloration than urban inhabitants. To evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists, this stands as an important microgeographic means of studying variation in color and mating patterns – yes, “sex in the city”. But to conservation biologists and others interested in how humans impact natural populations, it is lesson as innovative, early means of assessing human impacts on animal populations – “the canary in the coalmine”, so to speak (house finches are close relatives of canaries!). Photo storybook:(asu.edu/vppa/photogallery/birds/1.htm).



2005

Roy Curtiss III undertook to develop a live recombinant attenuated Salmonella anti-pneumococcal vaccine for newborns with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccinology in the Biodesign Institute, Curtiss III received $14.8 million grant from the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative.

The National Science Foundation IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training) program in Urban Ecology was funded for a second five-year period. Totalling $3.2 million, the project supports 20 graduate students from six disciplinary units. Stuart Fisher, Ann Kinzig and Nancy Grimm are among eight ASU scientists involved, in addition to Charles Redman of the Global Institute of Sustainability.

In the close of 2004, Brenda Hogue, associate professor, established at ASU Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP), a minority access training program that reaches across campus funded with a $1.63 million award from the National Institutes of Health.

Research Funding Highlights

2006

A $4.3 million MacArthur Foundation Award was directed to Ann Kinzig and other ASU partners to fund a study that advances “conservation in a social context.” Efforts of the Global Institute of Sustainability, School of Life Sciences and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences led to the launch of the ecoSERVICES program, coordinated by Kinzig and Charles Perrings. Perrings and Kinzig, members of the Human Dimensions faculty group in School of Life Sciences, are also core participants of Diversitas, the international program of biodiversity science and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network (BESTNet), a research coordination network funded by the National Science Foundation and various other training initiatives.

Tsafrir Mor, assistant professor, received more than $2.5 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to pursue technology related to express human enzymes in plants and test their potential as catalytic bioscavengers of nerve agents.

Ronald Rutowski, professor, was awarded $1.8 million grant through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to develop AzBioNet. The network is an opportunity for undergraduate students to interact and develop professional relationships with scientists who work at major research and medical institutions in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Collaborators include: Jane Maienschein, Regent’s professor and director of the Center for Biology and Society; Mark Jacobs, dean of Barrett, The Honors College; and James Collins, assistant director of biological sciences at the National Science Foundation, on leave from School of Life Sciences where he is a Virginia M. Ullman Professor.

Professors Jianguo Wu and James Elserwere awarded a $1.07 million National Science Foundation grant to test biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships in an ecological stoichiometry framework in Inner Mongolia, China. China additionally contributed roughly $2.2 million to the project, which extends to 2011.


2007

Willem Vermaas, professor, was a key architect in two ASU bioenergy projects involving biodiesel and biohydrogen research, utilizing his genetically engineered cyanobacteria. The Biohydrogen Project ($2.5 million over five years) is one of the first grants funded by the ASU President’s Intellectual Fusion fund. The second project supported by $2.2 million from Science Foundation of Arizona, focuses on cyanobacteria for generating solar-powered, carbon neutral and cost-effective biodiesel and enlists life sciences colleagues Roy Curtiss III, Ferran Garcia Pichel, Robert Roberson – led by Bruce Rittman in the Center for Environmental Biotechnology in the Biodesign Institute.

Professors James Elser and Sudhir Kumar shared a $1 million award with former ASU colleague William Fagan, now with the University of Maryland, College Park to develop a bioinformatics database linking ecological discovery with the genome.

George Poste, Del E. Webb Distinguished Professor of Biology in SOLS and director of the Biodesign Institute, in partnership with Jeffrey Trent, member of the SOLS Biomedicine and Biotechnology faculty group and director of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) were part of the “partnership for personalized medicine,” a $45 million initiative to oversee a new venture to develop personalized diagnostics. Led by 2001 Nobel laureate Lee Hartwell, the initiative was funded by The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust ($35 million) and The Flinn Foundation.

Bertram Jacobs, SOLS professor and researcher in the Biodesign Institute at ASU, received nearly $1.5 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health for research to develop a safer smallpox vaccine and another $700,000, shared with SOLS associate professor Yung Chang.

2008

Assistant Professor Juergen Liebig is one of a trio of scientists taking an audacious approach to studying gene regulation, using the ant to model human aging, with support from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). His team received one of eight awards through a pilot program, The Collaborative Innovation Awards, which disbursed $40 million.

Ananias Escalante, associate professor, received three grants amounting to more than an estimated $3 million from the National Institutes of Health to investigate evolution and malaria. In concert with collaborators, he will pursue 1) “Global comparative study of the evolution of antimalarial drug resistance,” 2) “Evolution of Plasmodium vivax and Asian macaque malarias,” and with Lisa Jones-Engels of the National Primate Research Center, 3) “The evolution, recombination and emergence of Simian retroviruses in Bangladesh.”

The National Institutes of Health awarded Professor Rajeev Misra $1.29 million to examine “assembly of E. coli outer membrane proteins.” Misra’s laboratory studies bacterial outer membrane-associated events including transport of toxins, efflux of antibiotics and targeting and assembly of outer membrane proteins.

A $1 million grant was awarded to Andrew Smith, Parents Association Professor and associate director of undergraduate programs. Smith and his colleagues were funded by the National Science Foundation to do collaborative research that focuses on the linkages of culture, policy and science: “Determinants of grassland dynamics in Tibetan highlands: livestock, wildlife, and the culture and political economy of pastoralism.” Smith’s collaborators include lead investigator Richard Harris from Ecosystem and Conservation Science at the University of Montana and researchers from the University of Colorado, Northwest Plateau Institute of Biology (China) and East China Normal University (China).



2008 (continued)

Professors Roy Curtiss III and Josie Clark-Curtiss received $1.89 million to support development of a “recombinant attenuated Salmonella vaccines for humans” from the National Institutes of Health. Curtiss III also received a grant from the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, Collaborative Research Project to evaluate a recombinant attenuated Salmonella system for optimal delivery of genetically engineered bacteriophage.

Assistant professor Douglas Lake, also a researcher in the Center for Metabolic Study, received $1.2 million from the William Keck Foundation to study “frameshifts as cancer vaccine targets – in connection with Stephen Albert Johnston, SOLS professor and researcher in the Biodesign Institute. Johnson and his collaborators are pursuing the development of a breast cancer vaccine, with $7.5 million in funding through the Department of Defense’s Innovator Award.

The National Institutes of Health awarded professor Charles Arntzen more than $1.4 million to examine plant derived MAb therapeutics for West Nile Virus, in connection with Qiang Chen with the Biodesign Institute at ASU.

2009

Pioneering studies with insect models for aging, Gro Amdam, associate professor, was awarded $1 million to pursue a collaboration with Johns Hopkins Medical School (2009). This award builds upon Amdam’s significant honors and awards in 2006 - 2008. Amdam was one of twenty chosen by the Research Council of Norway (2007) as a Young Outstanding Scientist and received a $1.6 million prize to characterize the genetic and physiological basis of the pollen hoarding behavioral syndrome in honey bees. The same year, Amdam also became ASU’s first Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Amdam has gone on to receive an additional $3.2 million in grants from the Norwegian Research Council to examine plasticity in social life history of the honeybee and develop the honeybee as a model for aging

Susanne Neuer and James Elser, in partnership with Ariel Anbar, associate professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and lead investigator of the NASA Astrobiology Institute: Follow the Elements, were awarded $6.4 million to develop understanding around the evolution in ancient oceans by examining the chemical elements thought to be the early building blocks of life on Earth. Their goal: to understand how these elements “shape the distribution of life, the state of the environment and the course of evolution.”

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine awarded Shelley Haydel, assistant professor, more than $1.66 million to examine the “antibacterial activities of natural minerals and alternative treatment for infections.” Her study will investigate the broad-spectrum antibacterial characteristics of the clay minerals and determine the mechanism of action of these bioactive minerals. Her work could open a new avenue for topical treatment of MRSA Mycobacterium ulcerans and other disease.



Honors and Achievement Highlights

School of Life Sciences faculty were recognized for teaching, innovation and scholarship, regionally, nationally and internationally. A partial list for 2005-2009 includes:

• AdministrativeJudgetotheAtomicSafetyandLicensing Board, U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Kenneth Mossman, 2008)

• AdvisoryCounciltotheNationalInstitutesofHealthNational Center for Research Resources (James Collins, 2008)

• AlbertEinsteinAward(GeorgePoste,2006)• AmericanAcademyofArtsandSciencesFellow

(Robert E. Page, Jr., 2006)• AmericanAssociationfortheAdvancementof

Science (AAAS) Fellows (Richard Creath, James Elser, Nancy Grimm, Jon Harrison, Ann Kinzig, Sudhir Kumar, Daniel Sarewitz, Jianguo Wu)

• AAASAwardforInternationalCooperation (Jianguo Wu, 2006)

• AmericanSocietyofPlantBiologistsFellow (Charles Arntzen, 2007)

• ArizonaBioscienceResearcheroftheYear (Roy Curtiss III, 2007)

• BasmajianAward,AmericanAssociationofAnatomists (Rebecca Fisher, 2008)

• CentennialAward,AmericanSocietyofPlantBiologists (Charles Arntzen, 2007)

• EugeneP.OdumEducationAward,EcologicalSociety of American (Stuart Fisher, 2008)

• GuggenheimFellowship(JenniferFewell,2009)• GermanAcademyofSciencesLeopoldinaFellow

(Robert E. Page, Jr., 2009)• Governor’sCelebrationofInnovationAward

(Tsafrir Mor, 2005; Bert Jacobs, 2006)• KennethE.BouldingMemorialAward

(Charles Perrings, 2008)• LeopoldLeadershipProgramFellow

(Jianguo Wu, 2009)• OutstandingYoungInvestigatorAward,Animal

Behavior Society and American Ornithologists’ Union (Kevin McGraw, 2005)

• PewBiomedicalScholarAward,PewCharitableTrusts (Gro Amdam, 2007)

• ThomsonISIHighlyCitedAuthor(RobertE.Page,Jr.,2005-present)

• TrevarinusMedal,VerbandDeutscherBiologen,Germany (Bert Hölldobler, 2007)

• YoungOutstandingScientist,NorwegianResearchCouncil (Gro Amdam, 2007)

• WissenschaftskollegzuBerlinFellow(ManfredLaubichler, Robert E. Page, Jr., 2009)

Life sciences faculty recognized for their contributions to ASU (2005-2009):

• ParentsAssociationProfessoroftheYear (Andrew Smith, 2008; James Elser, 2009)

• ASUFacultyExemplars(JenniferFewell, Ferran Garcia-Pichel, Leah Gerber, Ann Kinzig, Sudhir Kumar, Manfred Laubichler, Kevin McGraw, Jason Robert)

• ASUCentennialProfessorship(GuyCardineau)• ASUFacultyAchievementAwardinYoung

Investigator (Manfred Laubichler)• ASUCommissionfortheStatusofWomen

Outstanding Achievement and Contribution Award (Jennifer Fewell, 2008; Susanne Neuer, 2009)

• ASUCouncilofAcademicAdvisors(CAA)Award for Advising (David Capco)

• PatriciaGuranScholarandActivistAward (Jennifer Fewell)

• CLASGaryKrahenbuhlDifferenceMakerAward(James Collins, 2005; Jane Maienschein, 2006).

• CLASDean’sQualityTeachingAwardinhonorofZebulon Pearce, Natural Science (Manfred Laubichler, 2005-2006; Valerie Stout, 2006-2007)

• CLASHallofFame,DistinguishedFacultyAward(Stephen Pyne, 2007)

• CLASDistinguishedResearcherAward (James Elser, 2008)

NASA Astrobiology Institute project at yellowstone National park


School of Life Sciences presents an innovative model for life sciences research and education, providing a wide spectrum of focused experiences for undergraduates and graduate students. Faculty and students work to provide leadership locally and globally, engaging in research technology, policy development, medical discovery, scholarship and outreach – combining cutting edge multidisciplinary approaches with collaborative on and off campus partners.

Our faculty and students work to expand access and opportunities to students. School of Life Sciences creates a learning environment that promotes the development of skills in the life sciences and awareness of key life science issues, which empowers graduates to be effective citizens and scientists in the 21st century.

More than 670 individuals contribute to School of Life Sciences, in a variety of capacities. There are more than 95 tenure track faculty, 23 medical college faculty, four clinical faculty, 45 research faculty, 252 graduate research associates and 258 staff and student workers. More than 2,182 students are majoring in life sciences undergraduate programs. More than half of our students are female.

The faculty in School of Life Sciences are divided into seven faculty groups

• BiomedicineandBiotechnology• BasicMedicalSciences• CellularandMolecularBiosciences• Genomics,EvolutionandBioinformatics• Ecology,EvolutionandEnvironmentalScience• HumanDimensionsofBiology• Organismal,IntegrativeandSystemsBiology

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Biomedicine and Biotechnology Faculty

Faculty in biomedicine and biotechnology work at the cutting edge of bioengineering to promote human and animal health, with focus on basic and applied research, technologies and education focusing on medicine, bioindustry and agriculture. Research pursuits include recombinant DNA applications, development of novel pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, biomaterials and biological production platforms, studies of host – microbe interactions and disease mechanisms and bioremediation.

Genomes to Vaccines

Stephen Johnston andKatherine Sykes aim to develop a uniform system to mobilize the genomic sequences of pathogens into modern, effective vaccines. Using innovative technology developed in their laboratories (the gene gun and genetic immunization), they deliver DNA expression cassettes into an animal, resulting in production of foreign proteins that provoke immune responses. If the responses protect the animal against infection by the actual pathogen, the protective antigens encoded in these gene cassettes can be discovered without any bias toward the expected vaccine value of a particular microbial protein. After evaluation of enough pathogen genomes, they hope to elucidate rules that allow accurate prediction the best vaccine for any particular pathogen. Several other members of this faculty group are creating new and better methods for production of recombinant proteins, including vaccines and therapeutic agents like antibodies. Ultimately, pathogen genes discovered by the “Genes to Vaccines” approach can be plugged into any of a number of systems that are optimized for particular kinds of protein.

Groundbreaking methods for vaccine production

Bertram Jacobs focus is constructing new vaccines for the HIV virus that could have a profound affect on our ability to fight this disease. Jacobs studies the molecular biology of vaccinia virus, and especially the viral E3L gene, which modulates host immune responses. His mutant E3L deletion vaccinia virus is weakened and less dangerous in animals, yet produces excellent immune responses, properties that make it a strong vaccine candidate, as well as a potential vector to deliver foreign genes encoding vaccine proteins.

Green vaccines

Charles Arntzen, Hugh Mason and Tsafrir Mor’s studies take vaccine research into the plant realm. Innovations in agricultural biotechnology allow plants to be harnessed to produce large amounts of valuable recombinant proteins at relatively low cost, including vaccines and antibodies. These faculty also pursue projects in protein engineering, which uses recombinant DNA methods to create novel proteins. One project works to fuse functional elements of vaccine proteins with targeting domains of other proteins that promote efficient uptake and processing by the immune system cells. Elucidation of immune system signaling pathways (facilitated by genome sequencing and gene identification), also provides opportunities to fine-tune immune responses to vaccines using novel means that engage specific receptors to initiate immunological signals.

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Basic Medical Sciences Faculty

Basic Medical Sciences is a blended faculty with appointments at both ASU and the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix in Partnership with Arizona State University. Since 2007, this faculty offers expertise in areas such as anatomy, behavioral science, biochemistry/molecular biology, biomedical informatics, cancer biology, cell and developmental biology, genetics, immunobiology, microbiology, neuroscience, pathology, pharmacology and physiology. Innovative, cutting-edge training is offered with strong partnerships with hospitals, clinicians and medical practitioners in the Phoenix area. Basic Medical Science faculty are developing transformative research, elucidating the societal impacts of emerging medical and technological discovery and launching the next generation of clinicians.

The segmentation clock: a spine in the making

Kenro Kusumi’s group focuses on the early development of the spine, which is regulated by developmental molecular oscillators. His group is working to apply data from animal and cell culture models to finding the genetic

causes of vertebral birth defects. The vertebral column derives from embryonic precursors called somites, which are formed in a process regulated by a “segmentation clock.” Although it is known that genes in the notch and wnt signaling pathways are involved in the segmentation clock, the regulatory machinery of this clock is not fully understood. Kusumi has played a pioneering role in studying defects in somitogenesis that can lead to birth defects ranging from congenital scoliosis and cranial disorders to abnormalities in soft tissue such as the liver. As reported in Developmental Biology, Developmental Dynamics and in Birth Defects Research, he finds that defects in the notch and wnt signaling pathways are at work and that fundamental oscillatory patterns in gene expression during somitogenesis, if disrupted, can lead to abnormalities. Kusumi has also worked to establish the International Consortium for Vertebral Anomalies and Scoliosis, a group of geneticists and orthopedic surgeons interested in identifying the developmental origins of spinal birth defects. Their collaborative aim is to identify the genetic etiology of human vertebral disorders, including congenital scoliosis, Klippel-Feil syndrome, Jarcho-Levin syndrome and caudal agenesis. This group has developed a unique clinical database of congenital vertebral defect cases for molecular analysis, to aid in the goal of finding the genetic and developmental causes of spinal birth defects.

Award-winning anatomist lends muscle to Hippocratic oaths and understanding hippopotami

“What do hippopotami and medical students have in common?” Rebecca Fisher makes you want to ask questions. Not just why there is the huge hippo skull on her desk or what the stuffed raccoon-like creature above her keyboard is, but deeper queries about species evolution and how one short career can span the study of large semi-aquatic animals closely related to whales (yes, whales) to empowering future physicians.

Fisher is an assistant professor in School of Life Sciences and the department of Basic Medical Sciences at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University.

It is Fisher’s out-of-the box scholarship, as well as her creative course development and teaching of anatomy, which garnered her the coveted Basmajian Award from the American Association of Anatomists; an award that recognizes exceptional health science faculty who are in the formative stages of their career.

Fisher R. The Phylogeny of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens): evidence from the hindlimb. Journal of Anatomy 213(5): 607-628 (2008).

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Cellular and Molecular Biosciences Faculty

The Cell and Molecular Biosciences Faculty is comprised of a diverse group of individuals with the common interests of understanding fundamental aspects of cellular biology of prokaryotes and eukaryotes, frequently through understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in important cellular processes.

Defense Against TuberculosisOne of our toughest opponents is tuberculosis, a bacterium that is difficult to grow. It hides within immune system’s cells just as the HIV virus does and is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotic intervention.

Josephine Clark-Curtiss and her team are leading the way in preventing this bacterium from once again becoming a world-wide scourge. Recently summarized in the Annual Review of Microbiology, her work seeks to understand how macrophages fight the infection and how their defenses can be improved upon.

Understanding ImmunityInflammation is now recognized as being pivotal in the development of many diseases known to constitute metabolic syndrome and which include obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension and atherothrombosis. A hallmark of chronic inflammation is the migration of leukocytes from the peripheral blood and their accumulation and activation within tissues. Research in the Tatiana Ugarova’s laboratory focuses on integrin receptors which mediate leukocyte adhesion and migration during the immune-inflammatory response and which regulate numerous leukocyte effector functions. The types of analyses employed in the laboratory range from basic studies of integrin structure to investigation of molecular and cellular models of inflammation, obesity and thrombosis. Ugarova studies the signaling processes by which integrins mediate cell adhesion and cell migration events required for immune cell function in articles published in Biochemistry and Experimental Cell Research.

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Transgenic CropsRoberto Gaxiola’s work seeks to find ways to improve productivity in marginal agricultural lands. He recently established a collaboration to develop transgenic sugar cane with Arnoldo R. Facanha Director of Center for Biosciences and Biotechnology with North Fluminense State University, Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil. Their project entails the generation of transgenic sugarcane with enhanced root and shoot development, enhanced water and nutrient use efficiency and very likely, enhanced sucrose production. The root system is an extremely attractive candidate for engineering crops and to step up productivity as an enhanced root mass is expected to increase crop biomass and seed yields. The transgenic sugarcane’s phenotypes are associated with the up-regulation of the H+-Ppase gene. Gaxiola’s group is working to examine how over-expression in candidate crops could enhance food and fuel production, i.e., rice, corn, sweet sorghum, medicago, alfalfa and cotton.


Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Sciences

School of Life Sciences’ research and publication efforts in ecology, evolution and environmental sciences contributed substantially to landing ASU at the sixth spot in Thomson Scientific’s U.S. University’s Top 10 for ecology and environmental sciences (2005). The breadth of ASU’s expertise includes environmental sciences and ecology at levels of organisms, populations, communities and ecosystems, physiological ecology, behavior, biodiversity, landscape ecology, restoration ecology, conservation biology, evolutionary biology and phylogenetics/systematics, running the gamut from human urban activity to ant studies.

ASU researcher weighs in on International Whaling Commission debate

For decades there has been a controversy about whales eating fish in the tropics. The “whales eat fish” debate has been at the heart of policy decisions about the culling of whales and is pivotal to the future of commercial whaling in the region. Today, however, chalk one up for the whales.

The controversy appears to be nothing more than a whale of a tale, according to research by ASU scientist Leah Gerber. In a paper supported by the Lenfest Ocean Program and Pew Charitable Trusts and published in the journal Science, Gerber and her co-authors show that the controversial practice, culling of whales to attempt to restore dwindling fish populations in tropical oceans, is not scientifically sound.

“Culling whales will not increase fisheries catches in tropical waters,” says Gerber, lead author and

associate professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Gerber and her collaborators construct ecosystem models, in this case that account for feeding interactions between whales and fish, to understand the role that baleen whales play in tropical marine ecosystems in western Africa and the Caribbean, where baleen whales are known to breed. The scientists used global and regional data, validated through scientific workshops in Senegal and Barbados, to determine whether competition was occurring.

“It is important for countries that are dependent on marine fisheries to have the best information available based on sound science,” says Gerber. “Our hope is that our study provides guidance for future policy decisions.”

Disease Ecology

Washing our hands during flu season can decrease our chances of getting the flu, but how does the ecology of disease work in populations of other organisms? Amphibians tend to be particularly susceptible to environmental factors such as contaminated waters and pathogens are no exception. Researchers from James Collins’ group investigate why pathogens cause some amphibian populations to decline, even to the point of extinction, and how diseases emerge and spread. Collins heads an international team of 26 investigators under two grants from the National Science Foundation. His most recent work, published in the journal Conservation Biology, focuses on tiger salamanders, the bait trade and the role of commerce in the spread of ranaviruses and the chytrid fungus that is devastating global frog populations. Collins is the Assistant Director of the Directorate for Biological Sciences National Science Foundation and Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Biology for the School of Life Sciences.

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Genomics, Evolution and Bioinformatics

School of Life Sciences faculty at Arizona State University are pioneers in the growing field of genomic, evolutionary and bioinformatic studies, with interests that range from the development and evolution of life on earth, to how DNA and proteins contribute to the emergence and treatment of disease. This is a diverse faculty group whose core focus is on developing empirical, experimental, computational and theoretical studies of the patterns and processes that shape the diversity of genomes and their products.

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Scientists and non-scientists now have easy access to information about when living species and their ancestors originated, information that previously was difficult to find or inaccessible. Free access to the information is part of the new Timetree of Life initiative developed by Sudhir Kumar, a professor of life sciences and researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute, in collaboration with Blair Hedges, a professor of biology at Penn State University.

The Timetree of Life project debuted with the simultaneous release of a major online resource called “TimeTreeWeb”, and a book titled “The Timetree of Life” (Oxford University Press), which is written by a consortium of 105 experts on specific groups of organisms and is edited by Kumar and Hedges. Nobel laureate James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, comments in his foreword to the book, “I look in wonder at The Timetree of Life, at the breadth of life that it covers, and the extraordinary data presented in it.”

“The ultimate goal of the Timetree of Life initiative is to chart the timescale of life – to discover when each species and all their ancestors originated, all the way back to the origin of life some four billion years ago,” Hedges says. Many researchers long have studied the times of origin of individual species in order to piece together a Tree of Life, but now the Timetree of Life project provides a synthesis of the time-calibrated Tree of Life, in addition to adding much new information from previously unpublished scientific studies.

“The TimeTreeWeb tool belongs to a new genre of resources that lets anyone easily mine knowledge previously locked up in technical research articles, without needing to know the jargon of the field,” says Kumar. “For example, if you type in ‘cat’ and ‘dog,’” Hedges adds, “the program will navigate through the timetree of life to the point where the cat and dog species split, and it will find all the studies bearing on that divergence. Within a few seconds, you will learn that your pet cat and dog diverged in evolutionary time about 50 to 60 million years ago.”

Timetrees can have broad impacts in the natural sciences: from helping researchers track the evolution

of pathogens, and organisms that facilitate their spread, to astrobiology, where scientists study the origin, development and impacts of life in the universe.

TimeTreeWeb is an innovative on-line resource for scientists and non-scientists to explore the full timescale of life, down to the level of individual species. With this Web resource, “finding the time when two species last shared a common ancestor is as simple as giving their names to TimeTreeWeb and pressing the search button,” says Kumar. TimeTreeWeb then translates common and scientific names into appropriate search terms and uses a unique “tree-climbing” system to produce a time of divergence after searching through all published studies, including those in “The Timetree of Life” book. Over 800 studies currently are searchable in the TimeTreeWeb, with more being added continuously.

As part of the output of TimeTreeWeb, users get the time estimate from “The Timetree of Life” book, where an expert has applied a quality judgment, as well as the absolute average of the estimates from all the studies.

Each chapter of “The Timetree of Life” book is a review of the evolutionary history of the families (groups of species) within a particular group of organisms, such as mosses, ferns, fungi, beetles, sea urchins, frogs and toads, turtles, owls, primates, and many others. The chapters each contain a photograph of a representative organism, a color-coded timetree showing how the families are related and when they split from their closest relative, and a table with divergence times. Each chapter of the book was subjected to a rigorous scientific review by other experts in the respective field.

As an ongoing service to the scientific community, Kumar and Hedges plan to continue adding new data to TimeTreeWeb from future peer-reviewed studies. They also will develop programs that will make it easier to access the information and to explore the timetree of life, and easier for scientists to deposit new data in TimeTreeWeb. Once deposited, each data set first will be reviewed by members of a board of experts before it can be integrated into TimeTreeWeb. “One of our goals is to have a rigorous system that is nearly self-perpetuating and is run largely by the scientific community,” Kumar said.

New “Timetree of Life” Initiative Illuminates the Antiquity of Life on Earth

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From chickens to drug discovery: Can genetics help engineer a better world?

Roy Curtiss III is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, director of the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccinology at the Biodesign Institute, in addition to being a faculty member in the School of Life Sciences. His laboratory focuses on the design, construction and evaluation of live, genetically engineered vaccines to prevent the morbidity and mortality associated with infectious diseases of humans and agriculturally important animals. These vaccines are designed for stability, needle-free delivery and very low cost of manufacture, distribution and use. A major objective is to make these vaccines widely available in the developing world with the ultimate aim to enhance animal and human productivity and well-being.

He holds a series of patents on vaccines for both animals and humans, and, in 2005, was awarded $14.8 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative to develop of affordable vaccines for pediatric pneumonia. His scientific journey started as a youth, when he raised prize winning chickens, flowers, vegetables and ducks in upstate New York. His rich array of interests and creative research experiences with bacterial genetics, avian, plant and phage genetics has led to his pursuit to develop vaccines based on Salmonella strains that have been genetically engineered. He has altered the function of pathogenesis-producing proteins to create live organisms that drive immunological responses without the usual dangers of bacterial virulence. In addition to working toward the prevention of pediatric disease, tuberculosis, enteric pathogens, hepatitis and influenza viruses, Curtiss has broader interests in the genetic manipulation of living organisms to improve nutrient content of foods, nutrient utilization, control of cancers and cardiovascular diseases, prevention of food losses, control of fertility, elimination of toxic wastes and generation of alternate energy sources.


Human Dimensions of Biology

Human Dimensions of Biology encompasses perspectives, research and education on human interactions with nature and the environment (such as conservation biology and urban ecology); the science of humans (including human behavior and evolution); science as a human endeavor (through history and philosophy of science); and the interplay of science and society (in the context of education, public policy, law and daily life). Researchers in this group examine bioethics, policy and law; history and philosophy of science; Arizona plants and paleobotany; biodiversity and species discovery; immunophilosophy and the cultural history of fire and exploration; and the changing face of humans and nature, including ecosystem services, sustainability science and conservation. The group is unique among life science departments in being ranked among the top 10 nationally in the philosophy of biology by the Philosophical Gourmet Report, published by Blackwell, which recognizes School of Life Sciences’ extraordinary effective, nontraditional model.

Manfred Laubichler is a member of the Center for Biology and Society, co-director of the Embryo Project with Jane Maienschein. Laubichler was the recipient of a NSF CAREER award for his work on the history and theory of developmental biology and designated an ASU Faculty Exemplar by President Michael Crow in 2007. He has co-edited six books and authored numerous articles and opinion pieces. He is an External Faculty Member of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Altenberg, Austria, a Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany and a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Study). Laubichler is associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Zoology, Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution and of the new journal Biological Theory

(which he co-founded) and a communicating editor of Archive for History of the Exact Sciences. He also serves on the executive committee of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology.

He and Maienschein have recently authored “Form and Function in Developmental Evolution” published by Cambridge University Press and “From Embryology to Evo–Devo: A History of Developmental Evolution” published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2007.

“Evo-Devo” serves as a history of evolutionary thought and offers historic markers for the complex process by which two once connected and then independent theories of evolution and development have again became synthesized into the relatively new science of evolutionary developmental (Evo-Devo) biology. A compilation of papers developed at a forum of historians, biologists and philosophers gathered at the Dibner Institute at MIT, “Evo-Devo” challenges the reader to step outside black-and-white static worlds and acknowledge that everything under the sun is subject to adaptation and change, including the way we think about change.

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Ann Kinzig comes to SOLS with a background in both physics and ecology and a focus on coupled social-ecological systems, their resilience and sustainability. She co-directs the interdisciplinary ecoSERVICES group (with Charles Perrings), which studies the causes and consequences of changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services – the benefits that people get from functioning ecosystems (not just foods, fuels, fibers, water, genetic materials, chemical compounds and the like, but also aesthetic, spiritual, moral, recreational, educational and scientific services and the role of ecosystems in regulating flows of both of these). This group includes a number of faculty and research associates and focuses both on the global drivers and local responses to biodiversity change. It implements several international research projects, including the ecoSERVICES core project of DIVERSITAS – the international programme of

biodiversity science, the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network (BESTNet) an National Science Foundation-funded research coordination network, and Advancing Conservation in a Social Context (ACSC), a multimillion dollar project funded by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Aside from these projects, ecoSERVICE advises the United Nations Environment Programme and has been closely involved in steps to create an Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. More tightly focused projects include work on infectious wildlife diseases in the great lakes region and on the sustainability and resilience of urban energy and water infrastructures. Kinzig’s work also connects with the Resilience Alliance – a Stockholm-based research network. The hallmark of the group is that it spans economics and ecology.

Daniel Sarewitz directs the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO) Washington, DC, office. CSPO is a central emphasis of President Michael Crow’s New American University. This consortium and Sarewitz’s research probes the interactions among the creation, deployment, use and consequences of scientific research and technological innovation. His group views science and technology as the products of human decision processes that take place in diverse institutional, political, economic and cultural settings, and also as integral components of complex, dynamic human-natural-technological systems. Sarewitz seeks to better characterize and understand these settings and systems in order to improve public discourse, decision processes, institutional structures and governance regimes that mediate the co-evolution of science, technology and society, and to thereby improve the societal outcomes of science and technology.

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The newest faculty member of the Human Dimensions of Biology is Eli Fenichel, who came in August 2008 from Michigan State University. He uses a systems approach and methods from both ecology and economics to understand ecological-economic feedbacks and inform ecosystem management and policy. Fenichel’s work has impacted wildlife-livestock and fish disease management and policy and sport fish stocking policies. In the past year alone, he has published three peer-reviewed articles, with two slated to appear in 2009. These papers focus on the treatment of survey response choices that express uncertainty in state preference valuation of environmental amenities (to appear in Land Economics) and a simulation model of management effects on bacterial kidney disease in Lake Michigan Chinook salmon (to appear in Ecological Applications).

When the sun rides low on the horizon and winter chills wrap us all in down and fleece, global trade brings blueberries from South America and oranges from Israel. But trade in exotic goods also comes with significant local economic costs, explains Charles Perrings, professor of environmental economics in the School of Life Sciences. In the rush to market, products also bring hitchhikers: invasive species. These exotics often overtake native species, ravage agriculture, fisheries and forestry and damage ecosystems and, ultimately, economics. Disproportionately so in developing countries’ economies, Perrings says. Perrings puts forward

an issue that, he says, currently attracts more expenditures than any other environmental problem.

Perrings has been associated with the development of the field of ecological economics since the 1980s. He is a past president of the International Society for Ecological Economics and is the 2008 winner of the Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award for his contributions in this area. He has just published (through Sage Press) Ecological Economics, a four volume collection of papers on the origins and development of the field. He is also the co-director of the ecoSERVICES group in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences with Ann Kinzig.

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Invasive species are part of the price of doing business


Setting policy on fire

Fire has captured the imagination of humans since prehistory. Stephen Pyne, MacArthur Fellow and Regents’ Professor in the School of Life Sciences, has made fire and fire policy his business. A firefighter, explorer, historian and expert, this prolific author of many award-winning books and the “go-to” authority when fires rage across landscapes and TV screens. Pyne examines how fire, its use, misuse and its biological nature have shaped our world, before and because of man, and addresses how fire policies of the past still reverberate in our present nationally and globally. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on fire, a member of the U.N.-ISDR Wildfire Advisory Group and NOAA Science Advisory Group, Working Group on Fire Weather. Pyne says his career all ties back to his first adventure, at age 18, on the rim of the Grand Canyon. A high school graduate in Phoenix, he joined a fire crew for “one season.” He returned to the front lines every summer for 15 years. In between those summers, Pyne earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford University and master’s and doctoral degrees in American civilization from the University of Texas, Austin. It was on the “Rim” too that he ran

into an old professor (and former mule hauler) who challenged him to write. Fire shapes peoples’ lives and none more than Steve Pyne. He has produced more than 20 books, the majority on fire and fire history, and created a field of study. “Burning Bush” and “Fire on the Rim” were named as New York Times Book Review “Notable Books of the Year.” He has also served as a senior advisor on PBS’s NOVA (Fire Wars). The Los Angeles Times selected him for the Robert Kirsch Award (1995) for: “a living author whose residence or focus has been in the West and whose career contributions merit body-of-work recognition.” Ironically, the book he feels he will be best known for is The Ice, about his experience in Antarctica, named by New York Times Book Review as among “Best Books of 1987.” In 2009, two works will be released: “Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction” and “Seeking Newer Worlds: The Saga of the Voyager Mission.” His books complement the core courses he teaches on fire, writing and exploration at ASU. He has also worked with Ben Minteer and Paul Hirt (History) to develop an environmental humanities course for the School of Sustainability.

Organismal, Integrative and Systems BiologyStudies of the physiological capabilities, constraints and trade-offs of desert reptiles are capturing audiences in schoolrooms and in National Geographic. In Dale DeNardo’s group, researchers have discovered that a Gila monster’s extra-large bladder can hold water for lengthy dry periods, while it packs away food reserves in its expandable tail.

Faculty in organismal, integrative and systems biology focus on the organism and its component systems and mechanisms, especially an integrative perspective on structure and function of organisms, interactions between organisms, interactions of organisms with their environments and the evolution of organismal function and diversity.

Carsten DuchPatterns of circuit remolding are found in motor systems – the neurons that control the coordinated movement of muscles. Nowhere is this remodeling more striking than during metamorphosis in flies. Carsten Duch has shown that during this process, motor neurons that once controlled the squirming movement of a maggot now are redesigned to become neurons that drive the powerful flight muscles of the wing to provide flight. Using a combination of laser scanning confocal microscopy, electron microscopy and advanced 3-D modeling techniques, as recently reported in the Journal of Neuroscience and NeuroImage, Duch has shown that the dendritic and axonal processes of these neurons undergo dramatic changes in morphology that reflect the new connections they make in order to change their function.

Duch C., Mentel T. Activity affects dendritic shape and synapse elimination during steroid controlled dendritic retraction in Manduca sexta. Neuroscience 24(4): 9826-9837 (2004).

Bert Hölldobler“If alien scientists had landed to study the Earth’s pre-human biosphere, one of their first projects would have been to set up beehives and ant farms,” insists Bert Hölldobler, Foundation Professor and member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and a member of the German Academy of Science – Leopoldina. “This is our biased guess, of course, because Ed Wilson and I have been fascinated by the social insects and in particular by the ants, during our entire scientific lives.”

Roughly 13,000 species of ants have been described, Hölldobler says, and another estimated 17,000 still elude discovery. With hundreds of different forms, habits, quirks and lifestyles, ants are among the most fascinating creatures on the planet, from the tiny Temnothorax species, long-lived and gregarious, whose entire colony can fit in a nutshell, to the intricate activity of nature’s underground farmers, the leafcutter ants.

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Superorganisms, those self-organized entities that emerge from countless interactions of hundreds, thousands or millions of individuals tightly knit by altruistic cooperation, complex communication and division of labor, find their highest expression in the insects, according to Hölldobler. And while the concept of the collective – the superorganism – is not new and indeed has been popularized in novels, movies and television, it is gaining new impetus and understanding as scientists, such as Hölldobler and Wilson, open up for view a part of the living world previously glimpsed by only a very few. By examining ants, bees, wasps, termites and other species, biologists can now trace the evolution of superorganisms in exacting detail, all the way from their antecedents among solitary species to the origin of the most complex forms. Hölldobler and Wilson offer a rich history, set of experiences and knowledge base that allows an early clear look at one of the major transitions of life, which proceeds from molecule through cell to organism, superorganism and population, and finally to ecosystem.

“Social insects play a very important role in almost all land ecosystems,” says Hölldobler. “The nature of our planet without ants, bees or termites would look very different. The tremendous ecological success of these social insects, whose biomass is close to that of all humans, is certainly due to their elaborate systems of division of labor and complex social organizations. In fact, ant societies are considerably more complex than those of any other animal species. They are fantastic model systems for the study of social complexity and the evolution of social life on Earth.”

In their first major collaboration since their pulitzer prize-winning The Ants, Bert Hölldobler and edward o. Wilson, two of the most renowned biologists in the world, present a brilliant new look at social evolution. Written in fine detail, but for a broad readership, the book chronicles the remarkable growth of knowledge concerning the social insects during the past two decades and provides a deep look in to a part of the living world hitherto glimpsed by only a very few.

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Gro Amdam: The buzz about aging

For some, it may be hard to imagine that the bees buzzing between strands of orange flowers of the desert mallow could potentially usher in a medical breakthrough. However, in the right hands, the insects best known for their banded coloration, social life and skills with pollination could someday be the key to advancements in biomedical neuroscience of aging – if Gro Amdam has her way.

With more than $6 million in support from the Pew Charitable Trusts and Norwegian Research Council, Amdam will join two lines of study that have never been coupled: the emerging field of honeybee comparative neurogerontology – in which Amdam has published the first work on plasticity of neuronal oxidative damage – and honeybee behavioral physiology, where cumulative data show that age-related cell damage can be reversed. Amdam has written or co-written publications in Nature, Public Library of Science Biology, Advances in Cancer Research, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Experimental Gerontology and Behavioral Brain Research in the past year, laying the foundation for this work. Her group has documented that social reversal, which triggers old bees (that usually forage outside of the hive) to revert to tasks normally performed by younger bees (that nurse larvae within the hive), is associated with reversal of several physiological markers of senescence. Her findings, and supporting findings from other groups, Amdam says, indicate that “behavioral reversal triggers a systemic response, one which translates into a unique cascade of cell repair in bees.” Preliminary data collected in her laboratory suggest that this cascade can include the central nervous system. Perhaps four years from now, with some work by Amdam, we will find that the mythic “Fountain of Youth” will turn out to be a hive.

Pierre Deviche: The brains behind bird song

Some birds don’t sing the same tune in winter, as in spring. Their song is a seasonal, hormone-dependent and sexually dimorphic behavior controlled by specific interconnected brain regions. Pierre Deviche studies the neural plasticity that characterizes these adult songbirds. The continuous incorporation of new cells and elimination of others leads to some brain regions’ volumes changing significantly seasonally concurrent with vocal behavior production. Deviche’s study of behavioral neuroendocrinology, physiological adaptation to extreme environments and vertebrate reproductive endocrinology involves multi-disciplinary approaches, with a goal to elucidate the links between gonadal hormones, vocal behavior and its neuroanatomical substrate, and to decipher the underlying cellular mechanisms involved.

In addition to the study of communication in birds, Deviche contributes extensively to communicating about science in the public realm. He has recorded and edited Southwest bird song recordings for ASU’s science Web site for children: Ask A Biologist (http://askabiologist.asu.edu/expstuff/experiments/birdsongs/) He is also a co-organizer and guide for the “SOLS Takes a Hike” nature hike since 2006.

Deviche P. Reproductive physiology: Songbird study removes long-standing neuroendocrinology research roadblock. Endocrinology 150: 1561-1562 (2009).

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2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07* 2007-08*

Undergraduate Headcount (Fall) . . . . . . . . . . 1,375 1,505 1,632 1,820 1,917Master’s Headcount (Fall) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 43 50 47 27Doctoral Headcount (Fall) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 170 179 176 142Undergraduate Degrees awarded . . . . . . . . . . 264 267 270 314 382Master’s Degrees awarded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 14 16 21 12Doctoral Degrees awarded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 22 25 25 18Tenured/Tenure Track (T/TT) faculty . . . . . . . . . . 68 74 80 83 101

*The graduate program structure changed in 2007 and the numbers do not reflect the actual number housed in SoLS but only those still in our old majors. Graduate students in SoLS have the option of receiving degrees in one of several programs that are housed in SoLS or the ASU Graduate College.

Engagement in Undergraduate TrainingASU is a national leader in offering an education based on merit and training undergraduates in research. During the past five years, School of Life Sciences’ active and substantive investment in discovery-based teaching has brought hands-on lessons to thousands of students, in addition to putting students in research settings that take them to the heart of cutting-edge and transformational research. Undergraduate research spans bioengineering, vaccine development and emergent disease to examination of the interaction of history and ecology in structuring communities in South America, and from the effective development of marine reserves and conservation policy to insights about ecosystems, energy flow, nutrient cycling and the evolution of malaria – empowering students as active participants in their own education.

Undergraduate Degree Programs

Students can pursue bachelor’s degrees in:

• Microbiology• MolecularBiosciencesandBiotechnology• ClinicalLaboratorySciences• BiologicalSciences(concentrationsin:AnimalPhysiology

and Behavior; Biology and Society; Conservation Biology and Ecological Sustainability; Ecology and Evolution; Genetics, Cell and Developmental Biology; Genomics and Bioinformatics; Plant Biology; History & Philosophy of Science (certificate) )

Faculty members in the life sciences have been recognized internationally, nationally, regionally and by ASU, students and their peers, for teaching and research excellence. School of Life Sciences attracts students with diverse backgrounds and interests and faculty whose creative approach to science and technology launches discipline-bending research programs. As a result, the undergraduate headcount in the Life Sciences has increased yearly, from 1,375 in 2003-2004 to 2,182 students in 2009, with 91% of graduates reporting high satisfaction with their training and experience. In addition, a multitude of students from other units participate in life sciences courses and programs each year.


School of Life SciencesEnrollment Diversity (2009)

Type Number Percentage

Asian/Pacific Islander . . . . . . . . . . 243 11.1 %Black/African American . . . . . . . . . .93 4.2%Hispanic/Latino . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 14.5 %American Indian/Alaska Native. . . . . .48 2.1%Non Resident Alien. . . . . . . . . . . . .22 1.0%White. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,300 59.5 %

Not Available . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 7.2%Female. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,232 56.4%Male . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950 43.5%Minority students . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701 32.1%

Total Students 2,182

Student Support and AdvisingTo support students in their efforts, School of Life Sciences has developed the Student Academic Advising and Student Services Office. Under the leadership of Scot Schoenborn, the office works to enhance the student experience, provide guidance on classes, career opportunities and degree requirements. The office takes great pride in making certain that students can meet often with advisors who can provide them with the information and guidance needed to make appropriate academic choices. Advisors think of it as a “continuous interaction” that starts as early as the first term of study for freshmen. The office also administers an internship program for career training, as students mature in their majors.

Learning Resource CenterIn 2006, the school added the Learning Resource Center, which offers students their own multi-function space dedicated to learning and community-building within the life sciences complex. The center offers students a meeting place, access to cutting-edge computers and software, in addition to tutoring and other resources, in a supportive, interactive learning environment. The space is a critical element in the SOLS undergraduate program because it provides students an environment from which to consolidate and extend what they have learned in their classes and in research labs. The center also provides student organizations in the life sciences a home for campus and community outreach programs.

Undergraduate and Post Baccalaureate ResearchSchool of Life Sciences has invested in four major programs tailored to mentor students and provide intensive undergraduate training in research:

• MinorityAccesstoResearchCareers(MARC)• Pre-MARC• SchoolofLifeScienceUndergraduateResearch(SOLUR)• ResearchExperiencesforUndergraduates(REU)

Undergraduate


School of Life Science Undergraduate Research (SOLUR)

The SOLUR program welcomes applications from any ASU student that is inquisitive and interested in exploring the life sciences. In 2009, more than 100 students per semester have worked or will work with mentors in the laboratory or in a field setting as apprentices, researchers or fellows. At each level, students’ responsibilities are matched to their background and research skills. Students are paid an hourly wage for their work and, as they advance from apprentice to fellow, have the opportunity to translate their projects into intensive preparation for postgraduate study in the life sciences. Thinking about other disciplines is part of the process of developing “out-of-the-box” solutions to life science research questions. Students are encouraged to make connections to other disciplines, such as chemistry and biochemistry, engineering, mathematics, physics, psychology, anthropology, kinesiology, philosophy, communications, humanities, social sciences and geosciences.

Focus On...

Ronald Rutowski, professor in the Organismal, Integrative and Systems Biology faculty group, is at the helm of the undergraduate research program, with support from SOLUR Program Manager Carol Bear. In 2006, Rutowski led a successful proposal, with collaborators Jane Maienschein, James Collins and Mark Jacobs to obtain a $1.8 million grant through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. They developed the Arizona Biosciences Network (AzBioNet: azbionet.asu.edu). In connection with SOLUR, this network builds opportunities for undergraduate students to interact and develop professional relationships with scientists who work at major research and medical institutions in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The SOLUR program hosts an annual poster symposium and a seminar to develop communication and networking skills, in addition to an understanding of the modern research enterprise and the opportunities it offers. Connecting students and potential mentors, AzBioNet also established mentoring workshops, held each semester to help faculty hone their skills as mentors.

James CollinsJane Maienschein

Carol Bearronald rutowski

Undergraduate

Mark Jacobs


Minority Research at Arizona State University (MARC)The state of Arizona has a large and diverse minority population and is predicted to become a “minority-majority” state in the next decade. The undergraduate face of ASU is also becoming increasingly diverse. Approximately 25% of ASU students self-identified as Hispanic (13%), African American (4%) or American Indian (3%) in 2005. Demographics in School of Life Sciences reveal that roughly 32% of students are members of minority groups and more than half are female (56%). To meet the need for increased cultural diversity in the workforce and diverse perspectives in research, MARC at ASU has training a select group of talented undergraduates from underrepresented groups. Since its inception in 1995, MARC has mentored 77 students (2007) with support from the National Institutes of Health. Trainees have primarily been Hispanic (52.7%), African American (14.9%) and Native American (27%). Many of these graduates have gone on to pursue postgraduate degrees at medical schools and research institutions, built careers in biotechnology or biomedicine, or gone on to other training programs.

Pre-MARCThe Pre-MARC Program at Arizona State University was established in 1998 to increase the participation of students from underrepresented groups in careers related to biomedical research. It is designed to give freshmen and sophomores early exposure to research careers by involving them in the scientific process. Pre-MARC trainees work with scientists in a research laboratory and attend a weekly seminar to gain practical skills in research and explore science as a career.

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)Undergraduate students are invited to apply for summer fellowships sponsored by supplements acquired from National Science Foundation-funded School of Life Sciences faculty members. These REU supplements offer opportunities for exceptional undergraduate students to gain experience conducting individual research projects. Students interact with mentors, other undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty conduct a diverse range of research projects. Appointments commonly include a summer stipend of roughly $3,000, with support for housing and travel, if needed. Students also receive six hours of course credit and a tuition waiver. Extraordinary mentorship and research experiences directly translate into exceptional student achievement overall.

Focus On...

Carol Bear started working with undergraduate research program in 1999. She says, “I love to hear from former students, finding out what they are doing now. It is a wonderful feeling to hear that they would have never made it to where they are now without their involvement in the SOLUR program.”

REU student achievements

Research:“Observing extracellular enzyme activity in the School of Life Sciences” – Ahmed Bony (2007)

Winner of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Circle Scholarship (2009)

Faculty mentors:Nancy Grimm and Sharon Hall

Research:“How light affects germination of the fern, Pyrrosia lingua”– Tia Alquist (2007)

Winner of the Danielle Aronson Memorial Scholarship (2009)

Faculty mentor:Leslie Towill


With summer just around the corner, undergraduate life sciences students can look forward to a unique work experience through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program in the School of Life Sciences. Students participate in ongoing School of Life Sciences research projects and are paid to spend 10 weeks of their summer conducting full-time, hand-on studies at the bench or in the field. By arming their futures with a competitive edge, a walk in the park and a stroll with a Xanthoparmelia never looked so good.

Xanthoparmelia is a genus of lichen commonly found on rocks in Arizona and was the focus of research for Thomas Zambo, who majored in life sciences at ASU’s West campus. He participated in a survey of lichen in and around 28 study sites in Maricopa County to see if concentrations of airborne heavy metals, such as copper, lead, zinc, nickel and aluminum, had changed in the last 10 years.

“Lichen are long-lived and remarkably good indicators of air quality,” Zambo says. “This is a result of their unique nutrient uptake – from the air. Because nutrient levels are so low in the air, lichen are very efficient accumulators.”

According to Zambo, this means that as the lichen take up airborne nutrients, they take up pollutants. Over time, findings from the study of lichen can be compared to local industry’s toxic release inventories to generate a very complete pattern of regional air pollution, one that also takes into account unrecorded heavy metal releases, like the vanadium, nickel and chromium that are released from car tire wear.

Zambo’s work is part of ongoing research directed by mentors Thomas Nash, professor and curator of the ASU lichen herbarium, and Ken Sweat, a lecturer at the West campus. Zambo presented his work in the REU poster session held in summer, then went on to participate in the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research Project poster symposium during the year, giving a presentation on “Geographic patterns of mercury deposition using the Lichen Xanthoparmelia in MaricopaCounty, AZ.”

Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP)

In 2004, Associate Professor Brenda Hogue established PREP in Biomedical Sciences with a $1.6 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The program is designed for underrepresented students who have recently completed their bachelor’s degree and need to obtain more experience and preparation before entering a doctoral program in the biomedical sciences. PREP scholars work as technicians in a laboratory on a research project under the direction of an experienced ASU faculty mentor, with graduate students and/or postdoctoral fellows. They also participate in other activities designed to strengthen skills important for graduate study, including seminars, lab meetings, journal clubs and a course on ethical conduct in research. In addition, participants attend local or national scientific conferences and present their work. The program director and faculty advisory committee help scholars identify the research area and mentor that best matches their interests and goals. Scholars receive a salary and participate in a one to two year program, dependent on each individualized development plan. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and have completed their undergraduate degree within the last three years.

Lichen reveal air pollution patterns


2009 Parents Professor of the Year: James Elser

– Teaching undergraduates to think independently

– Unearthing a solution to cancer and infection

– Measuring the effects of human activity on small ecosystems

James Elser, professor of biology in the School of Life Sciences, does all of this and more; these are the reasons why the ASU Parents Association named him the 2009 Professor of the Year.

“By my count, since coming to ASU, Jim Elser has taught over 12,000 undergraduate students,” notes Charles Kazilek, Elser’s nominator. To get a sense of the enormity of the amount of undergraduate students that Elser has taught, 12,000 students fill ASU’s Gammage Auditorium four times. It is also akin to teaching one in five of ASU’s current enrollment.

An ASU professor since 1990, Elser was chosen from 39 colleagues as a true element of change – dedicated to solving the challenges of our time and inspiring his students to do the same. “Having worked with Jim for more than 20 years, I can say he is the kind of professor that you hope your own child will be fortunate to have,”

said Kazilek, director of technology integration and outreach in School of Life Sciences. “His enthusiastic delivery of subject matter is clearly engaging for the students in his non-major biology class, a class of nearly 800 students per semester.”

Kazilek also remarked that Elser is a true asset to the community as the director of research and training initiatives in School of Life Sciences, bringing in a substantial number of research activities to faculty and students. He also notes, “Professor Elser never forgets what gets most people interested in science: getting in touch with the beauty and wonder of the living world.” With this in mind, Elser established the SOLS Takes a Hike event, a series of guided hikes in local parks.

Professor of the Year is funded through an endowment through the ASU Parents Association. 2009 was the association’s 25th anniversary. In addition to the prestigious designations, the Professor of the Year receives $20,000 – $10,000 of which funds undergraduate student assistance and is distributed over two years. Elser will use a portion of his award to send one of his undergraduate research students to study abroad at a high mountain lake research site in Norway.


Focus On:David Brown, Elizabeth Davidson, David Pearson

In their teaching, School of Life Sciences faculty incorporate a wealth of experiences and perspectives. Three in particular offer exceptional insights as working professionals, conservationists, authors and academic scientists.

excellencein Teaching and Training

A 27-year career at Arizona Game and Fish offered Dave Brown a number of adventures, but when he retired, in 1989, his eye was squarely on Arizona State University’s wildlife/conservation biology program. As a faculty associate in School of Life Sciences, he’s taught Biology 410, 411 and 412, but his favorite has been Bio 410, a demanding course that involves overnight trips and students’ hands-on experiences. In an era when field biology courses routinely disappear from American universities, Brown has packed his bag and taken his classes on the road, giving students a chance to learn field techniques – from mist netting bats to seining fish – in the field. Brown has also taught Bio 428 (Biogeography) and Popular Science Writing – a course that he and ASU professor emeritus John Alcock team-taught for graduate students for nearly 15 years. Brown was a natural for this course, as author of more than 18 books. His books include an account of the grizzly bear’s extinction in the Southwest (“The Last Grizzly”) and a review of the writings of the conservationist Aldo Leopold (“Aldo Leopold’s Southwest”) and series on the Wildlife in Arizona Territory. His most recent publication, “The Travails of Two Woodpeckers,” explains why two of the largest woodpeckers in the world went extinct in the 20th century. Dave guides his students with real warmth, evoking appreciation for his company as well as his literary advice.

Elizabeth (Betty) Davidson, a research professor, is also a renaissance person. As a microbiologist with an active research program, Davidson has made major contributions to the study of bacterial pathogens of mosquitoes. She has also discovered a virus that may help control introduced crayfish that now clog Arizona’s streams. In addition, Davidson is part of a large research team, which includes James Collins, professor and associate director of biological sciences with the National Science Foundation, working on the viruses that are devastating salamanders and frogs in Arizona and around the world. Her contributions may help conservationists protect what is left of amphibian biodiversity. Davidson has written a popular account of the people who have studied the diseases of insects and other invertebrates (“Big Fleas Have Little Fleas”). It offers new understanding of how much our agricultural

and public health systems owe to the microbiologists of the past who labored to uncover how minute pathogens control insect vectors and pests. Davidson has also taught a range of students and classes. One class, Professional Values in Science, empowers students to confront and find solutions to proposed significant academic and ethical issues, incorporating outside speakers and interactive discussions.

Also creating a national and international presence for School of Life Sciences, while training the next generation of life science professionals, is research professor David Pearson. Pearson’s research interests range from basic entomology to conservation questions, such as examining what factors that led to local extinctions of bird populations in the tropics. He has been a mainstay in the teaching of Biology 100, a non-majors course, since 1991. Pearson has engaged literally thousands of students with his humor and enthusiasm, while making them aware of how biologists use scientific logic to reach their conclusions.

Pearson has authored a range of books. “A Field Guide to the Tiger Beetles of the United States and Canada,” received great acclaim. The illustrations (prepared with Charles Kazilek) are enough to make anyone a tiger beetle enthusiast – although no one can match Pearson in this regard. He has also authored a series of successful traveler’s guides. Taking readers to Thailand, Peru, Brazil and the Galapagos, his books focus on ecotourism and wildlife and have contributed significantly to the understanding and conservation of these world’s few remaining natural areas. Pearson has traveled all over the globe, often to give workshops on teaching and conservation to students in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, India and Madagascar. Just name a spot you’ve gone and he’s probably preceded you.

Whether life sciences students are physically transported from the classroom to the field to observe pronghorn with Brown, or just travel in their minds-eye to the forests of the Amazon or deep within life cycles that fuel disease with Pearson and Davidson, these research professionals are at the heart of the best teaching and discovery in ASU classrooms.


Collaborative summer project raises profile of ASU’s Arboretum

As you walk through Arizona State University’s Tempe campus, you are surrounded by the largest public arboretum in the state. Home to more than 900 plant species, the ASU Arboretum was first established in 1990. Recognition of the collection came in 1995, when the ASU Arboretum was named official collection holder for edible date palms in North America. Although the official designation came less than 20 years ago, the groundwork for the Arboretum was laid early in the century, according to Mike Schantel, grounds assistant supervisor. The Arboretum collection is continually growing and changing along with the Tempe campus. While primary goals such as education, display and maintenance remain unchanged, the Arboretum is able to shift to meet the evolving needs of the university. One current focus, according to Schantel, is in low water use plants, urban agriculture and sustainability, a direction reflecting ASU’s own focus on sustainability and urban desert issues. Classes from several different ASU entities directly utilize the Arboretum. For School of Life Sciences, the Arboretum supplies an outdoor classroom for such courses as PLB 300: Comparative Plant Diversity, PLB 310: The Flora of Arizona and PLB 411: Trees and Shrubs of Arizona. It was in one of these courses that Tia Alquist had her first exposure to the ASU Arboretum as a junior. She started her ASU career as a design studies major, adding a double major in

plant biology after taking her first course with associate professor Leslie Towill. Alquist’s unique combination of skills caught the eye of the teaching assistant for her comparative plant diversity course, Frank Farruggia. A doctoral student, Farruggia had used the Arboretum as part of his lesson plans for several years. When Alquist approached Farruggia, looking for a summer project, Farruggia was ready with one particularly suited to Alquist’s combination of botanical knowledge and artistic skill: a graphic guide to the ASU Arboretum. Alquist and Farruggia surveyed possible walking routes through campus that combined plant specimens of particular interest or significance and notable campus landmarks. They settled on two routes, the Maroon and Gold trails, that highlighted 134 important specimens and examples of native Arizona floral landscapes. Alquist condensed their research into a graphic walking guide to the ASU Arboretum. To support their efforts, they garnered funding from the Arizona State History Museum, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the International Institute for Species Exploration headed by Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural Sciences and the Environment Quentin Wheeler, vice president and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. With plans to continue her studies in plant biology in graduate school, Alquist hopes to be able to continue her work in graphic design with imaginative projects such as this.


Graduate Learning

Faculty and graduate students in life science develop innovative approaches to the core challenges facing society and the sciences, from the evolution of molecules to bioenergy, global ecosystems to emergent disease and conservation to biopolicy. Students take classes with and receive mentorship from some of the top researchers in the world in bioenergy and behavior, biotechnology, biomedicine and bioinformatics, genomics, conservation and urban ecology, evolutionary science and biogeochemistry, physiology and neuroscience, sociobiology, behavior and biological design. Master’s degrees are offered in biology, biology and society, microbiology, molecular and cell biology and plant biology.

Doctoral degrees include

• BiologicalDesign• Biology• BiologyandSociety• EnvironmentalLifeSciences• Philosophy(HistoryandPhilosophyofScience)• HumanandSocialDimensionsofScienceand

Technology• Microbiology• MolecularandCellularBiology• Neuroscience• PlantBiology• Sustainability

Graduate Student SupportIn addition to the support offered through the Graduate College at ASU, School of Life Sciences has developed a series of programs to bolster skills and broaden prospects of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows working to advance discovery. The Office of Research and Training Initiatives (RTI) offers unique training opportunities and seed funding for research ventures through the Frontiers in Life Sciences (FILS) annual conference program, Graduate Initiatives for Training (GiFT) program, Postdoctoral interdisciplinary Research in the Life Sciences (PIRLS), plus a number of outreach projects developed to enrich science communication with the public, including internships with award-winning School of Life Sciences Magazine (IABC Silver Quill Award for magazine writing and design) and Science Studio podcast.

Mentoring Advances Postdocs and Grad Students (MAPS)

The newest offering from the RTI Office, MAPS provides meaningful information and training opportunities to enhance the intellectual and professional development of postdoctoral researchers and senior graduate students and to improve the quality of mentoring by faculty. A nine-month series of events and workshops have been developed, with “Mentoring Monday” gatherings around topics salient to success in the sciences; such as, grant writing and funding, science communication and publication, responsible conduct, mentoring and teaching and job searches.

Student Brown Bag: Pizza and Community

With hundreds of graduate students and a diversity of research interests, School of Life Sciences graduate student community established the student Brown Bag as a forum for connection and exchange of ideas. Now in its sixth year, the Friday gatherings bring students (and pizza) together for presentations and feedback, skills training and networking and offers the sense of being part of a large and vibrant community.

Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT)

The National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program in Urban Ecology was renewed during this last five year cycle, supported by grants totally $3.2 million. IGERT provides support and training for 20 graduate students from six disciplinary units. Professors in School of Life Sciences, Stuart Fisher, Ann Kinzig and Nancy Grimm were among eight ASU scientists involved, in addition to Charles Redman of the Global Institute of Sustainability. Other IGERT programs at ASU include: Biomolecular Nanotechnology; Neural and Musculoskeletal Adaptation Form and Function; and Arts, Media and Engineering.


Synthesis: Graduate training accelerating global discovery

As disciplines become more specified and data accumulates, there is an increasing demand for young scientists to “synthesize” – roughly defined as integrating frameworks and ideas across disciplines in novel ways. Professor Stuart Fisher’s graduate seminar offers the opportunity for graduate students, in SOLS and other schools, to explore the concept and process of synthesis in terms of ecological phenomenon.

Fisher employs unconventional teaching tools including “Jumbles” and radical juxtaposition of concepts – an activity where students make note cards naming organisms, ecosystems and scientific theories. The cards are then grouped randomly and used as a tool to challenge young researchers to think broadly about ways to integrate these topics into a centralized idea. “This class demonstrated that synthetic activities are achievable during my graduate career – not something that only tenured faculty can do,” asserts Karl Wyant, a doctoral student who studies food web ecology. One of Fisher’s goals for the class is that graduate students take away ideas about how to incorporate synthesis into their research and how to teach these ideas to the other young scientists they will mentor. This course fills a niche and complements the empirical courses on campus, providing students an opportunity to integrate diverse knowledge. “It’s a course about critical thinking and training students to solve multi-faceted problems,” Michelle McCrackin, doctoral student explains. McCrackin has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study how nitrogen deposition from anthropogenic sources affects nutrient cycling in lake sediments across Norway. Synthesis is a way to accelerate scientific discovery and address questions of global importance in areas including sustainability, urban planning and conservation.

Fisher is the recipient of the Eugene P. Odom Education Award (2008) that recognizes extraordinary individuals for “outstanding work in ecology education, teaching, outreach and mentoring activities.” Fisher was also one of the authors of the highly collaborative report created by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), which was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Al Gore, in 2007.


Frontiers in Life Sciences Conference Series Putting graduate students at the helm

The Frontiers in Life Sciences (FILS) Conference Series is the brainchild of School of Life Sciences’ Foundation Director Robert E. Page, Jr. and Associate Director of Research and Training Initiatives James Elser. Developed to place graduate students in charge of development of an internationally relevant program, the first conference was launched in 2008. “Iridescence: More than Meets the Eye” connected diverse disciplines and researchers around the topic of iridescence. Students developed a proposal, sought external funding and planned each facet of the three day event. Included were panel discussions, poster presentations, talks and workshops developed to catalyze cross-disciplinary discussion, identify new avenues of research and explore the potential for iridescence in nature to provide novel insight in materials sciences, science education and biological discovery. In addition to intellectual exchange, the conference incorporated an outreach event: a dinner and a fashion show with student dancers from ASU Herberger College of the Arts. With choreography developed by Jennifer Tsukayama, students on the cat-walk sported iridescent costumes created by costume artists Galina Mihaleva and Jacqueline Benard. Dennita Sewell, curator of costume design at the Phoenix Art Museum, delivered a talk on the use of iridescence in costuming and fashion – from traditional ceremonial garb to modern day fashion and textiles. An international array of speakers attended, coming from Brazil, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, United Kingdom and the United States. The conference format offers ASU faculty and graduate students the unique opportunity to interact with innovative, international leaders in their fields and build collaborations between departments and disciplines within ASU.

The intimate conference format generated intense collaborative exchange and synthesis. Four papers were published April 6, 2009 in a special supplement of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, including:

• DoucetS.M.,Meadows M.G. Iridescence: a functional perspective.

• GhiradellaH.T.,ButlerM.W.Many variations on a few themes: a broader look at development of iridescent scales (and feathers).

• MeadowsM.G.,ButlerM.W., Morehouse N.I., et al. Iridescence: views from many angles.

• ShawkeyM.D.,MorehouseN.I., Vukusic P. A protean palette: colour materials and mixing in birds and butterflies.


Building a healthier community

Katherine Brind’Amour took a running start into her master’s degree at Arizona State University. A semester into her program, Brind’Amour, who also received her bachelor’s degree from ASU, was already organizing and running prenatal care and pregnancy courses at the 1st Way Pregnancy Center in Phoenix.

Brind’Amour first became involved with the center while researching her undergraduate honors thesis on public prenatal healthcare, under the tutelage of her thesis advisor, Professor Jason Robert. She also worked with the center as a volunteer.

With support from Robert, in collaboration with Barbara Wilson of the College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovations, Brind’Amour has worked with 1st Way to create a series of eight classes on pregnancy and prenatal health. The classes cover a wide range of topics from prenatal health and diet, breast-feeding, delivery courses, to sessions on healthy relationships, preconception health and fetal development.

One of the goals of the program is to reduce premature deliveries and low birth weights. The experience has been rewarding says Brind’Amour, “I have great support from the center and the women really want to be there.”

Brind’Amour has collected data from about 40 of the 300 attendees who meet eligibility criteria and will follow their progress, after delivery, to track birth outcomes.

Birth outcome data, such as birth weight, can be used to track practical outcomes of the prenatal education. Brind’Amour’s hope is that her research may allow pregnancy centers throughout the valley to set a benchmark for the practical outcomes of their work, and provide them with real data to present to potential donors and secure future funding.

Brind’Amour graduated in May 2009, but she will continue her passion to work with expectant mothers. Many scientists work with people when they are in trouble, in pain and ill. Brind’Amour loves her work because she “gets to work with women when there’s an excitement. It’s an important time in their lives.”

All that glitters is not gold

Sex sells. The thrum and flash of an automobile, the whisper of designer silk, the tease of a tattoo, the ching ching of gold chains and rings are paired in media and on the streets with come-hither abdominal tautness and the flutter of eyelashes. It is a potent advertising mix, all to say: Pick me.

You don’t have to look far to find correlates in the animal and plant kingdoms. Nature’s showy subjects also promote reproductive success with bright colors and flash, in feathers, scales, petals and wings. So what is it about bling? With millions of years of evolution behind them, wouldn’t you think butterflies would be more evolved?

It turns out that there’s more substance behind all that flash and glitter than show. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, biologists Nathan Morehouse and Ron Rutowski demonstrate that butterflies have taken their colors and flash seriously, into the ultraviolet wavelengths where humans cannot see, but butterflies can, utilizing pigments (pterins) and nanoscale structures that make human nanofabrication look downright crude – and female butterflies swoon.

“What we see as color is really a manipulation of light. We want to understand what optical mechanisms butterflies use to produce their colors. There is surprisingly little known,” says Morehouse, a graduate student and member of the 2008 Frontiers in Life Sciences Conference team. “Part of the reason for that is that the structures used are so small and our understanding of the way that light interacts with these surfaces at that scale is really rudimentary.”

Quiz bowl is for the birds

“Who is Alex?” With the correct answer to that question, the team of Melissa Meadows, Matthew Toomey and Bobby (Haralambos) Fokidis, graduate students in the School of Life Sciences, won the inaugural quiz bowl at the 4th North American Ornithological Conference. Held in Veracruz, Mexico (2006), the conference was the largest ornithological meeting in history and was attended by scientists from across the Americas. Each member of this three-student team from ASU was awarded a pair of Audubon Equinox Binoculars. The prize was perfect for the avid and knowledgeable birders, according to Meadows, as her old pair had been stolen. Fokidis also indicated he was in dire need of a new pair of binoculars. For those of you less well-versed in all things ornithological as Meadows, Toomey and Fokidis: Alex was an African Grey parrot who could label seven colors, count up to six objects, and featured prominently in the debate over whether or not animals can “think.”

Graduate


outreachChanging the world, one person at a time

Being a central part of the larger fabric of community in the Southwest means giving back and adding value to community members’ lives. ASU and School of Life Sciences have made long-standing commitments to students, life-long learners, parents, teachers and the public through a number of outreach programs and events. Three standouts in the last five years have been Graduate Partners in Science Education (2005), a program that partners with Title I schools, Ask A Biologist, an online science education Web site and SOLS Takes a Hike (2006), a series of guided walks that has connected ASU faculty and graduate students with more than 300 members of the public. In addition, with the advent of Darwin’s 200th birthday, School of Life Sciences Founding Director Robert E. Page, Jr., in collaboration with Quentin Wheeler, VP and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, hosted ASU Darwinfest (2008-2009) – a year-long celebration of how bold ideas can transform science, technology and society. Coordinated by Margaret Coulombe in School of Life Sciences, Darwinfest engaged 33 partners, on and off campus, and launched the Darwin Distinguished Lecture Series, The Future of Evolution Lecture Series (held at the Arizona Science Center), Translating Evolutionary Science into the Public Classroom Workshop. A plethora of events and discussions have hosted some of the foremost evolutionary scientists and theorists in the world. Estimated attendance of core events from Fall 2008-Spring 2009 (not including Origins Initiative, Daniel Dennett and Jay Melosh lectures) exceeded 3,600, specifically targeting undergraduate students, teachers and members of the public. Many of these ASU events were captured as audiorecordings (podcasts), featured by Apple on iTunesU and will also appear on the National Science Foundation’s Science 360 online science portal.

Graduate Partners in Science Education (GPSE)was created by School of Life Sciences doctoral students Nate Morehouse and Jon Davis in 2005 to mentor K-12 students in the life sciences. GPSE recruits life sciences graduate students to work with two science teachers and approximately 45 middle school students in an after-school, hands-on science education program. Mentors spend the fall semester leading the students through modules that foster scientific inquiry. In the spring, the mentors then work with students as they develop and carry out their own experiments (which are subsequently entered in the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair). The program has grown annually and contributed significantly to many children and their families’ futures. In 2008, ten graduate student mentors participated and 19 students - the first in the school’s history - received science fair medals. GPSE’s partner school is Phoenix Preparatory Academy, an underserved school in downtown Phoenix that receives Title I funds. GPSE has also built partnerships with the Phoenix Zoo and the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Project. Mike Butler, the current director of GPSE, is seeking new ways to extend this program to other schools and colleges at ASU, as well as other universities around the country.

Ask A BiologistFirst launched by Charles Kazilek in 1997, Ask A Biologist Web site has grown in the last five years in content, connections, participants and in service to teachers, parents, life-long learners and K-12 students locally and nationally. Questions are the lifeblood of Kazilek. As director of technology integration and outreach in the ASU School of Life Sciences, he created the innovative K-12 children’s science education Web site specifically to provide answers to the puzzled, perplexed and just plain curious. A portal for fun and facts, the site receives more than 200 questions a month. As its host Dr. Biology, Kazilek’s Web persona, Kazilek has interpreted more than 20,000 queries in the last 10 years – and has only been stumped a dozen times. Involving more than 100 faculty and student volunteers, Ask A Biologist attracts more than 700,000 unique visitors per year. For its creative content and value to educators, the site has received commendations from Center for Digital Education - Digital Education Achievement Awards (2004), Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and a Silver Quill Award of Excellence from International Association of Business Communicators (2008). In addition to establishing funding from the National Science Foundation to expand into the Web 2.0 format, 2006 also heralded expansion in multimedia, with flash and podcast programs. One resource created by Kazilek for teachers, the Pocket Seed Viewer experiment, was packaged as a training tool and distributed to more than 100,000 fifth grade students in the United Kingdom. In addition to Ask A Biologist’s impact via the Web, Kazilek, as the director of technology integration and outreach, made face-to-face connections with 5,600 teachers/students (2006) in support of the development of curriculum and public programs.

Top: K-12 podcasters tour ant lab with doctoral student rebecca Clark. Bottom: Ask A Biologist co-host ramon Santos at the mike in the Grass roots Studio.


Phoenix elementary students win ASU podcast contest and interview scientists

Third-graders Taylor Cheatham and Itzany Mendez and fifth-grader Brian Varela from Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary School were the winners of the first bi-annual “Ask A Biologist” podcast contest. To become a podcast co-host, each student did a podcast interview and submitted a CD, much like a podcast version of “American Idol,” with support from their teachers. Winners, chosen based on their vocal skills, curiosity and creativity by the panel of judges, their parents and teachers visited Arizona State University, interviewed a scientist, with co-host Dr. Biology (Charles Kazilek) and received an Apple iPod Nano.

“Such a wonderful opportunity and day of learning and lessons for us all,” said Helen Rentz, a third-grade teacher at Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary School. “The children have never had anything like this available to them before. They were very motivated to research, to interview and to podcast, and it’s the first trip for them and their families to ASU.”

“This has definitely made an impact,” adds Joan Howell, teacher with the Accelerated Learning Procedures (ALPS) program in Phoenix in which all three students participate.

Cheatham, Mendez and Varela are the first three of 12 students who will be featured on Ask A Biologist each year.

At the head(phones) of her class, third-grader and podcast contest winner Taylor Cheatman.

Resources for Discovery

Natural History Collections

Sustained by the School of Life Sciences, ASU’s Natural History Collections are comprised of nine collections that directly support the university’s teaching, research and public outreach functions. Holdings emphasize flora and fauna from the arid Southwest, especially Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. Collectively, ASU’s holdings have grown to rank among the largest collections of Sonoran desert biota in the world. The collections are organized into four units:

• VascularPlantHerbarium• LichenHerbarium• ZoologicalCollections• FossilPlantCollections

The Zoological Collections are in turn comprised of six major divisions:

• Herpetology(AmphibiansandReptiles)• Ichthyology(Fish)• Mammalogy(Mammals)• Entomology(Insects)• Malacology(Shells)• Ornithology(Birds)

ASU’s Vascular Plant Herbarium is the second largest herbarium in the Southwest. Managing the more than 270,000 specimens, the herbarium is maintained by Leslie Landrum, curator; Donald J. Pinkava, director emeritus and Marty Wojciechowski, an associate professor in the Genomics, Evolution and Bioinformatics faculty group, in addition to collections manager, Elizabeth Makings. The collections are particularly rich in the Cactaceae, Compositae and Myrtaceae. Its collection of Cataceae is one of the best in the world, particularly rich in cytological voucher specimens.

School of Life Sciences also maintains the ASU Lichen Herbarium and Fossil Plant Collection. The herbarium houses more than 109,000 fully accessioned and databased lichen specimens from all over the world. Collections are particularly rich in the Lecanoraceae and Parmeliaceae. A significant fraction of these specimens are being revised in the context of the Greater Sonoran Desert Flora Project funded by the National Science Foundation and led by Curator Thomas Nash.

Nash, T.H., B.D. Ryan, C. Gries and F. Bungartz (eds.). 2002. Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol. I. Lichen Unlimited: Tempe, AZ.

Nash, T.H., B.D. Ryan, C. Gries and F. Bungartz (eds.). 2004. Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region. Vol. II. Lichen Unlimited: Tempe, AZ.


The Fossil Plant Collection at ASU is maintained by Kathleen Pigg, associate professor, and includes approximately 5,000 accessioned megafossil specimens, and approximately as many unaccessioned specimens. In addition to the plant megafossils, there are several subcollections including one of fossil and extant pollen, extant wood anatomy and other anatomical sections and morphological specimens.

Zoological collections, curated by Anthony Gill, incorporate fish, birds, mammals, insects, reptiles and amphibians and shells. The Frank Hasbrouk Entomology Collection contains around 650,000 insect specimens, representing 25 orders, 389 families, 3,505 genera, 8,832 species and 1,242 subspecies.

The Ichthyology Collection is extremely valuable for its regional focus on Arizona, southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico. The collection has been historically built around the activities of the late W.L. Minckley, with continued growth through collecting activities by Professors Paul Marsh, Thomas Dowling and Curator Anthony Gill. The collection also serves as the repository for non-game fish surveys by Arizona Department of Game and Fish. It contains around 20,000 registered lots (jars with multiple specimens) and includes numerous threatened and endangered southwestern species. The fish skeletal collection is also noteworthy, consisting of over 1,000 cleared and stained specimens of small fishes and over 100 dry skeletons. The skeletal holdings – and an associated tissue collection – are being developed and expanded to allow research on higher relationships of fishes.

Les Landrum: Making merry with myrtleSome people collect stamps or coins. Les Landrum, herbarium curator for the School of Life Sciences, collects fruit. Guavas, to be specific, or, at least, foods made of or with guavas. His ASU lab, in fact, looks like a grocery store. There are cans, boxes and jars from all over the world with colorful labels describing guava in every form imaginable, and some that are not: guava paste (which is eaten with cheese), jelly and preserves – and even guava soup, baby food and jawbreakers.

The herbarium holds a rich collection of guava; more than 260,000 plant specimens, of which about 6,000 are guavas and their relatives.

Landrum, also a senior research scientist in the School of Life Sciences, says he became interested in the myrtle family when he was a volunteer in the Peace Corps in Chile 35 years ago: “It’s an important economic plant all over the world.”

People have been eating guava for a long time, but no one knows the fruit’s exact origin. The oldest known presence of guavas is in Caral, a 4,000-year-old archeological site on the Peruvian coast. Landrum believes that guavas most likely started in South America, but their use has spread worldwide.

“People have used guavas medicinally,” Landrum said. “They are high in vitamin C, and in South America, people made a tea with the leaves and bark that was good for diarrhea. That knowledge has been passed around the world, to Africa and Malaysia, for instance.”

Natural History Collections


Snakes Alive! ASU’s Living Collection

While winding your way through Arizona State University, be sure to include a visit to a certain hallway in Life Sciences A-wing – the one that houses the “Living Collection.”

“Living” is not the only feature that distinguishes this reptilian collection from other natural history exhibits that are normally pickled, dried or stuffed. The reptiles are also special because they are all of known origin, making them valuable for education, outreach and study. The 18 species of rattlesnakes along the north wall cover all of the species and subspecies found in Arizona.

Interestingly, no one seems to know exactly how long the collection has been in place, though most believe its origins extend from the 1960s when the School of Life Sciences was the Department of Zoology. At that time Herbert Stahnke headed the department, and the treatment of bites from scorpions, rattlesnakes and Gila monsters generated enormous interest and anti-venin.

Venomous animals were the Stahnke forté. His expertise was such that he was once featured on the television show, “What’s My Line?” An anti-venin for scorpion stings was still being manufactured in the Life Sciences building into the 1990s. To see a relict of those days one only has to look up at the façade on the right side of the main entrance to the A-wing at 451 E. Tyler, better known as Palm Walk, where an art deco motif contains a scorpion.

Today, the creatures on exhibit serve both educational and scientific functions by helping to develop an appreciation of the diversity of the venomous reptiles that exist throughout Arizona. One favorite: the albino specimen of the Western diamondback rattlesnake, Crotalus atrox, the most common venomous species in the state. True albinos are very rare, with uniformly pale scales, pink eyes and only a hint of orange scale patterning near its rattle-adorned tail.

New research in Japan has shown that guavas may have properties that inhibit tumors, and researchers in Sudan note that the water extract of guava leaves is used to treat bronchitis, asthma, dysentery and diabetes.

Why should anyone care about the guava, aside from its nutritional and medicinal properties? Landrum says that tracing the tree’s origins and dispersal “might tell us something about how people migrated around the world. There is human interest.”

In addition to eating guavas, Landrum has been writing about them for many years. “My life’s project is to write a monograph about all the approximately 60 species, including their classification, geography and evolutionary history. Knowing these may tell us a lot about the last few million years of biological history in Latin America,” he said.

Without doubt, that will probably mean some new guava treats at the Landrum lab.


core facilities

Faculty and students are housed in a variety of buildings, including three Life Science wings, and most recently, the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 1 (ISTB1) and Biodesign A and B wings. Biodesign and ISTB1 have provided excellent “open” facilities for more than 25 percent of the faculty. Lab sizes range from 400 to 2,200 nominal square footage (nsf), and average about 1,200 nsf for faculty with experimental research programs.

Summary of nominal square footage (nsf) of space administered by SOLS

Building/Year Total Nsf Research Lab Research Lab Office Office Classrooms/ Greenhouse Service Service Collections

LSA (1950) . . . . . . . 45,606 21,489 7,612 10,488 134 5,417 466LSC (1960) . . . . . . . .62,768 24,354 9,218 14,559 583 14,054 LSE (1990) . . . . . . . 89,971 34,451 11,389 14,834 759 25,505 3,033ISTB1 (2006) . . . . . . .17,565 10,471 1,382 3,320 315 2,077 Biodesign A (2005) . . . 21,883 14,747 7,136 Biodesign B (2005) . . . 22,899 16,846 6,053

Total . . . . . . . . . . .260,692 122,358 42,790 43,201 1,791 47,053 3,499

School of Life Sciences Bioimaging Facility

The Bioimaging Facility is co-directed by Douglas Chandler and Robert Roberson. The facility includes two laboratories, the W.M. Keck Bioimaging Laboratory and the Life Sciences Electron Microscopy Laboratory.

Since it’s founding in 1997, the W.M. Keck Bioimaging Laboratory at Arizona State University has served over 100 principal investigators in state-of-the-art research ranging from the imaging of metastasizing cancer cells, photo-ablation of specific cells in the early mouse embryo, visualization of amyloid and synuclein proteins to particle and organelle tracking in living cells. The 2032 sq. ft. facility houses six advanced optical microscopy workstations each with differing capabilities. Instrumentation ranges from laser scanning confocal microscopy and video microscopy to atomic force microscopy. The researchers utilizing this facility come from 14 units across the university and other biomedical research institutes in the Phoenix metropolitan area. During the last 10 years, ASU’s users have brought in over $325 million dollars in research awards. Page Baluch, Keck Lab manager, provides training and imaging courses for undergraduate and graduate students.

The bioimaging facility offers annually formal lecture and laboratory courses in both light and electron microscopy technique at the graduate level. In 2009, undergraduate students will have an opportunity to learn techniques in growing, maintaining and preparing cells for bioimaging in the BIO451 Cell Biotechnology course. Staff is actively involved in teaching, one-on-one instrument training and has received awards from the Nikon Small World and Olympus Bioscapes annual image competitions. In addition staff actively participate in outreach activities and, in conjunction with the bioimaging facility at Northern Arizona University, the annual Ugly Bug contest. The W.M. Keck laboratory is currently expanding to serve a whole new generation of scientists needing imaging technologies to make possible new areas of inquiry including the in vivo study of neuronal signaling in the brain, the development of organisms for production of alternative fuels and the intracellular synthesis and trafficking of proteins in neurons that are important for learning and memory.

In 1962, the Life Science Electron Microscope Laboratory was formed through the acquisition of a single Philips EM 100B transmission electron microscope (TEM) by William T. Northey (Emeritus Professor of Microbiology). Today, this facility carries out research studies ranging from membrane biogenesis and protein trafficking in rapidly frozen cells and to characterization of new pathogenic microbes to development of photosynthetic bacteria stains that will provide the biosynthetic fuels of the future. The current facility houses a Philips CM12S scanning-transmission electron microscope, a Balzers 400D Freeze Etch Unit, a Balzers HPM 010 High Pressure Freezing Unit and state-of-the-art ultramicrotomes and freeze substitution devices, in addition to a Leica Cambridge Stereoscan 360FE from the Motorola Corporation, which is a high resolution field emission SEM retrofitted with a digital imaging system from IXRF. An additional JEOL (Model) TEM is used for both research and teaching activities, particularly in the TEM laboratory course held each fall semester. Management and training activities are provided by David Lowry.


DNA LaboratoryDuring the past five years, the DNA lab has seen considerable expansion, from 900 - 2,000 sq. ft., and acquired new equipment, including an Agilent Microarray scanner, an Agilent Bioanalyzer and an ABI quantitative PCR unit. The acquisition of a capillary DNA sequencer and sample preparation robot has allowed the yearly sequencing sample numbers to increase from 14,000 in 2004 to 47,000 in 2008. Genotyping capabilities were added in 2006 through an upgrade of the DNA sequencer. There are 102 laboratories currently served. Major entities utilizing the DNA Lab are the Biodesign Institute, TGen and most of the research groups in the Phoenix area. In 2007, the DNA Lab supported research projects totaling $4.8 million in ASU Sponsored Project expenditures. A laboratory course, Techniques in Functional Genomics, offers theory and training on the lab’s equipment and use in molecular biology. In addition, fifteen additional undergraduate laboratory sections from Biochemistry 467 and Bio 343 utilize the lab.

Grass Roots StudioWhat motivates a scientist? How does research today affect the universe tomorrow? How do students see their role in the future of the world we live in? The Grass Roots Studio provides the audio tools to capture the sounds of today’s diverse personalities. Established in 2006, Grass Roots is a professional quality recording studio. The studio is home to the bimonthly Ask A Biologist and Science Studio podcast programs, with hosts Charles Kazilek and Margaret Coulombe, in addition to the Darwin Distinguished Lecture Series, AEPA Science (iTunes U), The Living World Snippets (iTunes U). Each program includes a transcript to meet the needs of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Honey Bee Research FacilityLaunched in 2005, the Honey Bee Research Facility occupies 7,000 sq. ft. and serves as a field station for the School of Life Sciences Social Insect Research Group. The laboratory and nearby apiaries are managed by Osman Kaftanoglu. The hives are used to study bee genetics, neurobiology, physiology, behavior and ecology. Additionally, researchers teach classes to both hobby and professional bee keepers.

Studio vistor edward o. Wilson

Core Facilities


ConnectionsSchool of Life Sciences engages locally and globally in research, innovation, technology, policy development, medical discovery, scholarship and outreach. Extensive multidisciplinary and collaborative relationships include centers and institutes, business and industry, nonprofits and hospitals, and local partners on the ASU campus, Mayo Clinic, Barrow Neurological Institute, Arizona Game and Fish, Salt River Project and other groups.

Centers and InstitutesIn the last five years, faculty in the School of Life Sciences have undertaken active leadership roles in a growing number of centers and institutes at ASU, including the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity (Co-director, Jennifer Fewell), Center for Biology and Society (Director, Jane Maienschein), International Institute for Species Exploration (Director, Quentin Wheeler), Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (Director, Daniel Sarewitz) and Biodesign Institute, including for Center Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology (Director, Roy Curtiss III), Center for Innovations in Medicine (Director, Stephen Johnston) and Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics (Director, Sudhir Kumar).

School of Life Sciences faculty are core contributors in the University of Arizona Medical College – Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University, Center for Metabolic Studies, Center for Nanotechnology and Society, Global Institute for Sustainability and School of Sustainability and Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis.

Visualization LaboratoryThe School of Life Sciences Visualization Laboratory (Vislab) is an award-winning agency that offers design and marketing services in various media, including development of websites, illustrations, magazines, book covers, print, photography, posters, exhibition and multimedia materials.

Managed by Jacob Sahertian, the Vislab has raised visibility and strengthened the visionary spirit at ASU, through marketing and design support for ASU events, institutes and initiatives, such as Darwinfest, Origins, Sichuan University; Center for Biology and Society, Center for Film, Media and Popular Culture, International Letters and Cultures and Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering. The Vislab has also contributed to various technical and design committees at ASU, playing an important role in the development of the ASU brand.

Starting as an in-house service center, the Vislab has developed into a full service agency, invigorating the School of Life Sciences and the ASU community’s research, education and outreach. With a commitment to collaborative synergy, the Vislab revenues have increased 60 percent over the last five years, bringing it closer to its goal of self-sufficiency.

Computer Teaching FacilitiesDuring 2005-09, The School added state-of-the-art computer technology in 11 undergraduate teaching laboratories. These laboratories support over 5,400 undergraduate students annually. The computers are equipped with real-world software and hardware. This new technology better prepares students for success as future researchers and careers in the life sciences. These efforts are coordinated by Shapard Wolf, SOLS IT Coordinator.

Core Facilities


Appendix 1: ASU Demographics

STUDENTSUndergraduates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53,298Graduate Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17,784Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67, 082

Life Sciences Majors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,182

ADMISSIONSFirst Time Freshman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,707New Transfers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,446New Non Degree-Seeking . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

FULL TIME/PART TIMEUndergraduates Full-time . . . . . . . . . . . 43,145. . . . . . . . . . . . 81% of total studentsUndergraduates Part-time. . . . . . . . . . . 10,153. . . . . . . . . . . . 19% of total studentsGraduate Students Full-time . . . . . . . . . . 8,469. . . . . . . . . . . . 61% of total studentsGraduate Students Part-time . . . . . . . . . . 5,315. . . . . . . . . . . . 39% of total students

UNDERGRADUATE CLASS SIZE DISTRIBUTION9 or fewer students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3%10–29 students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57.4%30–49 students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.5%50–99 students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3%100 or more students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5%

DEGREES GRANTED (2007-2008)Baccalaureate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,706Master’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,082Doctoral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418First Professional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,444

FACULTY/STAFFFaculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,095Other employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,581Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,676

FINANCEState Appropriations . . . . . . . . . $480,198,000Total Research Expenditures . . . . . $300,000,000

NATIONAL RANKINGArizona State University – Top Tier (US News and World Report, 2008)School of Life Sciences – 6th (Thomas Scientific Indicators, Ecology and Environmental Sciences)

For latest ASU fact information:http://uoia.asu.edu/fact-book-2008-09

Appendices


Appendix 2: SOLS Funding Summary

Year Fiscal Year Proposal # Funded # Funded ($) Expenditures ($)

2003/2004 . . . . . . 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . .216 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 . . . . . . . . . . . $14,549,621 . . . . . . . $13,817,0612004/2005 . . . . . . 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . .229 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,375,627 . . . . . . . . 17,899,7592005/2006 . . . . . . 2006 . . . . . . . . . . . .231 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 . . . . . . . . . . . . 30,818,390 . . . . . . . . 24,609,5522006/2007 . . . . . . . 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . .243 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 . . . . . . . . . . . . 28,798,166 . . . . . . . . 26,276,1892007/2008 . . . . . . . 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . .219 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 . . . . . . . . . . . . 54,079,025 . . . . . . . . 27,701,606

Nationally (and internationally), School of Life Sciences faculty have contributed to the advancement of scholarship, education and research globally . School of Life Sciences’ intellectual capital includes 22 AAAS fellows, members of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences (Bert Hölldobler, Robert E. Page, Jr. and Stephen Pyne), National Academy of Sciences (Charles Arntzen, Roy Curtiss III and Bert Hölldobler) and German Academy of Sciences – Leopoldina (Bert Hölldobler and Robert E. Page, Jr.) . In addition, SOLS is home to Foundation Professors Bert Hölldobler and Robert E. Page, Jr.; MacArthur Fellow, Stephen Pyne; Guggenheim Fellows Jennifer Fewell, Bert Hölldobler, Mark Jacobs and Kenneth Mossman; Del E . Webb Distinguished Professor and Royal Society Fellow, George Poste; Parents Association Professors, James Elser, Jane Maienschein and Andrew Smith; Regents’ professors: John Alcock, Charles Arntzen, James Elser, Jane Maienschein, George Poste and Stephen Pyne; Virginia Ullman Professors, James Collins and Phillip Hedrick; President’s Professor Jane Maienschein and a number of faculty members are among the Founding Fellows and membership of the Arizona Arts Science and Technology Academy .

In addition to serving as external reviewers, members of the life sciences faculty have served on one or more editorial boards of professional society journals from 2002-2009, including Philip Hedrick (Conservation Genetics, Journal of Heredity, Heredity, Molecular Ecology and Evolutionary Applications), Brenda Hogue (Journal of Virology), Kenro Kusumi (Developmental Biology), Hugh Mason (BioMed Central), Diana Mass (Clinical Laboratory Management Review; American Society for Clinical Pathology), Robert E. Page (Apidologie), Dave Pearson (Journal of Insect Conservation), Jason Scott Robert (Biological Theory)and Willem Vermaas (Journal of Bacteriology) .

Many more faculty serve or have served as editors or associate editors for journals, such as Landscape Ecology, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Ecology Letters, American Naturalist, Ecological Applications, Oecologia, FEMS Microbiological Reviews, Ecological Applications, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, Canotia, Biological Theory, Journal of Experimental Zoology, Molecular, Developmental Evolution, Archive for History of the Exact Sciences, Functional Ecology, Journal of South African Research, Philosophy of Biology, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Acta Theriologica Sinica (China), Mammal Review (UK), Acta Oecologia (The Netherlands), Plant Molecular Biology, Photosynthesis Research, Systematics and Biogeography and Molecular Ecology .

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Appendix 3: Leadership

71SOLS 2009 | 5-year report

Major International Research projects include:

• BiodiversityandecosystemservicesinInnerMongolia. > $3.5 million in awards, Chinese National Science Foundation

• Ecosystemservicesand“resilience”networks. > $4.5 million in awards (Peru, Tanzania, Vietnam, UK, Trinidad, Thailand, Argentina, Africa)

• Urbanecology/ecosystemresponsetonitrogenandorganiccarbon (Mexico, Hawaii, Borneo, Norway, South Africa)

• Socialdynamicsandcomplexity/socialnetworks (Germany, Norway, Costa Rica, Brazil)

• Roleoftheoceansinglobalcarbonflux (Germany, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain)

• Bioengineeringandfoodcrops(Brazil)

Meeting Global Challenges:

SOLS advances partnerships and discovery on all seven continents, supported by funding agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF) and United States Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Defense. Significant support also comes from foundations, including grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and other local, national and international partners, such as the Norwegian Research Council, British Petroleum and Chinese National Science Foundation.

ASU School of Life Sciences

Galapagos

Gulf of California

Barrow, Alaska

global engagement

Partnership with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama

SOLS joins with the principal U.S. organization dedicated to advancing discovery and biodiversity and its contribution to human welfare, in the areas of social insect behavior, bioenergy, ecoservices, sustainability and biodiversity.

Science Studio

Science Studio audio programming was launched in 2006 and connects listeners globally with ASU scientists, students and guest experts from a variety of fields. Students, teachers and the public can experience how some of the top innovative thinkers in the world articulate their ideas, discoveries, challenges and paths to success. Learn how to conduct an oral history, develop a program for graduate student mentors, discover the latest about climate change, urbanization, pandemics, human evolution, philosophy and ethics or just drop into the ocean with one of the top marine ecologists in the country as she navigates her career. Science Studio is recorded in Grass Roots Studio and accessed via iTunes U, plugged.tv and sols.asu.edu/podcasts.


Biodiversity & Conservation Policy

• Endangeredspecies/marinereserves/humansystemsstudy(China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, Brazil, Mexico, international waters)

• Evolutionarygenetics(Madagascar, Africa, Asia)• SonoranDesertLichenFloraProject(80 scientists, 20

countries, 43 national parks, reserves and refuges)• Collections,speciesdiscovery,taxonomy (25 countries)

Medical Discovery and Vaccine Development

CenterforInfectiousDiseaseandVaccinology/BiodesignInstitute(world-wide)- Pediatricpneumoniavaccineforuseindevelopingcountries- Plague,tuberculosis,rotavirusvaccine- Plant-basedvaccinediscovery- Noveltopicalantibiotictreatments- HIVvaccinedevelopment

Emerging Disease and Medical Frontiers

• Agingandgenetics(Norway, Israel)• Malariaandretroviruses(world-wide)

- $6.3millioninawards• Host-pathogenbiology/globaldeclineofamphibians

(26 partners, world-wide)

Biofuels, Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering

• Catalyticbioscavengersfornerveagents(Israel)• Biohydrogenandbiofuels(British Petroleum)• TecnológicodeMonterrey(Tec)partners in Mexicoandstudiesof:

- Novelbioreactionandseparationtechnologies,biofuelsresearch- Strategiesforagricultureinmarginalareasofcultivation- Productionofrecombinantbiomoleculesinplantsystems

Ghana

Kenya

world-wide

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