bio-news

Interactive Forest Maps

May 23, 2022

Wildfire, Drought & Insects

Dying forests in the western U.S.

Threats impacting forests are increasing nationwide.

Planting a tree seems like a generally good thing to do for the environment. Trees, after all, take in carbon dioxide, offsetting some of the emissions that contribute to climate change.

But all of that carbon in trees and forests worldwide could be thrown back into the atmosphere again if the trees burn up in a forest fire. Trees also stop scrubbing carbon dioxide from the air if they die due to drought or insect damage.

The likelihood of those threats impacting forests is increasing nationwide, according to new research in Ecology Letters, making relying on forests to soak up carbon emissions a much riskier prospect.

“U.S. forests could look dramatically different by the end of the century,” says William Anderegg, study lead author and associate professor in the University of Utah School of Biological Sciences. “More severe and frequent fires and disturbances have huge impacts on our landscapes. We are likely to lose forests from some areas in the Western U.S. due to these disturbances, but much of this depends on how quickly we tackle climate change.”

 

William Anderegg

"We’ve seen devastating fire seasons with increasing severity in the past several years. Generally, we expect the western U.S. to be hit hardest."

 

The researchers modeled the risk of tree death from fire, climate stress (heat and/or drought) and insect damage for forests throughout the United States, projecting how those risks might increase over the course of the 21st century.

See their findings in an interactive map at carbonplan.org.

By 2099, the models found, that United States forest fire risks may increase by between four and 14 times, depending on different carbon emissions scenarios. The risks of climate stress-related tree death and insect mortality may roughly double over the same time.

But in those same models, human actions to tackle climate change mattered enormously—reducing the severity of climate change dramatically reduced the fire, drought and insect-driven forest die-off.

“Climate change is going to supercharge these three big disturbances in the U.S.,” Anderegg says. “We’ve seen devastating fire seasons with increasing severity in the past several years. Generally, we expect the western U.S. to be hit hardest by all three of these. And they’re somewhat interconnected too. Really hot and dry years, driven by climate change, tend to drive lots of fires, climate-driven tree mortality and insect outbreaks. But we have an opportunity here too. Addressing climate change quickly can help keep our forests and landscapes healthy.”

The study is published in Ecology Letters and was supported by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, David and Lucille Packard Foundation and Microsoft’s AI for Earth.

Find the full study at Ecology Letters.

 

by Paul Gabrielsen, first published at @TheU.

 

Randy Rasmussen

May 20, 2022

Randy Rasmussen

Randy Rasmussen & Denise Dearing

BioFire Diagnostics began when three college friends came together on the University of Utah campus to collaborate and build a transformative company.

Many of today’s most successful companies were created by groups of friends: Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started Hewlett-Packard in a garage in Palo Alto, California; Bill Gates and Paul Allen, childhood friends from Lakewood, Washington co-founded Microsoft; and Larry Page, Sergey Brin, part of the same PhD cohort at Stanford University founded Google.

The University of Utah has its own version of this story: BioFire Diagnostics began with a group of three college friends who came together on the University of Utah campus to collaborate and build a transformative company.

The precursor to BioFire Diagnostics, Idaho Technology, Inc., was founded in 1991 by three U alumni: Carl Wittwer (Residency, ’88, Pathology), Kirk Ririe, BS’05, Chemistry, and Randy Rasmussen, PhD’98, Biology. Their unique backgrounds and experience perfectly complemented one another—Ririe was a chemist and engineer, Randy with a molecular and cellular biology background, and Wittwer a medical professional.

BioFire started small, with the trio working on prototypes of PCR machines which included hair dryers taped to fluorescent tubes. But the they set their sights higher to lead the molecular diagnostic industry, and BioFire’s product development has since evolved to include sophisticated diagnostic tools including Film Array®, a proprietary molecular diagnostics system that uses PCR and melt-curve analysis and simultaneously tests for multiple infectious agents in a single panel in the short time of about an hour.

From its humble beginnings in the corner of Ririe’s parent’ business, to their current location in University of Utah Research Park, BioFire has always had a simple, yet tremendously impactful, mission: “To help make the world a healthier place.”

Randy Rasmussen

"I urge students to explore their passion. A degree in the STEM field will open doors to many opportunities."

 

Due to its great success, BioFire was purchased by BioMerieux in 2013. Under the leadership of Dr. Randy Rasmussen, who currently serves as CEO, the company grew from 250 employees, in 2012, to over 1,400 employees in 2017. Their new, built-to-spec, 30,000 square foot building in Research Park, “allows visitors to see the research, development and manufacturing underway while simultaneously integrating the beauty of the foothills, says Denise Dearing, Chair of the Biology Department while on a recent tour of the building. “It’s stunning.”

Later this year, BioFire will have sold its 10,000th instrument—an astounding figure when considering there are only 6,000 hospitals in the U.S.

Born in Lansing, Michigan as the son of a horticulture professor at Michigan State University, Rasmussen has always had a passion for science. With family ties in Utah, Rasmussen began his education in biology at Utah State University and later spent time working with the U medical heart transplant team. From there, his passion for science led him to pursue a PhD in molecular and cellular biology at the U. While there he worked in Sandy Parkinson‘s lab which transformed him during his first year of core classes.

Rasmussen relates how in one year he went from “knowing nothing to knowing a lot.” It was a dramatic life transformation which exposed him to many new ares in biology.

At BioFire, going from scientist to CEO was a unique transition. Rasmussen expressed, “It was initially difficult to start off from a focus of research and development, to being primarily focused on the day-to-day of building a business. The other unique transition was, “Giving up control over the small, but important details that I oversaw, to fully trusting those you work with to get the job done.” Rasmussen shares that most of the leadership team has been with BioFire for over 15 years. This longevity shows the tremendous trust and loyalty of the BioFire team.

Rasmussen is tremendously appreciative of his time at the University of Utah where he met nt only his future business partners, but also his wife Heather Ross, BS’88, communication. Kirk Ririe introduced Randy to Heather—now married, they reside near the U and have a son Aidan, who currently studies economics at Wesleyan University.

Today, Rasmussen has a passion for Utah and the mountains where he enjoys skiing, biking and hiking. Continuing his connection to the U, he notes that many of BioFire’s talented employees are U graduates.

Reflecting on his life and career, Randy Rasmussen has some advice for current student at the U. He urges them to explore their passion, and explains that a degree in the STEM field will open doors to many opportunities. He believes that students should take classes in business to complement their technical background and should participate in internships to gain additional experience and perspective.

This story originally appeared in 2017 in the debut issue of OUR DNA.

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Thure Cerling Awarded the Rosenblatt

May 20, 2022

Thure E. Cerling, Distinguished Professor of Biology, is the 2022 recipient of the Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence.

Cerling is also department chair of the Department of Geology & Geophysics, Francis H. Brown Presidential Chair, and Distinguished Professor of Geology and Geophysics.

The Rosenblatt Prize is the University of Utah’s highest faculty accolade and is presented annually to a faculty member who transcends ordinary teaching, research and administrative efforts. A group of distinguished faculty members on the Rosenblatt Prize Committee recommends esteemed colleagues for consideration and the university’s president makes the final selection.

“Dr. Cerling has made important and impactful contributions to science using isotope geochemistry to learn about natural processes,” said Taylor Randall, president of the University of Utah. “He’s multiplied that impact many times over by sharing his knowledge with graduate students and countless colleagues around the world. With demonstrated excellence in research, teaching and leadership as chair of the Department of Geology & Geophysics, Dr. Cerling epitomizes the ideals of the prestigious Rosenblatt Prize.”

About Thure Cerling

Through his pioneering scientific career and his decades of dedication to sharing his knowledge with colleagues around the world, Cerling, who began teaching at the U in 1979, has been instrumental in expanding the use of isotopes (What’s an isotope? Learn more here) as a tool in geoscience and biology.

“Thure Cerling never met an isotope he didn’t like!” one nominator wrote.

Using isotopes, he has devised innovative methods to understand the paleoecology of early human sites in East Africa, determined the timing of floods in the Grand Canyon, discovered a major global transition in vegetation types 7 million years ago, and has even analyzed his own beard hair to show how his diet changed over the course of a few days during a trip to Mongolia. By one metric of research publication impact, Cerling’s more than 300 scientific papers represent an exceptionally productive and remarkably influential career. His legacy includes graduate students who now are faculty at a number of leading research universities.

The impacts of isotope analysis go far beyond academic research, however. Cerling’s methods and expertise have also been used to identify ivory taken by poachers, determine if medicines are counterfeit, and help identify human remains. Cerling and distinguished professor of biology Jim Ehleringer co-founded a spinoff company, IsoForensics, in 2001 to bring the power of isotope science to criminal cases.

Cerling and Ehleringer also founded IsoCamp, an annual two-week short course that they started in 1996 to teach colleagues the theory and methods of stable isotope analysis. The course, which is now held at the University of New Mexico, has trained nearly 1,000 scientists from around the world in the use of stable isotopes for widespread applications in physical and life sciences; the cumulative impact on the scientific enterprise is incalculable. The American Geophysical Union recognized the unique contributions of IsoCamp with the 2017 Excellence in Earth and Space Science Education Award.

Cerling’s notable list of awards includes the 2020 Emile Argand Award from the International Union of Geological Sciences, awarded only every four years, the 2017 President’s Medal from the Geological Society of America, and the 2012 Utah Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology. He also shared in the 2017 Mineral of the Year award from the International Mineral Association with eight other coauthors for the discovery of the mineral Rowleyite and holds one patent for a “Device and system to reconstruct travel history of an individual.”

He’s also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geochemical Society and the International Association of Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry. He served by presidential appointment on the United States Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board from 2002-2011.

When the U’s Department of Geology & Geophysics needed a new chair in 2016, Cerling placed his name in consideration. When a College of Mines and Earth Sciences administrator asked Cerling why he wanted to be considered for chair, Cerling replied “because it’s my duty, and my turn.” Having benefited from others’ leadership for many years, he felt that he could provide a platform for younger faculty to develop their own successful careers at the U.

He is nearing completion of his second term as chair, having instituted faculty mentorship initiatives, improved faculty hiring and department internal communication, and extended a hand of outreach to the community with a department Open House Night intended for K-12 students and their families, as well as a fellowship that sends Geology and Geosciences grad students into Salt Lake City schools.

Thure Cerling, featured speaker at the Frontiers of Science Lecture Series, College of Science, 2014
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Cerling “encouraged patience and creativity,” a nominator wrote, facilitating the development of digital resources like 3-D models of rocks and minerals and high-resolution photos of field sites that will continue to improve online teaching and accessibility of geological education into the future.

Cerling’s lifelong dedication to advancing scientific understanding and sharing that understanding with students and colleagues is encapsulated in the words of two nominators, who both described Cerling as “widely knowledgeable and endlessly curious.”

About the Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence

The Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence is an endowed award, given annually to a member of the faculty at the University of Utah “to honor excellence in teaching, research and administrative efforts, collectively or individually, on behalf of the university.”

The endowment was created to honor Nathan and Tillie Rosenblatt on the centenary of their immigration to Utah and in recognition of their legacy of civic leadership and generosity. Originally established in 1983, the award was later increased by Joseph and Evelyn Rosenblatt and their family. The endowment and its gifts ensure the annual award of $50,000.

Click here to learn more about the Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence. Click here to watch Dr. Cerling giving the 2014 Frontiers of Science lecture.

This story by Paul Gabrielsen originally appeared May 9, 2022 on @TheU.

How Trees Grow

May 16, 2022

How Trees Grow

William Anderegg

What we’re still learning about how trees grow.

What will happen to the world’s forests in a warming world? Will increased atmospheric carbon dioxide help trees grow? Or will extremes in temperature and precipitation hold growth back? That all depends on whether tree growth is more limited by the amount of photosynthesis or by the environmental conditions that affect tree cell growth—a fundamental question in tree biology, and one for which the answer wasn’t well understood, until now.

A study led by University of Utah researchers, with an international team of collaborators, finds that tree growth does not seem to be generally limited by photosynthesis but rather by cell growth. This suggests that we need to rethink the way we forecast forest growth in a changing climate and that forests in the future may not be able to absorb as much carbon from the atmosphere as we thought.

“A tree growing is like a horse and cart system moving forward down the road,” says William Anderegg, an associate professor in the U’s School of Biological Sciences and principal investigator of the study. “But we basically don’t know if photosynthesis is the horse most often or if it’s cell expansion and division. This has been a longstanding and difficult question in the field. And it matters immensely for understanding how trees will respond to climate change.”

The study is published in Science and is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Arctic Challenge for Sustainability II.

Growth rings - oldest growth is at the top.

Source vs. sink

We learned the basics in elementary school—trees produce their own food through photosynthesis, taking sunlight, carbon dioxide and water and turning it into leaves and wood.

There’s more to the story, though. Converting carbon gained from photosynthesis into wood requires wood cells to expand and divide.

So trees get carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. This is the trees’ carbon source. They then spend that carbon to build new wood cells—the tree’s carbon sink.

If the trees’ growth is source-limited, then it’s limited only by how much photosynthesis the tree can carry out and tree growth would be relatively easy to predict in a mathematical model. So rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should ease that limitation and let trees grow more, right?

But if instead the trees’ growth is sink-limited, then the tree can only grow as fast as its cells can divide. Lots of factors can directly affect both photosynthesis and cell growth rate, including temperature and the availability of water or nutrients. So if trees are sink-limited, simulating their growth has to include the sink response to these factors.

The researchers tested that question by comparing the trees’ source and sink rates at sites in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia. Measuring carbon sink rates was relatively easy—the researchers just collected samples from trees that contained records of growth. “Extracting wood cores from tree stems and measuring the width of each ring on these cores essentially lets us reconstruct past tree growth,” says Antoine Cabon, a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Biological Sciences and lead author of the study.

Measuring carbon sources is tougher, but doable. Source data was measured with 78 eddy covariance towers, 30 feet tall or more, that measure carbon dioxide concentrations and wind speeds in three dimensions at the top of forest canopies, Cabon says. “Based on these measurements and some other calculations,” he says, “we can estimate the total forest photosynthesis of a forest stand.”

Decoupled

The researchers analyzed the data they collected, looking for evidence that tree growth and photosynthesis were processes that are linked, or coupled. They didn’t find it. When photosynthesis increased or decreased, there was not a parallel increase or decrease in tree growth.

“Strong coupling between photosynthesis and tree growth would be expected in the case where tree growth is source limited,” Cabon says. “The fact that we mostly observe a decoupling is our principal argument to conclude that tree growth is not source-limited.”

Surprisingly, the decoupling was seen in environments across the globe. Cabon says they did expect to see some decoupling in some places, but “we did not expect to see such a widespread pattern.”

The strength of coupling or decoupling between two processes can lie on a spectrum, so the researchers were interested in what conditions led to stronger or weaker decoupling. Fruit-bearing and flowering trees, for example, exhibited different source-sink relationships than conifers. More diversity in a forest increased coupling. Dense, covered leaf canopies decreased it.

Finally, coupling between photosynthesis and growth increased in warm and wet conditions, with the opposite also true: that in cold and dry conditions, trees are more limited by cell growth.

Cabon says that this last finding suggests that the source vs. sink issue depends on the tree’s environment and climate. “This means that climate change may reshape the distribution of source and sink limitations of the world forests,” he says.

A new way to look forward

The key takeaway is that vegetation models, which use mathematical equations and plant characteristics to estimate future forest growth, may need to be updated. “Virtually all these models assume that tree growth is source limited,” Cabon says.

For example, he says, current vegetation models predict that forests will thrive with higher atmospheric carbon dioxide. “The fact that tree growth is often sink limited means that for many forests this may not actually happen.”

That has additional implications: forests currently absorb and store about a quarter of our current carbon dioxide emissions. If forest growth slows down, so do forests’ ability to take in carbon, and their ability to slow climate change.

Find the full study @ science.org.

Other authors of the study include Steven A. Kannenberg, University of Utah; Altaf Arain and Shawn McKenzie, McMaster University; Flurin Babst, Soumaya Belmecheri and David J. Moore, University of Arizona; Dennis Baldocchi, University of California, Berkeley; Nicolas Delpierre, Université Paris-Saclay; Rossella Guerrieri, University of Bologna; Justin T. Maxwell, Indiana University Bloomington; Frederick C. Meinzer and David Woodruff, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station; Christoforos Pappas, Université du Québec à Montréal; Adrian V. Rocha, University of Notre Dame; Paul Szejner, National Autonomous University of Mexico; Masahito Ueyama, Osaka Prefecture University; Danielle Ulrich, Montana State University; Caroline Vincke, Université Catholique de Louvain; Steven L. Voelker, Michigan Technological University and Jingshu Wei, Polish Academy of Sciences.

 

- by Paul Gabrielsen, first published in @theU

 

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George Seifert

May 8, 2022

George Seifert

George Seifert

The Winningest coach in San Francisco 49er’s History.

George Seifert began his professional coaching career in 1977 as a defensive assistant to head coach Bill Walsh. After nine years and three Super Bowl championships with Walsh, Seifert was appointed Head Coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 1989

They were big shoes to fill for the unassuming defensive specialist and defensive backfield coach standing on the sidelines wearing his signature windbreaker and poker face, and not everyone thought he was up to it. “My wife told me, ‘George don’t screw it up,’” Seifert has reported, “so I did everything I could not to screw it up.”

Coach Seifert “was every bit the innovator on the defensive side of the ball as Bill Walsh was on the offensive side of the ball,” said Matt Maiocco of Comcast SportsNet on the occasion of Seifert’s induction into the 49ers Hall of Fame in 2014. “He kept that ship steady.”

The Bay Area native always loved football and, while attending San Francisco Polytechnic High School, conveniently opposite Kezar Stadium, Seifert’s football coach was quick to get him and his teammates, ostensibly as ushers, to see as much of the 49ers games as possible. “I don’t remember doing much ushering,” Seifert confesses. “It was just a way to get a free pass.”

Little did he know then that someday he would be first an assistant coach and then the head coach of his hometown team accompanying the 49ers to no less than five Super Bowl wins.

The early days.

Crossroads of the West

None of this was to happen until after college, however. The Friday before he enrolled in Cal Poly Tech, the University of Utah offered him a football scholarship, filling in for a last-minute cancellation.

He took it. The freshman guard and linebacker found himself on a bus headed for Salt Lake City, the “crossroads of the west.”

“I woke up on the bus,” says the self-described city boy, “when we were passing over the salt flats with the sun coming up and I thought “My god, what did I get myself into?’” By the time the Greyhound rolled up the hill in the foothills of the Wasatch Front, he was relieved as the city and campus were situated in a beautiful almost feral setting.

In 1964 the Utah Utes beat West Virginia 32-6 in the Liberty Bowl, the first bowl game to be held indoors. Seifert says he wasn’t much of a football player, but that he made a better coach, and it had to do with his time at the U. Following graduation, he entered a master’s program in physical education and was a graduate assistant for the football program.

“I was always into football,” he says, but “I loved the teaching aspect of it.”  At age 25, he was hired by Westminster College to reboot its football program, and he clearly had found his bliss. From there he followed U Coach Ray Nagel to the University of Iowa.

When asked why biology, Seifert at first did not know what he wanted to major in, but due to the enthusiasm and expertise of his professors during his first year of general ed, he gravitated to zoology. He recalls stepping outside the old (and now raised) Ballif residence hall in his shorts with binoculars on a Saturday, kiting off to do field research while his “kibitzing” buddies, ready to party, chided him. He didn’t care. He loved the fact that he could step outside his dorm, just below Ft. Douglas, and almost instantly be in the mountains and among wildlife. Even in his shorts and with the friendly ridicule of his dorm mates, he was willing to follow his passion.

Super Bowl Victory Parade

The Coach

After working as an assistant at the University of Iowa, the University of Oregon and Stanford University, Seifert was hired as head coach at Cornell University. It was the late 70s, on the cusp of what Seifert calls the Golden Age of Football.

While at Oregon he recalls standing out on the field with coach Jerry Frei when Bill Bowerman dropped in. At the time, Bowerman who was coaching Steve “Pre” Prefontaine—one of the greatest American track stars of all time—walked up with a prototype of a track shoe he’d developed in his kitchen for artificial turf using his waffle iron. The shoe would develop into a Nike standard used not only for football but for virtually every court and field sport. Seifert was there for that little bit of history . . . and what would turn out to be many more.

Following Cornell, in 1977, Seifert returned to Stanford where he first met Bill Walsh destined to become the legendary coach of the 49ers. It wasn’t a straight shot for Seifert, however, to Candlestick Park with Walsh where the 49ers were now playing, even when Walsh moved to the 49ers himself in 1979. The Seiferts stayed on for another year at Palo Alto and were getting ready to move to Green Bay, Wisconsin with an offer to coach the Packers.

“Linda and I were talking up Wisconsin to the kids. Talking about how they would trade sunny California for playing in the snow and making snowmen.” The last minute, he was offered the position as the defense backs coach for the 49ers. “When we told the kids [we were staying] they were so disappointed they went running out of the room, crying.” In 1983 Seifert was promoted to defensive coordinator and in each of the following six seasons he finished in the top ten in fewest points allowed.

photo: Ian Walton/Getty Images

The Faithful

On Seifert’s 49th birthday, the 49ers won Super Bowl XXIII (January 22, 1989), and the following season he was promoted to succeed Walsh as head coach. That was when his wife said that little bit about not screwing it up.

Three superstars later—Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Steve Young—and the team had won two more Super Bowls, one in 1989 and another in 1994. It was indeed the golden years of football, not just for Siefert, but for the entire sport—and, of course, for the SF fans known as “The Faithful.” Seifert references Bill McPherson, defensive coordinator from 1989 to 1993, as “a man of wisdom” and a senior mentor who built the foundation of Seifert’s pro career.

Not only is Seifert one of only 13 NFL head coaches with more than one Super Bowl victory, but in Super Bowl XXIV he became the first rookie head coach to win the championship since Don McCafferty coached the Baltimore Colts to victory in Super Bowl V.

Seifert still holds the record (98) for franchise wins and also the record for winning percentage (76.6%).

Relaxing at home.

The Retiree

Today, Seifert lives with Linda in Nevada where he has returned to nature through fishing and hunting. Whether it’s hunting duck, deer or elk, he loves getting into the outback where he has made friends with ranchers and gets to dig back into his zoological pre-text to seeing and studying life around him.

It helps to have his trusty companions along with him, Cavalier King Charles spaniels Rusty and Dusty who, he says with affection, are just a couple of awesome “ragamuffins.” He still has a place in the North Bay and a boat near where his two children and four grandchildren live and where he exchanges his fly rod for a deep-sea one.

It bears repeating, though, that the circuitous route from a sort-of usher at Kezar Stadium as a boy to a college football player and biology major at the U and then to the art (and sport) of teaching, was one that not only presented itself to Seifert but was that intrinsic thing he chose to embrace fully. There are many people, many former players and many fans—especially in San Francisco “Faithful”–who are glad he did. To watch the tributes roll in during his recorded induction into the 49ers Hall of Fame is both inspiring and moving. Even Steve Young, who in 2020 (KNBR radio) reflected on his (in)famous tongue lashing of his coach on national television during a home game with Philadelphia after Seifert pulled him from the game, said, “I give George so much credit, for just staring out, straight ahead and letting that wind just go by like nothing.”

The Philosopher

That said, Seifert has said in interviews about everyone he’s coached that “If a player has the sense that you can make them better they will go through the wall for you.” You can see how the teaching and coaching ethic of George Seifert came to the fore as early as his sojourn at the U and how he never wavered from it. (Perhaps even his beloved superstitious behaviors as head coach started there as well?)

Not one to hold grudges, Seifert’s signature rigid demands on his players coupled with that expressionless face on the sidelines of a hotly-contested game are surface to something deeper. His hard-edged exterior obviously works with his players, but it can be underscored by humility. He knew, for example, when his predecessor retired that it was going to be a tall order, and he was visibly moved when asked about it. Things did not always come easy for him, as when Walsh earlier overlooked him when Walsh left Stanford for the big league.

Seifert seems to know how to take these defeats and even humiliations on the chin, including his untimely resignation from the 49ers in January 1997 when it was clear the team was not going to renew his contract, as well as, two years later, as coach for and de-facto general manager of the Carolina Panthers.

From his home base, split between Nevada and the North Bay, Seifert has watched with gratification as the University of Utah Football Program has expanded and grown into a “new environment.” He’s watched with interest as head coach Kyle Whittingham, despite heavy recruiting from other teams, decided on Siefert’s alma mater. The U’s first time ever at the Rose Bowl this past January, is strong evidence that, in the Pac-12 and nationally, the Utah Utes are a force to be reckoned with.

As for the pandemic, Seifert will tell you he’s become more philosophical during this disruptive time now entering its third year. He is old enough (82) to remember the hard times that this country has seen before, especially military conflicts overseas—the impacts of WWII, the Korean Conflict and Vietnam when there was enormous uncertainty, death and pain. And he’s a biologist and now master teacher enough to know that this too shall pass.

“That’s the beauty of life,” he says, while clearly never underplaying its challenges. Change and even death are part of it.

 

by David Pace, first published @biology.utah.edu

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National Academy of Sciences

May 3, 2022

National Academy of Sciences

Erik Jorgensen elected as member of the National Academy of Sciences.

When explaining his work, Erik Jorgensen, a geneticist who studies the synapse, can transport you to an almost galactic place–the observable universe of the brain. “Synapses are contacts between nerve cells in your brain,” says the School of Biological Sciences’ distinguished professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator who May 3, 2022 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

“You have trillions of them. Think of all the stars you can see on a moonless night on Bald Mountain,” he continues, referring to the 11,949-foot peak in the nearby Uinta Mountains. ‘Multiply that by 100 billion. I will give you a few minutes to do the calculation. …That’s how many synapses you have – the brain can hold and process a lot of information with all of those synapses. Your grandmother lives there.” Scientists want to know how synapses work, says Jorgensen, “understand how they change to store a memory, and how they become corrupted when we forget, or why they die as we pass into dementia.”

Lighting the way for a future scientist.

"It ends up that light is too big to see the structure of a synapse. That is why we use a different subatomic particle-an electron-to visualize the structure of the synapse. We use electron microscopes."

 

As of 2020, Jorgensen has been a collaborator in the National Science Foundation-funded Neuronex 2 Project, and he knows what it takes to understand these elusive, minute gaps between nerve cells. “We need to be able to see them,” he says, “to study their architecture, and track the proteins in the synapse. How can we do that? It ends up that light is too big to see the structure of a synapse. Light is made of photons, and photons are–well, too light–they have no mass; they vibrate too much to detect objects smaller than their vibrations. That is why we use a different subatomic particle-an electron-to visualize the structure of the synapse. We use electron microscopes.”

Along with Jorgensen, the international consortium includes scientists at the University of Texas in Austin and the UofU’s Bryan Jones who studies neural connections in the retina at the Moran Eye Center’s Marclab for Connectomics. The four interdisciplinary teams share reagents, methods and data to work together to characterize the formation of synapses, their function and their decline using electron microscopes.

“Biology is experiencing a great expansion in electron microscopy,” says Jorgensen,”because of some quite amazing improvements in the capabilities of electron microscopes. We can move in closer-advancements in resolution allow us to determine the atomic structure of protein complexes. Or we can stand back to see vast fields of synapses and their interconnections.

“The University of Utah and its leadership have invested in these new technologies, and we have become a leading institution in the world exploring this new terrain of biology.” Jorgensen and Jones are part of a collection of teams receiving more than $50 million over five years as part of the NSF’s Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience program (NeuroNex). A total of 70 researchers, representing four countries, will investigate aspects of how brains work and interact with the environment around them.

Erik Jorgensen's election to the NAS, arguably the most prestigious award of its kind, speaks to the kind of mind-blowing inquiry into neurology he's known for. It also validates Jorgensen's inner galactic allusion to locating where your grandmother suffering from severe dementia lives along with "your childhood friends, embarrassment, fear, love, and hate."

Read more at nasaonline.org.

 

By David Pace, first published @ biology.utah.edu.

 

Outstanding Post-Doc

April 20, 2022

Outstanding Post-Doc

Julie Jung has received an Outstanding Post-Doctoral Fellow Award from the College of Science.

Julie Jung spent much of her time in high school roaming greenhouses working for a wheat lab at the USDA. Since then, she has pivoted her research to ecology, having worked first with owls, songbirds, chipmunks and pollinators within New England's deciduous forests.

Following graduation with honors in Biology from Williams College, Jung found herself on a plane to Panama to do field work at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute as a graduate student in biology. There she spent the next several rainy seasons studying how red-eyed treefrogs escape hatch in response to snake vibrations.

Julie Jung

"I was so excited to have been peed on by a titi monkey while walking to lab."

 

"I was so excited to have been peed on by a titi monkey while walking to lab," she remembers. During the course of getting her doctorate from Boston University, Jung slowly grew into her role as a behavioral biologist.

As winner of this year's College of Science's "Outstanding Post-Doc Award," Jung has found a scientific home in the Werner Lab still studying the phenomenon of "phenotypic plasticity"—or how the same genotype produces distinct phenotypes depending on environmental conditions—but this time in nematodes.

Jung's NSF-funded research hopes to establish a general model of plasticity across diverse systems. The pivot from field to bench work has been jarring but only partial—as she and her lab members still get out to the Great Salt Lake to collect soil specimens.

Outside of research, Julie Jung loves to climb mountains and practice the salsa dancing skills she picked up in Panama.

by David Pace, first published @ biology.utah.edu

 

Patrick Newman

April 4, 2022

Patrick Newman

Fort Worth Botanic Garden

As a boy in growing up in Bountiful, Patrick Newman took a bite of a plant he would never forget.

It tasted just like black licorice, which he loved. “I remember being struck at that moment as an 8-year-old boy thinking, ‘Plants can taste like things — what else can plants do?’” says Newman in an article in the Fort Worth Report. “That sort of set me on a path of inquiry and, as a youth, I devoured science.”

“I came to the UofU to be a doctor, and was content with that decision and path until I took a plant physiology class from Leslie Sieburth,” he says of the plant biologist who studies pathologies in arabadopsis. Currently, with Neil Vickers, she is also Co-Director of what is now the School of Biological Sciences. “That course changed my perspective of biology, refocused my interests, and altered my career path—all of which I am extremely grateful for.”

Following graduation from SBS with a BA in 2003, he joined the Peace Corps, volunteering in the Republic of Azerbaijan teaching science and English. Once he’d located a greenhouse there, he started teaching the students about plants and gardening. Following his stint with the Corps, he returned to the U for graduate school—he has an MPA,’10, from the UofU—and to work at Red Butte Garden.

Patrick Newman

After ten years at Red Butte he became the Executive Director of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, TX. Then, in 2020, he was recruited to lead the merger of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) and the Fort Worth Botanical Garden (FWBG).

As President and CEO of BRIT, one of the largest centers for botanical exploration and discovery in the United States, Newman heads up the executive team of the new organization bringing together BRIT’s fundraising, education, and world-class research capabilities with the Garden’s historically significant grounds, event facilities, and horticultural expertise.

Located in the heart of the Fort Worth Cultural District, just minutes from downtown, BRIT’s combined 120-acre campus offers stunning garden views, exciting exhibits, gift shops, and a café. Visitors can spend the day strolling through the Japanese Garden with its koi-filled pools, sculptured hillsides, crafted stonework and dramatic waterfalls. Nearby, one can visit the iconic Rose Garden, with a terraced ramp featuring paths that wind past colorful flower beds amidst a cascade of water down the center.

The Fort Worth Botanic Garden was established in 1934 and is the oldest major botanic garden in Texas. It contains a collection of more than 2,500 species of plants. Long celebrated for its beautiful tropical, rose, and Japanese gardens, the FWBG is composed of 25 specialty garden spaces, including a tropical conservatory, a public perennial trial garden, and naturalized areas and vistas.

Next door, at the BRIT campus, visitors learn more about botanical research through art galleries, libraries, plant collections and science-related exhibits. An international scientific research and learning center, BRIT has a mission to conserve our natural-world heritage by sharing knowledge of the plant world and helping the public understand the value plants bring to life.

Fort Worth Botanic Garden

It would seem to be a perfect job for Newman whose early passion for plant biology coupled with his Master’s Degree in Public Administration has led him to a research institute which serves as a think tank and a catalyst in conservation. Additionally, FWBG | BRIT knows that education is lifelong. “We are dedicated to inspiring nature-lovers of all ages to explore the world around them, discover new interests, and engage their communities in positive change,” reads their website. “… We strive to introduce community members to the wonders of plants and ecology, the importance of conservation and sustainability, and social-emotional learning.”

Newman talks fondly of the friendships he made while at the University of Utah, as well as his avid running career; to date, he has completed 48 marathons in 29 states.

Clearly, however, his passion lies in the world of plants and the broader context of the eco-system that many believe is currently under not only the singular threat of global warming, but the degradation of the planet’s bio-diversity.

“More than ever before,” he says, “the planet needs well-educated and passionate advocates of biodiversity conservation. It also needs an increase of kindness and compassion. The University of Utah and U Biology are the perfect proving ground to develop those attributes in future scholars, doctors, leaders and humanitarians.”

His advice to students? “Take full advantage of all that the U has to offer. And remember that biology is really the study of plants and everything that parasitizes them.”

By David Pace, first published @ biology.utah.edu

 

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Savannah Romney

March 30, 2022

Savannah Romney

Savannah Romney is a double-major in biology and math at the University of Utah.

Savannah participated in the ACCESS Scholars scholarship program for entering first-year students who are dedicated to expanding science education to all sectors of our society, including to women who traditionally have had a harder time breaking “the glass ceiling.” She appears to have shattered that ceiling (so wear your shoes … there’s glass everywhere!)

A Utah native, Savannah commutes to school every day from Draper where she works in the Parkinson lab studying e-coli.

“During my ACCESS year, I have gained confidence in my abilities as a student, leader and scientist,” she says. Savannah talks about how ACCESS connected her with peers who share her passion for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and learning in general. The ACCESS network now includes “Some of my best friends!” she says.

She reminds young people who are considering a university education that life at the U is “fast paced, so balancing academics with your personal life is so important.”

Her favorite ACCESS social was the Star Party at the U’s observatory atop the physics building where the night sky is brought into high relief for researchers and students alike.

“While transitioning to college can be intimidating,” she says, it is comforting to know you are not alone. ACCESS Scholars connected me with the very best advisors, mentors, and peers/friends I could ever hope for!”

To conclude, she says that “if you’re passionate about STEM and want to enhance your college experience, ACCESS Scholars is for you!”

 

by David Pace, first published @biology.utah.edu

Audrey Brown

March 25, 2022

Audrey Brown

Audrey Brown

“One of the biggest things that helped me was connecting with my loved ones.”

When the pandemic first emerged in early 2020 Audrey Brown, HBS’21, found that online classes were novel at first, “but I quickly found myself losing motivation and becoming depressed/anxious due to the day-to-day Zoom monotony and the never-ending doomsday news on social media.” As part of the covid or Zoom college generation, Brown could have put her academic career on hold, pivoted away from a college education… in short given up. But several supportive people, programs and institutions helped her navigate through this singular moment.

“One of the biggest things that helped me early on, the Bountiful native says, “was focusing on connecting with my loved ones. Even something so simple as getting out of my house to go on a walk with my mom was a huge help. I also had to learn to let go of things that were out of my control, and disconnect from the news that was feeding into my anxieties.” Needless to say, those anxieties extended beyond the coronavirus pandemic and included political and social strife unlike most of us can remember in the United States. Then there were challenges from the natural world: a devastating windstorm and the earthquake of 2020.

Aside from family, Brown found support from a bevy of awards and scholarships through the University, College and School of Biological Sciences. Yes, financial help was important, but so was the acknowledgment that came with awards like the AChemS Award for Undergraduate Research, Association for Chemoreception Sciences, 2020; the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Scholar award (UROP); and an Independent REU project award, Department of Mathematics where Brown had matriculated along with her major in biology.

A four-year Presidential scholarship, a Utah Regent’s Scholarship and a College of Science Dean’s scholarship both facilitated and rewarded her achievements, culminating in her graduation with honors, magna cum laude. She even received a marching band performance scholarship during the 2018/19 academic year.

The ACCESS cohort.

Another scholarship, however, was just the tip of an iceberg of networking opportunities and a kind of mentoring that can help young women in STEM, like Brown. That program was ACCESS Scholars, a College of Science initiative now in its thirty-fifth year that represents women and individuals from all dimensions of diversity who embody the program values of excellence, leadership, and gender equity.
Brown claims that the program “jumpstarted my research career and increased my appreciation for science as a whole.” The summer after graduating high school she took an interdisciplinary STEM course which introduced her to diverse scientific topics and where she gained an appreciation for the vast amount of research done at the University of Utah.

Today, she has stayed closely involved with the program and has served as a teaching assistant (TA), mentor, and curriculum developer. The ACCESS program places each student in a research lab where they gain firsthand scientific experience by completing a personal research project. Brown was placed with Dr. Alla Borisyuk, a professor in the Department of Mathematics, and studied the olfactory system. This was done in collaboration with and using the data from the Wachowiak lab at the University of Utah, a lab she joined a couple years later, and stayed in for the remainder of her undergraduate career. “I’m forever grateful that I had the opportunity to be exposed to research early on. I quickly fell in love with it and am excited to continue as I work on my PhD.”

That’s right. Brown is now a candidate for her doctorate in biology. She is just finishing up a rotation in which she gains experience in three different labs before deciding where she will spend the remainder of her career as a graduate student.

And the pandemic, of course, has turned into an endurance test for everyone, including Brown. Two years in and she’s added to her repertoire of coping mechanisms. “I try to remind myself of all the positive things that have happened in my life over these past two years, some of which (ironically) never would have happened if the world hadn’t shut down. Rather than dwell on what might have been, I’ve been pushing myself to look for the positives and be grateful for the good in my life. I think that my advice for anyone struggling to find motivation due to the pandemic (or otherwise) would be to focus on finding positives in life, and in connecting with the people in your own circle of influence.”

"I still play the flute as often as I can"

Brown also finds solace and refuge in music. She plays the flute and the piano. “Music is still one of my favorite hobbies, so I intend to make it a part of my future, though I am no longer in any formal ensembles. I still enjoy playing the flute as often as I can and learning new pieces. I have several family members that also play the flute and I enjoy playing with them on occasion. And I am constantly listening to music of all different genres.’

When she’s not rotating through a variety of Molecular, Cellular and Evolutionary Biology labs, she reads. She recently completed “A Pocket Full of Rye” by Agatha Christie, and “Howl’s Moving Castle,” the fantasy novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones, later made into a celebrated animated film. “Currently, I’m reading ‘Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst’ by Robert Sapolsky, in order to scratch a non-fiction itch I’ve had for a while.” But she concedes along with a whole generation (or two), “My favorite book(s) are the Harry Potter series. I’ve read them several times. They are my ‘go-to’ when I have run out of other things to read.”

Brown considers her grandfather to be her inspiration, even her hero. “My grandfather spent most of his career working for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) research service. He worked on broadening the genetic basis of sugar beet crops by breeding hybrids from wild sugar beet strains.” At the time, the genetic basis for most sugar beet crops was very narrow, making them susceptible to diseases and changing environmental conditions. “His goal was to develop strains with increased disease resistance,” Brown says, “and increased sugar yield. He also investigated the possibility of developing a ‘fuel beet’—a hybrid sugar beet used for making bioethanol.”

The legacy of a grandfather’s example and hard scientific work may not be genetically passed on to a grandchild, but it is, nevertheless, deeply influential for Audrey Brown as the first year of graduate school closes in.

By David Pace, first published @ biology.utah.edu

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