Source: UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING submitted to
GRADUATE STUDENT TRAINING AND RESEARCH IN THE MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR LIFE SCIENCES
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1012152
Grant No.
(N/A)
Project No.
WYO-582-17
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Feb 9, 2017
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2021
Grant Year
(N/A)
Project Director
Gatlin, JE, (J.
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
1000 E UNIVERSITY AVE DEPARTMENT 3434
LARAMIE,WY 82071-2000
Performing Department
Molecular Biology
Non Technical Summary
The MCLS Program was created for campus-wide life science faculty and students working in the areas of molecular and cellular biology. As such, the primary goal of the MCLS program is to strengthen graduate education in the molecular and cellular life sciences and to provide a framework for increased competitiveness, retention, and productivity for students, faculty, and the university as a whole. Modeled after standard biomedical training programs, MCLS students are required to take courses and conduct "rotations" in faculty labs during their first intensive year.The investigators listed in this proposal represent the subset of MCLS faculty members who are also faculty in in the Molecular Biology Department within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. This group was selected because the Molecular Biology Department is UW's founder and leader of the MCLS program. This subset of investigators also serves as an excellent example of how the research being pursued in their representative labs has a large breadth of potential implications for drug discovery, diseases of livestock, food safety, crop improvement and water quality, as well as science outreach. Many of the projects being conducted are also collaborative with other departments and other universities. The physical and intellectual environment necessary to sustain this work and to ensure a healthy and vigorous research enterprise within the life sciences community at UW is based on a common need for top-tier and well-trained graduate students.
Animal Health Component
73%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
60%
Applied
30%
Developmental
10%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1020110107010%
2012410108010%
3113999103040%
7121420110310%
1330199110310%
3133399102010%
5114020108010%
Goals / Objectives
The MCLS Program was created for campus-wide life science faculty and students working in the areas of molecular and cellular biology. Its primary goal is to strengthen graduate education in the molecular and cellular life sciences and to provide a framework for increased competitiveness, retention, and productivity for students, faculty, and the university as a whole in the agricultural sciences. Objectives:To support ongoing studies of livestock disease, molecular genetics of animal disease, crop improvement, energy and materials science and science outreach, by recruiting and providing excellent graduate students to conduct research in molecular and cell biology.To enable collaboration among faculty members within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and support new faculty members by providing a functional research environment.To provide a venue for science outreach to students, teachers and the community.
Project Methods
The investigators listed in this proposal represent the subset of MCLS faculty members who are also faculty in in the Molecular Biology Department within the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. This group was selected because the research being pursued in their representative labs has a large breadth of potential impact with implications for drug discovery, diseases of livestock, food safety, crop improvement and water quality, as well as science outreach. Many of the projects being conducted are also collaborative with other departments and other universities. The physical and intellectual environment necessary to sustain this work and to ensure a healthy and vigorous research enterprise within the life sciences community at UW is based on a common need for top-tier and well-trained graduate students.Modeled after standard biomedical training programs, MCLS students are required to take courses and conduct "rotations" in faculty labs during their first intensive year. Thereafter, they are supported by external funding and mentored by an MCLS faculty member, i.e. investigator, until conferment of a PhD. From its inception, MCLS was designed to foster meaningful student mentoring and to provide valid criteria for assessing student progress and performance. Student progress is managed by the MCLS Executive Committee which consists of the MCLS administrative team (the MCLS Director, the Director of Students, the Director of Administration, and the Director of Admissions) as well as members of the MCLS admissions committee. This team meets at least twice a year and evaluates student progress by conducting mid-year and end-of-year evaluations. Students who would receive a Hatch-funded stipend are assessed based on their performance in laboratory rotations and Student Seminar (students critically evaluate a scientific publication authored by a visiting researcher who gives a seminar as part of the Molecular Biology Departmental Seminar Series). Hatch funds will not be used for student tuition or fees.To date, the majority of our mentoring efforts have been focused on first-year students. We believe that providing early-career students with explicit information on how to be successful has the greatest impact. Furthermore, by pointing them in the right direction and making our expectations clear, we can more accurately and rigorously assess their performance. This leads to insights into ways to improve our teaching and program design. It also provides a fair and transparent mechanism for removing students that fail to meet expectations.Our emphasis on mentorship in the first year is both a philosophical and a practical matter. Once students join a permanent lab in May of their first year, most mentor efforts become the responsibility of their Ph.D. advisors, senior lab colleagues, and committee members. This is a common feature of graduate education. However, this issue is even more acute in a multidisciplinary umbrella program such as MCLS, where participating faculty members and their labs are geographically dispersed and further separated by scientific discipline and culture.In addition to carrying out the necessary work of student recruiting and evaluation, members of the MCLS steering committees meet at regular intervals to discuss issues related to program policy and graduate education. We have recently begun discussing meaningful ways in which we might formalize our expectations for mentoring by MCLS faculty. In addition, we will explore ways to further make the MCLS program more cohesive and integrated over the full duration of the degree.

Progress 02/09/17 to 09/30/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Intramural audience: Thus far, this proposal has helped to fund a total of 24 doctoral students. At present, 17 students are still in the program (4 fourth-year students, 5 third-year students, 3 second-year students, and 5 first-year students). In addition to these students, the broader life science community at the University of Wyoming (UW) can be considered a target audience that has been reached and/or affected by this project. First-year students are required to present their research projects, conducted as part of the program, to the broader life-science community at UW. Each student gives two seminars during their first-year as part of the Molecular Biology Monday Seminar Series. These are opportunities for students to convey recent findings to the entire MCLS faculty and anyone else from UW interested in attending. Second- and third-year students serve as graduate assistants for upper level courses, typically in the molecular biology and life sciences departments, and thus reach a large audience of undergraduate students on the campus. Extramural audience: Many of the MCLS faculty listed as co-PIs on this project (and three new faculty co-PIs that came on board last year) have actively participated in outreach activities geared toward educating scientific and general audiences about their scientific research. Most MCLS PIs give an average of 2-3 invited seminars throughout the country and world per year. By this math, this NIFA proposal has enabled its funded faculty to present work at over 100 different research institutions and audiences. Additional outreach activities come in the form of posters presented at regional and national conferences. Typically, co-PIs provide funding for each of the students they supervise to attend one regional conference per year. For example, Professors Levy and Gatlin brought a total of 6 MCLS program graduate students to the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology, which due to COVID restrictions, was held remotely this past year. Each of the students presented their projects in the form of informational posters or talks (via Zoom) to faculty and other graduate students and scientists. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Although the main goal of the first-year laboratory rotations is for students and faculty to evaluate the potential "fit" for conducting future thesis research in a given lab, these research experiences also provide tremendous exposure and training to each student in state-of-the-art research techniques and instrumentation. In terms of professional development, the MCLS Cornerstone class, which is a required element of the MCLS curriculum, provides information to students about how to best take advantage of the opportunities provided by the MCLS program. It also covers topics related to career planning (both industrial and academic routes), scientific writing, research ethics, and grantsmanship. Most thesis advisors provide opportunities for students in their labs to attend regional, national, or international scientific meetings. Typically, this equates to one meeting a year for students to present their work via seminar or poster and attend various seminars and workshops related to their specific scientific interests and career development respectively. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?As mentioned previously, the main form of communication in science is through publication of peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals. However, the MCLS program requires each first-year student to present the projects from two of their four rotations in a public forum. These seminars are open to the public and well-attended. Furthermore, students are provided feedback by all audience members in the form of standardized, written evaluations. Second- and third-year students are also required to present research seminars on work from their dissertation labs. These seminars are also open to the public and the audience is again encouraged to provide feedback in the form of standardized, written evaluations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Over the past four years of funding under this grant, a total of 24 PhD-level graduate students matriculated into the MCLS (5 in 2017; 5 in 2018; 6 in 2019; 7 in 2020). Of these students, only one has yet to graduate, which is not terribly surprising in that the duration of a typical PhD stint in the life sciences is about 5 to 6 years. However, we are just now realizing the fruits of their training, and students who matriculated during the first and second years of funding for this grant have now begun to publish peer-reviewed articles, the major "output" of the scientific community and, as such, a major determinant in the competitiveness for federal funding. These include (bold text demarks students and faculty directly funded by this proposal whereas italicized text denotes other MCLS students/faculty): VukovicLD, Chen P, Mishra S, White KH, Gigley JP,Levy DL.Nuclear Transport Factor 2 (NTF2) suppresses WM983B metastatic melanoma by modifying cell migration, metastasis, and gene expression.Sci Rep. 2021 Dec 8;11(1):23586. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-02803-0.PMID:34880267. Balagam R, Cao P, Sah GP, Zhang Z, Subedi K,Wall D, Igoshin OA.Emergent Myxobacterial Behaviors Arise from Reversal Suppression Induced by Kin Contacts.mSystems. 2021 Dec 21;6(6):e0072021. doi: 10.1128/mSystems.00720-21. Epub 2021 Dec 7.PMID:34874770. Vassallo CN, Sah GP, Weltzer ML,Wall D.Modular Lipoprotein Toxins Transferred by Outer Membrane Exchange Target Discrete Cell Entry Pathways.mBio. 2021 Oct 26;12(5):e0238821. doi: 10.1128/mBio.02388-21. Epub 2021 Sep 14.PMID:34517761. Liu Y, Block E, Squier J,Oakey J.Investigating low salinity waterflooding via glass micromodels with triangular pore-throat architectures.Fuel (Lond). 2021 Jan 1;283:119264. doi: 10.1016/j.fuel.2020.119264. Epub 2020 Sep 30.PMID:33408422. Binti S, Melinda RV, Joseph BB, Edeen PT, Miller SD,Fay DS.A life cycle alteration can correct molting defects in Caenorhabditis elegans.Dev Biol. 2022 Mar;483:143-156. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2022.01.001. Epub 2022 Jan 15.PMID:35038442. Wesley CC, Mishra S, Levy DL. Organelle size scaling over embryonic development. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Dev Biol. 2020 Sep;9(5):e376. doi: 10.1002/wdev.376. Epub 2020 Jan 31. PMID: 32003549; PMCID: PMC7513452. van der Linden CJ, Gupta P, Bhuiya AI, Riddick KR, Hossain K, Santoro SW. Olfactory Stimulation Regulates the Birth of Neurons That Express Specific Odorant Receptors. Cell Rep. 2020 Oct 6;33(1):108210. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108210. PMID: 33027656; PMCID: PMC7569022. Geisterfer ZM, Oakey J, Gatlin JC. Microfluidic encapsulation ofXenopus laeviscell-free extracts using hydrogel photolithography. STAR Protoc. 2020 Dec 11;1(3):100221. doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2020.100221. PMID: 33377113; PMCID: PMC7757658. Geisterfer ZM, Zhu DY, Mitchison TJ, Oakey J, Gatlin JC. Microtubule Growth Rates Are Sensitive to Global and Local Changes in Microtubule Plus-End Density. Curr Biol. 2020 Aug 3;30(15):3016-3023.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.056. Epub 2020 Jun 11. PMID: 32531285; PMCID: PMC7416492. Vassallo CN, Troselj V, Weltzer ML, Wall D. Rapid diversification of wild social groups driven by toxin-immunity loci on mobile genetic elements. ISME J. 2020 Oct;14(10):2474-2487. doi: 10.1038/s41396-020-0699-y. Epub 2020 Jun 22. PMID: 32565537; PMCID: PMC7490427. Debroy D, Liu J, Li-Oakey K, Oakey J. Structured Hydrogel Particles With Nanofabricated Interfaces via Controlled Oxygen Inhibition. IEEE Trans Nanobioscience. 2019 Apr;18(2):253-256. doi: 10.1109/TNB.2019.2905489. Epub 2019 Mar 15. PMID: 30892223; PMCID: PMC6520256. In total, this award has also supported over 70 12-week-long research rotation projects thathave been conducted in the laboratories of many of the co-PIs listed of this project as well as those of research faculty in Zoology/Physiology, Pharmacology, and Chemical Engineering Departments here at the University of Wyoming. Additionally, all 24 students have completed one semester of required coursework which includes the MCLS Cornerstone Course (a course designed to (i) help navigate graduate students through their first-year of the program and (ii) provide a foundation for career- path planning); Advanced Topics in Molecular Biology Seminar (a course in which students discuss scientific papers written by top-researchers from across the US and then attend a weekly seminar by the same invited researcher); and lastly Biochemistry I (a course intended to soundly ground all students in topics and techniques related to molecular biology and biochemistry). Of the 24 students who matriculated during NIFA funding, 16 are currently still active with many having started independent research projects under the mentorship of MCLS faculty members including co-PIs on this grant.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Wesley CC, Mishra S, Levy DL. Organelle size scaling over embryonic development. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Dev Biol. 2020 Sep;9(5):e376. doi: 10.1002/wdev.376. Epub 2020 Jan 31. PMID: 32003549; PMCID: PMC7513452.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: van der Linden CJ, Gupta P, Bhuiya AI, Riddick KR, Hossain K, Santoro SW. Olfactory Stimulation Regulates the Birth of Neurons That Express Specific Odorant Receptors. Cell Rep. 2020 Oct 6;33(1):108210. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108210. PMID: 33027656; PMCID: PMC7569022.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Geisterfer ZM, Oakey J, Gatlin JC. Microfluidic encapsulation of Xenopus laevis cell-free extracts using hydrogel photolithography. STAR Protoc. 2020 Dec 11;1(3):100221. doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2020.100221. PMID: 33377113; PMCID: PMC7757658.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Geisterfer ZM, Zhu DY, Mitchison TJ, Oakey J, Gatlin JC. Microtubule Growth Rates Are Sensitive to Global and Local Changes in Microtubule Plus-End Density. Curr Biol. 2020 Aug 3;30(15):3016-3023.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.056. Epub 2020 Jun 11. PMID: 32531285; PMCID: PMC7416492.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Vassallo CN, Troselj V, Weltzer ML, Wall D. Rapid diversification of wild social groups driven by toxin-immunity loci on mobile genetic elements. ISME J. 2020 Oct;14(10):2474-2487. doi: 10.1038/s41396-020-0699-y. Epub 2020 Jun 22. PMID: 32565537; PMCID: PMC7490427.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Debroy D, Liu J, Li-Oakey K, Oakey J. Structured Hydrogel Particles With Nanofabricated Interfaces via Controlled Oxygen Inhibition. IEEE Trans Nanobioscience. 2019 Apr;18(2):253-256. doi: 10.1109/TNB.2019.2905489. Epub 2019 Mar 15. PMID: 30892223; PMCID: PMC6520256.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Binti S, Melinda RV, Joseph BB, Edeen PT, Miller SD, Fay DS. A life cycle alteration can correct molting defects in Caenorhabditis elegans. Dev Biol. 2022 Mar;483:143-156. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2022.01.001. Epub 2022 Jan 15.PMID: 35038442
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Vassallo CN, Sah GP, Weltzer ML, Wall D.mBio. Modular Lipoprotein Toxins Transferred by Outer Membrane Exchange Target Discrete Cell Entry Pathways.2021 Oct 26;12(5):e0238821. doi: 10.1128/mBio.02388-21. Epub 2021 Sep 14.PMID: 34517761
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Balagam R, Cao P, Sah GP, Zhang Z, Subedi K, Wall D, Igoshin OA.mSystems. Emergent Myxobacterial Behaviors Arise from Reversal Suppression Induced by Kin Contacts.2021 Dec 21;6(6):e0072021. doi: 10.1128/mSystems.00720-21. Epub 2021 Dec 7.PMID: 34874770
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Vukovi? LD, Chen P, Mishra S, White KH, Gigley JP, Levy DL. Nuclear Transport Factor 2 (NTF2) suppresses WM983B metastatic melanoma by modifying cell migration, metastasis, and gene expression. Sci Rep. 2021 Dec 8;11(1):23586. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-02803-0.PMID: 34880267
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Liu Y, Block E, Squier J, Oakey J.Fuel (Lond). Investigating low salinity waterflooding via glass micromodels with triangular pore-throat architectures.2021 Jan 1;283:119264. doi: 10.1016/j.fuel.2020.119264. Epub 2020 Sep 30.PMID: 33408422


Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Intramural audience: At present, 17 students have been funded bythe program (4 fourth-year students, 5 third-year students, 3 second-year students, and 5 first-year students). In addition to these students, the broader life science community at the University of Wyoming (UW) can be considered a target audience that has been reached and/or affected by this project. First-year students are required to present their research projects, conducted as part of the program, to the broader life-science community at UW. Each student gives two seminars during their first-year as part of the Molecular Biology Monday Seminar Series. These are opportunities for students to convey recent findings to the entire MCLS faculty and anyone else from UW interested in attending. Second- and third-year students serve as graduate assistants for upper level courses, typically in the molecular biology and life sciences departments, and thus reach a large audience of undergraduate students on the campus. Extramural audience: Many of the MCLS faculty listed as co-PIs on this project (and three new faculty co-PIs that came on board last year) have actively participated in outreach activities geared toward educating scientific and general audiences about their scientific research. Most MCLS PIs give an average of 2-3 invited seminars throughout the country and world per year. Additional outreach activities come in the form of graduate student posters presented at regional and national conferences. Typically, co-PIs provide funding for each of the students they supervise to attend one regional conference per year. For example, Professors Levy and Gatlin brought a total of 6 MCLS program graduate students to the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology, which due to COVID restrictions, was held remotely this past year. Each of the students presented their projects in the form of informational posters or talks (via Zoom) to faculty and other graduate students and scientists. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Although the main goal of the first-year laboratory rotations is for students and faculty to evaluate the potential "fit" for conducting future thesis research in a given lab, these research experiences also provide tremendous exposure and training to each student in state-of-the-art research techniques and instrumentation. In terms of professional development, the MCLS Cornerstone class, which is a required element of the MCLS curriculum, provides information to students about how to best take advantage of the opportunities provided by the MCLS program. It also covers topics related to career planning (both industrial and academic routes), scientific writing, research ethics, and grantsmanship. Most thesis advisors provide opportunities for students in their labs to attend regional, national, or international scientific meetings. Typically, this equates to one meeting a year for students to present their work via seminar or poster and attend various seminars and workshops related to their specific scientific interests and career development respectively. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?As mentioned previously, the main form of communication in science is through publication of peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals. However, the MCLS program requires each first-year student to present the projects from two of their four rotations in a public forum. These seminars are open to the public and well-attended. Furthermore, students are provided feedback by all audience members in the form of standardized, written evaluations. Second- and third-year students are also required to present research seminars on work from their dissertation labs. These seminars are also open to the public and the audience is again encouraged to provide feedback in the form of standardized, written evaluations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?All first-year students funded by this proposal will be required to take a second semester of course work, which includes two additional laboratory research rotations, Biochemistry II (molecular mechanisms), another semester of Advanced Topics in Molecular Biology Seminar, and an elective of the students choice. The students are also required to present a second research seminar, which is open to the general public. At the end of the Spring semester, the students will be required to take and pass a comprehensive exam. All students will be holistically evaluated by the MCLS program, and those that pass will join their dissertation labs at the start of the summer.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Over the past year of funding under this grant, 6PhD-level graduate students matriculated into the MCLS (totals for the first four years of funding include 5 in 2017; 5 in 2018; 6 in 2019; 6 in 2020). Of these students, none have yet to graduate, which is not terribly surprising in that the duration of a typical PhD stint in the life sciences is about 5 to 6 years. However, we are just now realizing the fruits of their training, and students who matriculated during the first and second years of funding for this grant have now begun to publish peer-reviewed articles, the major "output" of the scientific community and, as such, a major determinant in the competitiveness for federal funding (see products). This year's award has also supported over 24 12-week-long research rotation projects that have been conducted in the laboratories of many of the co-PIs listed of this project as well as those of research faculty in Zoology/Physiology, Pharmacology, and Chemical Engineering Departments here at the University of Wyoming. Additionally, all 6 students have so far completed one semester of required coursework which includes the MCLS Cornerstone Course (a course designed to (i) help navigate graduate students through their first-year of the program and (ii) provide a foundation for career- path planning); Advanced Topics in Molecular Biology Seminar (a course in which students discuss scientific papers written by top- researchers from across the US and then attend a weekly seminar by the same invited researcher); and lastly Biochemistry I (a course intended to soundly ground all students in topics and techniques related to molecular biology and biochemistry). All 6 first-year students remain in good standing in the program.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Wesley CC, Mishra S, Levy DL. Organelle size scaling over embryonic development. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Dev Biol. 2020 Sep;9(5):e376. doi: 10.1002/wdev.376. Epub 2020 Jan 31. PMID: 32003549; PMCID: PMC7513452.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: van der Linden CJ, Gupta P, Bhuiya AI, Riddick KR, Hossain K, Santoro SW. Olfactory Stimulation Regulates the Birth of Neurons That Express Specific Odorant Receptors. Cell Rep. 2020 Oct 6;33(1):108210. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108210. PMID: 33027656; PMCID: PMC7569022.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Geisterfer ZM, Oakey J, Gatlin JC. Microfluidic encapsulation of Xenopus laevis cell-free extracts using hydrogel photolithography. STAR Protoc. 2020 Dec 11;1(3):100221. doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2020.100221. PMID: 33377113; PMCID: PMC7757658.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Geisterfer ZM, Zhu DY, Mitchison TJ, Oakey J, Gatlin JC. Microtubule Growth Rates Are Sensitive to Global and Local Changes in Microtubule Plus-End Density. Curr Biol. 2020 Aug 3;30(15):3016-3023.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.056. Epub 2020 Jun 11. PMID: 32531285; PMCID: PMC7416492.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Debroy D, Liu J, Li-Oakey K, Oakey J. Structured Hydrogel Particles With Nanofabricated Interfaces via Controlled Oxygen Inhibition. IEEE Trans Nanobioscience. 2019 Apr;18(2):253-256. doi: 10.1109/TNB.2019.2905489. Epub 2019 Mar 15. PMID: 30892223; PMCID: PMC6520256.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Vassallo CN, Troselj V, Weltzer ML, Wall D. Rapid diversification of wild social groups driven by toxin-immunity loci on mobile genetic elements. ISME J. 2020 Oct;14(10):2474-2487. doi: 10.1038/s41396-020-0699-y. Epub 2020 Jun 22. PMID: 32565537; PMCID: PMC7490427.


Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:Intramural audience: Thus far, this proposal has helped to fund a total of 17doctoral students. At present, all 16 of those 17 students are still in the program (5 third-year students, 5 second-year students, and 6 new first-year students).In addition to these students, the broader life science community at the University of Wyoming (UW) can be considered a target audience that has been reached and/or affected by this project. First-year students are required to present their research projects, conducted as part of the program, to the broader life-science community at UW. Each student gives two seminars during their first-yearas part of the Molecular Biology Monday Seminar Series. These are opportunities for students to convey recent findings to the entire MCLS faculty and anyone else from UW interested in attending. Second- and third-year students serve as graduate assistants for upper level courses, typically in the molecular biology and life sciences departments, and thus reach a large audience of undergraduate students on the campus. Extramural audience: Many of the MCLS faculty listed as co-PIs on this project (and three new faculty co-PIs that came on board this year) have actively participated in outreach activities geared toward educating scientific and general audiencesabout their scientific research. What follows is a selected list of outreach activities over the course of the last year conducted by the indicated co-PI and presented to the indicated audience: Seminar titled "Engineered Approaches to Study the Mechanics of Microtubule Aster Centration" presented by Jesse Gatlin at the Wyoming INBRE annual meeting to a scientific audience composed of faculty, Laramie, WY Seminar titled "Manipulating "cell" geometry to study spindle assembly and positioning" presented by Jesse Gatlin as part of the Spindle Working Group at the Flatiron Insitute to a scientific audience composed of faculty and studentsin New York, NY Seminar titled "Understanding how cells regulate the size and position of their mitotic machinery: applications of tunable "cell" geometries" presented by Jesse Gatlin as part of the Molecular Biology & Genetics seminar series at Johns Hopkins Medical School to a scientific audience composed of faculty and students in Baltimore, MD Seminar titled "Lessons from Nature: Harnessing the Power of Tardigrades to Save the World" presented by Thomas Boothby to a general audience. TEDX Bermuda. Hamilton, Bermuda. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lJz6JXP6Pg) Seminar titled "Drying without Dying: how Tardigrades Survive Desiccation" presented by Thomas Boothby as part of the Molecular Monday Seminar Series to faculty and students. University of Wyoming. Laramie, WY. Seminar titled "Biology at the Limits of Life" presented by Thomas Boothbyas part of the MCLS Lecture series to graduate students. University of Wyoming. Laramie, WY. Additional outreach activities come in the form of posters presented at regional and national conferences. Typically,co-PIs provide funding for each of the students they supervise to attend one regional conference per year.For example, Professors Levy and Gatlin brought 4 and 3 MCLS program graduate students to the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology, which was held in Washington D.C. this past year. Each of the students presented their projects in the form of informational posters to faculty and other graduate students and scientists. Changes/Problems:Changes: co-PI Naomi Ward has left the Molecular Biology Department here at the University of Wyoming to become chair of the Botany Department. As such, she should be removed from the co-PI list. Several new co-PIs should be added to the list. These include three new faculty members in the Molecular Biology Department: Drs. Thomas Boothby, Todd Schoborg, and Eunsook Park. Brief biographies follow: Dr. Thomas Boothby: Thomas conducted his post-doctoral work at the University of North Carolina where he established himself as one of the world's foremost experts in the field of dessication tolerance. Using tardigrates as a model organism, his work will likely have profound effects on preservation of drugs, blood, and food. He is currently funded via a major DARPA award and has already entertained rotation students in his lab. Dr. Todd Schoborg: Todd did his post-doctoral work at the NIH under the mentorship of Dr. NasserRusan. Todd is an expert in the molecular mechanisms that control and regulate the asymmetric division of neuronal stem cells and his research has important implications in understanding microcephaly. He is also a pioneer in the application of micro-CT scanning to analyze morphological defects in the brains of small model organisms (e.g. the fruit-fly D. melanogaster). Dr. Eunsook Park: Eunsook conducted her graduate work at the University of Tennessee and went on to pursue independent research in her home country of South Korea before starting her work here at the Unversity of Wyoming. Eunsook is an authority on host-microbe interactions in plants and studies the molecular mechanisms that underlie immunity in plants. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As mentioned in the previous section, each first-year student is required to conduct a total of four, 12-week rotations in the labs of faculty researchers conducting life-science related research here at the University of Wyoming. The students have currently completed two of these rotations and are presently immersed in their third. Although the main goal of these rotations is for both students and faculty to evaluate the potential "fit" for conducting future thesis research in a given lab, they also provide tremendous exposure and training to each student in state-of-the-art research techniques and instrumentation. In terms of professional development, the MCLS Cornerstone class, which is a required element of the MCLS curriculum, provides information to students about how to best take advantage of the opportunities provided by the MCLS program. It also covers topics related to career planning (both industrial and academic routes), scientific writing, research ethics, and grantsmanship. Most thesis advisors provide opportunities for students in their labs to attend regional, national, or international scientific meetings. Typically this equates to one meeting a year for students to present their work via seminar or poster and attend various seminars and workshops related to their specific scientific interests and career development respectively. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?As mentioned previously, the typical pace of academic research in the life sciences suggests that we should not expect publishable results until students are at least a year or two into their chosen thesis labs (this equates to their third or fourth year in the program). So although we do not have any publications to report as of yet, I would expect to see the efforts of this project realized and then sustained beginning next year. However, the program requires each first-year student to present two of the four rotation research projects in a public forum. These seminars are open to the public and well-attended. Furthermore, students are provided feedback by all audience members in the form of standardized, written evaluations. Second- and third-year students are also required to present research seminars on work from their dissertation labs. These seminars are also open to the public and the audience is again encouraged to provide feedback in the form of standardized, written evaluations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?After successful completion of a comprehensive exam at the end of this semester and a satisfactory passing of a holistic evaluation of first-year performance (conducted by the MCLS Executive Committee), students will choose a thesis advisor and begin conducting their thesis research. In the second year of their involvement in the MCLS program, they will be assigned teaching assistantships to provide opportunities for teaching and engagement of undergraduate life science students here at the University of Wyoming. The MCLS Admissions Committee is currently in the process of selecting and recruiting six (or more) new MCLS students who will matriculate into the program beginning in the Fall, officially beginning the fourthyear of NIFA support for the program.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Over the past year, a total of six PhD-level graduate students matriculated into the MCLS program with fiveadditional students carrying over from the previous year and six more from the first year of NIFA funding for the program. As per the established protocol, the admissions process was highly selective and the individuals were chosen from a competitive international and domestic pool of over 100qualified applicants. At present, all sixfirst-year students are in good standing within the program and each is currently in the middle of second semester coursework and their third research rotation. 12-week research rotations have been conducted in the laboratories ofmany of the co-PIs listed of this project as well as those of research faculty in Pharmacology and Chemical EngineeringDepartments here at the University of Wyoming. Additionally, the students have completed one semester of required coursework which includes the MCLS Cornerstone Course (a course designed to (i) help navigate graduate students through their first-year of the program and (ii) provide a foundation for career-path planning); Advanced Topics in Molecular Biology Seminar (a course in which students discuss scientific papers written by top-researchers from across the US and then attend a weekly seminar by the same invited researcher); and lastly Biochemistry I(a course intended to soundly ground all students in topics and techniques related to molecular biology and biochemistry). This represents the third year of NIFA support for the MCLS program. Of the six students originally supported during the first year of funding, five remain (one was asked to leave the program after not meeting minimum standards for first-year performance). Of the six students who matriculated in the second year, all six are still in the program. Each of these students have startedindependent research projects under the mentorship of MCLS faculty members including co-PIs on this grant. We anticipate that their projects will begin to yield tangible "products" in terms of publications within the next year (typically students begin publishing their results in peer-reviewed journals sometime in their 3rd or 4th year in the program).

Publications


    Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18

    Outputs
    Target Audience:Intramural: In addition to the six second year and five new MCLS graduate students most directly benefited by the program, the broader life science community at the University of Wyoming (UW) can be considered a target audience that has been reached and/or affected by this project. First-year students are required to present their research projects, conducted as part of the program, to the broader life-science community at UW. Each student gives two seminars as part of the Molecular Biology Monday Seminar Series. These are opportunities for students to convey recent findings to the entire MCLS faculty and anyone else from UW interested in attending. Second year students serve as graduate assistants for upper level courses, typically in the molecular biology and life sciences departments, and thus reach a large audience of undergraduate students on the campus. Extramural: Many of the MCLS faculty listed as co-PIs on this project have participated in outreach activities geared toward educating the public about their scientific research. What follows is a selected list of outreach activities over the course of the last year conducted by the indicated co-PI and presented to the indicated audience: Seminar titled "Investigating the relationships between cell geometry and mitotic spindle size/positioning: an engineer-turned-cell biologist's approach" presented to a scientific audience at the Flatiron Institute in New York City, NY by Dr. Jesse Gatlin Seminar titled "Investigating the mechanics of centrosomal aster positioning (and spindle scaling) using tunable 'cell' geometries" presented to a scientific audience at the BIRS Mathematics of the Cell: Mechanical and Chemical Signaling across Scales meeting by Dr. Jesse Gatlin at the Banff International Research Station, in Banff Canada. Dr. Naomi Ward continued her work with the Microbestiary Art-Science Education and Outreach Program. The Microbestiary is an NSF-supported science outreach project, with awebsite that hosts a "microbial bestiary", consistingof images anddescriptions of microbesaccompanied by art works made in response.Modeled on the traditional book form of the "bestiary", the Microbestiary takesadvantage of thecommunicative possibilities of digital media, in order to hostforms of public engagement with microbial life.The rationale for the Microbestiary is that although microbes live aroundus and within us, and ourinteractions with them are a matter of life anddeath, public awareness of such issues as biodiversity focusesvery heavily on"charismatic megafauna".By invitingimaginative responses to microbes, the Microbestiaryshows, in welcoming andmemorable ways, that the microbial world is populated by strange and beautifulcharacters that are quite charismatic. The visual "surface" of theMicrobestiary site and its engagement withaesthetic modes of inquiry advancesthe NSF Broader Impacts goal of increased public scientific literacy andpublicengagement with science and technology. Education and outreachproducts growing from thewebsite include interactive K-12 projects that were developed in Spring 2018 and are currently being implemented in collaboration with the University of Wyoming Lab School. Dr. Naomi Ward also contributed a substantial amount of effort toward enhancing Bioinformatics Education and Research in Wyoming. The Wyoming INBRE Bioinformatics Core, which has an academic home in Molecular Biology, supports bioinformatics education and research throughout the state. While the Core's activities on the UW Laramie campus focus on individual research support for faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students, our programs also include education and research support at the state's Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs, or community colleges), as well as training support at the Wyoming Public Health Laboratory. Several training workshops and individual consultations have taken place in 2018, in Cheyenne, Casper, and Jackson. Dr. Dan Levy presented a seminar titled "Cytoplasmic volume and limiting nucleoplasmin scale nuclear size during Xenopus laevis development" at the 17th International Xenopus Conference in Seattle, WA. Dr. Dan Wall presented his work through seminars across the globe including: 22nd Evolutionary Biology Meeting, Marseilles, France, 2018. Title: "Visualization of kin recognition and social consequences in myxobacteria." CNRS, Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology, Marseilles, France, 2018. Title "Visualization of kin recognition and social consequences in myxobacteria." ETH University, Zurich, Switzerland, 2018: "Visualization of kin recognition and social consequences in myxobacteria." 45th Int'l. Conf. of the Biol. of Myxobacteria, Sheffield, England, 2018. "Outer membrane exchange delivers seven families of polymorphic toxins." 45th Int'l. Conf. of the Biol. of Myxobacteria, Sheffield, England, 2018. "TraB functions with TraA as a dynamic cell surface receptor involved in cell-cell recognition." University of Texas Health Science Center, Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, Houston, TX, 2018. "Visualization of kin recognition and social consequences in myxobacteria." Dr. David Fay presented his work on NIMA-related kinases to Cornell University in a seminar titled "Shedding light on Shedding in C. elegans". Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As mentioned in the previous section, each student is required to conduct a total of four, 12-week rotations in the labs of faculty researchers conducting life-science related research here at the University of Wyoming. The students have currently completed two of these rotations and are presently immersed in their third. Although the main goal of these rotations is for both students and faculty to evaluate the potential "fit" for conducting future thesis research in a given lab, they also provide tremendous exposure and training to each student in state-of-the-art research techniques and instrumentation. In terms of professional development, the MCLS Cornerstone class, which is a required element of the MCLS curriculum, provides information to students about how to best take advantage of the opportunities provided by the MCLS program. It also covers topics related to career planning (both industrial and academic routes), scientific writing, research ethics, and grantsmanship. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The typical pace of academic research in the life sciences suggests that we should not expect publishable results until students are at least a year or two into their chosen thesis labs. So although we do not have any publications to report as of yet, I would to see the efforts of this project realized and then sustained starting in a couple of years. However, the program requires each first-year student to present two of the four rotation research projects in a public forum. These seminars are open to the public and well-attended. Furthermore, students are provided feedback by all audience members in the form of standardized, written evaluations. Second-year students are also required to present research seminars on work from their dissertation labs. These seminars are also open to the public and the audience is again encouraged to provide feedback in the form of standardized, written evaluations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?After successful completion of a comprehensive exam at the end of this semester and a satisfactory passing of a holistic evaluation of first-year performance (conducted by the MCLS Executive Committee), students will choose a thesis advisor and begin conducting their thesis research. In the second year of their involvement in the MCLS program, they will be assigned teaching assistantships to provide opportunities for teaching and engagement of undergraduate life science students here at the University of Wyoming. The MCLS Admissions Committee is currently in the process of selecting and recruiting six new MCLS students who will matriculate into the program beginning in the Fall, officially beginning the third year of NIFA support for the program.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? Over the past year, a total of five PhD-level graduate students matriculated into the MCLS program with six additional students carrying over from the previous year. As per the established protocol, the admissions process was highly selective and the individuals were chosen from a competitive international and domestic pool of approximately 75 qualified applicants. At present, all five first-year students are in good standing within the program and each is currently in the middle of second semester coursework and their third research rotation. 12-week research rotations have been conducted in the laboratories of many of the co-PIs listed of this project as well as those of research faculty in Pharmacology Department here at the University of Wyoming. Additionally, the students have completed one semester of required coursework which includes the MCLS Cornerstone Course (a course designed to (i) help navigate graduate students through their first-year of the program and (ii) provide a foundation for career-path planning); Advanced Topics in Molecular Biology Seminar (a course in which students discuss scientific papers written by top-researchers from across the US and then attend a weekly seminar by the same invited researcher); and lastly Biochemistry II (a course intended to soundly ground all students in topics and techniques related to molecular biology and biochemistry). This represents the second year of NIFA support for the MCLS program. Of the six students originally supported during the first year of funding, five remain (one was asked to leave the program after not meeting minimum standards for first-year performance). Those remaining have each begun independent research projects under the mentorship of MCLS faculty members including co-PIs on this grant. We anticipate that their projects will begin to yield tangible results in terms of publications within the next year or two.

    Publications


      Progress 02/09/17 to 09/30/17

      Outputs
      Target Audience:Intramural: In addition to the six new MCLS graduate students most directly benefitted by the program, the broader life science community at the University of Wyoming (UW) can be considered a target audience that has been reached and/or affected by this project. First-year students are required to present their research projects, conducted as part of the program, to the broader life-science community at UW. Each student gives two seminars as part of the Molecular Biology Monday Seminar Series. These are opportunities for students to convey recent findings to the entire MCLS faculty and anyone else from UW interested in attending. Extramural: Many of the MCLS faculty listed as co-PIs on this project have participated in out-reach activities geared toward educating the public about their scientific research. What follows is a selected list of out-reach activities over the course of the last year conducted by the indicated co-PI and presented to the indicated audience: Seminar titled "Synthetic photobiology in near-infrared" was presented to two separate scientific audiences at the Institute of Physiology, Univ. of Bonn, Germany and at Univ. of Virginia,Charlottesville, VA by Dr. Mark Gomelsky Seminar titled "Engineered bacteriophytochrome nucleotide cyclases for remote optogenetic control of biological activities in mammals" was presented at theIntl. Conference on Tetrapyrrole Photoreceptors ofPhotosynthetic Organisms, in Chicago, to a scientific audience by Dr. Mark Gomelsky Dr. Gomelsky also gave two presentations to lay audiences, the first, titled "Addressing global health challenges using engineered light-controlled cells" was presented at the Wyoming Global Technology Summit in Jackson, WY and the second, titled "How Synthetic Biology will changemedicine... and us" was presented atSaturday University in Pinedale,WY. Dr. Wall published an article titled "Kin recognition in microbes" directed to a lay audience for Reflections Magazine, UW College of Agriculture and Natural Resources publication Dr. Wall also was invited to present seminars about his work to several scientific audiences which included "Visualization of self-recognition and social consequences in Myxococcus xanthus" presented at the University of California, Santa Barbara; "How many TraA recognition groups are there?" presented at the 44st Int'l. Conf. of the Biol. of Myxobacteria, Washington, DC; and "Kin recognition and social consequences in a multicellular bacterium" presented at the University of Utah. Dr. Gigley presented his work to scientific audiences at several meeting including the Society for Natural Immunity Meeting in Taormina, Sicily (IT), the Immunology and Immunotherapy Symposium at the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Hannover, NH, and at the International Coccidiosis Conference in San Antonio, TX. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As mentioned in the previous section, each student is required to conduct a total of four, 12-week rotations in the labs of faculty researchers conducting life-science related research here at the University of Wyoming. The students have currently completed two of these rotations and are presently immersed in their third. Although the main goal of these rotations is for both students and faculty evaluate the potential and "fit" for conducting future thesis research in a given lab, they also provide tremendous exposure and training to each student in state-of-the-art research techniques and instrumentation. In terms of professional development, the MCLS Cornerstone class, which is a required element of the MCLS curriculum, provides information to students about how to best take advantage of the opportunities provided by the MCLS program. It also covers topics related to career planning (both industrial and academic routes), scientific writing, research ethics, and grantsmanship. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The typical pace of academic research in the life sciences suggests that we should not expect publishable results until students are a year or two into their chosen thesis labs. So although we do not have any publications to report as of yet, the efforts of this project will be realized and sustained starting in a couple of years. However, the program requires each first-year student to present two of the four rotation research projects in a public forum. These seminars are open to the public and well-attended. Furthermore, students are provided feedback by all audience members in the form of standardized, written evaluations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?After successful completion of a comprehensive exam at the end of this semester and a satisfactory passing of a holistic evaluation of first-year performance (conducted by the MCLS Executive Committee), students will choose a thesis advisor and begin conducting their thesis research. In the second year of their involvement in the MCLS program, they will be switched off of Hatch funds and onto teaching assistantships to provide opportunities for teaching and engagement of undergraduate life science students here at the University of Wyoming. The MCLS Admissions Committee is currently in the process of selecting and recruiting six new MCLS students who will matriculate into the program beginning in the Fall so that the whole process can begin anew.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? A total of six PhD-level graduate students matriculated into the MCLS program for the 2017/18 academic year. The process was highly selective as these individuals were chosen from an international and domestic pool of approximately 75 qualified applicants. At present, all six first-year students are in good standing within the program and each is currently in the middle of second semester coursework and their third research rotation. 12-week research rotations have been conducted in the laboratories of many of the co-PIs listed of this project as well as those of research faculty in the Chemical Engineering and Zoology & Physiology Departments here at the University of Wyoming. Additionally, the students have completed one semester of required coursework which includes the MCLS Cornerstone Course (a course designed to (i) help navigate graduate students through their first-year of the program and (ii) provide a foundation for career-path planning); Advanced Topics in Molecular Biology Seminar (a course in which students discuss scientific papers written by top-researchers from across the US and then attend a weekly seminar by the same invited researcher); and lastly Biochemistry II (a course intended to soundly ground all students in topics and techniques related to molecular biology and biochemistry).

      Publications