Acute liver failure is a health concern worldwide. Stemming from a range of causes, such as viral, drug-induced, alcoholic, or autoimmune, the rate of progression is highly variable, and the environmental factors dictating the outcome remain poorly identified. Through working with an animal model of acute liver failure, our laboratory has found that gut microbiota is a critical modulator of liver injury.
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Many fundamental advances in the field of innate immunity have been made through studying the immune system of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Their simplified physiology has allowed for the identification and dissection of conserved immune receptors and signaling pathways, which have resulted in numerous medical advances and contributed greatly to the overall progress of the immunity field. The value of studying invertebrate immunity has been recognized by many, with a variety of researchers exploring this topic in model systems ranging from aphids to grasshoppers. One
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Zinc is a micronutrient that plays diverse roles in cellular biochemistry. It is utilized by a number of proteins, serving either a catalytic or a structural role. Zinc is critical to over three hundred enzymes and thus, essential for all forms of life.
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Jennifer Conrad is an MCB graduate student in the Schaller lab in the Department of Biological Sciences.
[more]The National Research Council (NRC) released on September 28, 2010, its first assessment of doctoral programs at U.S. colleges and universities since 1995. The report analyzed data on more than 5,000 doctoral programs in 62 fields from 212 institutions during the 2005–06 academic year. The report provides two different ranges of ranking for each program, one based largely on peer assessment (the “R” ranking) and another based on quantitative metrics (the “S” ranking).
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