Category Archives: BEACON Researchers at Work

Engineering the Tools of Genetic Engineers

Posted on November 16, 2018 by Joel Slade

By: Melody Keith, Bibiana Toro, Kim Ly, Alyssa Braddom, and Eleanor Young, University of Texas at Austin undergraduate researchers. The University of Texas at Austin’s 2018 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team is a group of students whose aim is to … Continue reading →

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Ecology/Evolution Scientific Symposium at the SACNAS National Conference

Posted on October 9, 2018 by Joel Slade

The Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB) and BEACON have collaborated to organize a scientific symposium at the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) national conference in San Antonio, Texas, on October 11th, 2018 (10:30AM-12:00PM, … Continue reading →

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Evolutionary Computation Experts Video Collection

Posted on September 18, 2018 by Joel Slade

This blog post is by Risto Miikkulainen [1,2], Paul Jarratt [2], and Andrew Turner [2] from (1) The University of Texas at Austin and (2) Sentient Technologies Given recent advances in evolutionary computation technology, available computational power, and opportunities for AI in … Continue reading →

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A tale of scales and feathers… (ice and volcanoes)

Posted on July 30, 2018 by Danielle Whittaker

This blog post is by MSU postdoc Murielle Ålund. It all started with a-real life tetris game: trying to fit six gigantic coolers full of field gears, luggage, two kids and three adults into what was going to be our field … Continue reading →

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Mapping Antibiotic Resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilms to Develop Better Therapies for Cystic Fibrosis

Posted on July 23, 2018 by Danielle Whittaker

This blog post is by MSU graduate student Michael Maiden. Currently, I am a 7th year DO-PhD student in the physician scientist training program in Dr. Christopher Water’s drug development and biofilm laboratory in the department of Microbiology & Molecular … Continue reading →

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Learning an Evolvable Genotype-Phenotype Map

Posted on June 25, 2018 by hageyt

This post is by MSU graduate student Matthew Andres Moreno Hi! My name is Matthew Andres Moreno. I’m a graduate student finishing up my first year studying digital evolution with my advisor Dr. Charles Ofria. Today, I’m going to talk … Continue reading →

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On the Hunt: How Bacteria Find Food

Posted on June 20, 2018 by hageyt

This post is by MSU graduate student Joshua Franklin Imagine you are half-starved, blindfolded, then placed into a large gymnasium with a plate full of freshly-baked cookies. How do you find the cookies? You could try to randomly walk around … Continue reading →

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Gallium cannot be used as a Trojan horse to fool Iron-selected bacteria

Posted on June 14, 2018 by hageyt

This post is by NCAT postdoc Akamu Jude Ewunkem, faculty Misty Thomas, grad student Sada Boyd, and faculty Joseph Graves Jr. Antibiotics have heretofore been used as therapeutic agents (Butler et al., 2017). However, bacteria are increasingly developing resistance to these therapeutic agents. … Continue reading →

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High school phage hunters: an experiment to encourage young scientists

Posted on June 9, 2018 by hageyt

This post is by MSU postdoc Sarah Doore, with contributions from Dr. Kristin Parent and Mr. Kevin Schrad For the last couple years, our lab at MSU has been advocating “phage hunting” as part of the biology classroom experience. Bacteriophages—”phages” for … Continue reading →

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