Danielle Pycior

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#IAmScience Chris Pires

April 27, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in #IAmScience Tags: Chris Pires

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

Through Chris Pires’ eyes, science isn’t an unconnected ideology in which scientists hold the proper way of understanding the world, it is an answer-seeking process in which humans strive to understand existence and the things around and within it.

“I don’t think science is a thing, it’s a way of thinking” Pires said. “I like to think I live the life of the mind.”

As a kid in a rural northern California town, he dreamt of exploring the universe and alien landscapes, but enthusiastically settled for the unobserved below the surface. He often hung out with bees, wasps and other insects, fascinated by their nature. Yet, one fateful day, he was stung by a bee, rendering them off limits for a future career. This led him to look beyond bees to flowers and plant life.

“Plants are amazingly alien and interesting because they cannot run away from a hostile environment, they have to figure out how to survive and reproduce where they are,” he said.

In high school, an inspirational teacher taught him more than just human biology, introducing him to a world of plant and environmental biology. Over the lunch hour, his teacher would teach an advanced placement course that created a space for Pires and others to learn more than they otherwise could, in an open and accepting way. Now as a professor, Pires is able to do the same for his students.

“Growing up in a small town, you have to learn how to create your own world,” he said.

As an undergraduate at the University of California – Berkeley, he studied genetics and philosophy, always fascinated by the interconnectedness of ranging topics. After graduation, he held a few positions doing things he enjoyed but soon realized his desire to return to school. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, then working as a postdoctoral associate until he made his way to MU in 2005. Since that time, he has been promoted to full professor, principal investigator at Bond LSC, associate dean for research and won numerous awards for leadership and research.

“A constant for me is living the life of the mind and creating spaces where I can think and I can engage other people in cool things,” he said. “And I think I’ve been successful because I’ve been able to build these large interdisciplinary teams that do cool science.”

Pires, though quite successful, said the real success lies within his lab and among the researchers he has worked with. He appreciates the ability to face the “gray spaces” that challenge concepts of what a species is or the “gray spaces” of interdisciplinary fields that connect along and within science and humanities. He understands the world through a lens of interconnectedness and dependence, which leads him to appreciate what a team has to offer.

Though many see him as an extrovert, he has a quiet, reflective nature to his character. Whether he is walking his dog in the morning, swimming laps in the pool or gardening in his yard, he values the time to recharge and renew his spirit, allowing for his unwavering enthusiasm.

Apart from the enthusiasm that is often appreciated on his teacher evaluations, he is a connector. He sees his value in connecting students to information, researchers to ideas and collaborating on interdisciplinary work that paves the way to new opportunities.

Regardless of what the future holds, Pires plans to continue collaborating, learning and thinking of new ways to do research and to connect more people together. He values the opportunity to continue training the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists.

DNA Day

April 25, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in Events and speakers Tags: DNA

A time to celebrate the thing that makes us who we are

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

In 1865, after a decade long search into patterns of inheritance, Gregor Mendel discovered how individuals receive traits from their parents. Through working with pea plants, he found that genes come in pairs and are inherited as distinct units. He tracked those genes through dominant and recessive traits. Like many vital scientists throughout history, Mendel wasn’t appreciated in his own time due to his unpopular ideas. Now seen as the “father of genetics,” Mendel is recognized as the scientist who began the genetics revolution.

Screen Shot 2019-04-25 at 3.08.28 PM — Gregor Mendel

“There’s been an immense amount of progress even in the last two decades,” Warren said.

While one cell’s DNA unraveled is around 1.2 miles in length, the entire DNA strand in a human body is equivalent to 120 billion miles, twice the diameter of the solar system.

“What fascinates me is decoding the genetic blueprint of life, comparing it to other closely related species and trying to understand how that species is unique and different,” Warren said.

Throughout his career, Warren has been able to work closely with what he calls the ‘blueprint for life.’ Through incredible scientific advancements, he’s been able to decode the genomic code of various species, paving the way for understanding and discovery.

“Certainly, we know the biology is different — physically they’re different, morphologically they’re different, but at some genetic level we know they’re very similar,” Warren said. “So how does that change in the variation of the genetic blueprint result in that individual species having a very different phenotypic profile than a closely related species?”

But this rapid advance in the modern era moved much slower after Mendel’s initial discoveries. It wasn’t until the 1900s that Mendel’s work was rediscovered and taken seriously, and by the 1940s, Oswald Avery, an immunochemist, discovered DNA to be the transforming factor of genes. A paper he published outlining this assessment then inspired Erwin Chargaff, who discovered that DNA composition is species specific.

Screen Shot 2019-04-25 at 3.08.47 PM — Rosalind Franklin

A few years later, James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. By 1962, the three men won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for the discovery. Though the high-resolution X-rays Franklin took of DNA fibers led to the discovery of the double-helix structure, she was not awarded along with the three men, having died of cancer a few years earlier. Over the next six decades, scientists discovered rapid DNA sequencing techniques, various diseases associated with certain genetic markers, ways of cloning animals, how to decode chromosomes and many other revolutionary advancements.

DNA is something that connects every species on the planet. On the outside, it might look like we are extremely different, but on the inside, biological systems allow for each of our existence in a way that is relatively similar throughout any species. Warren enjoys understanding and dissecting the micro levels of that existence to understand how it influences who we and other species are.

“I absolutely think it’s important to look back into the past to understand where we’ve come from and also to learn from mistakes that we’ve made,” Warren said. “The forward-thinking process has to happen today, and we have to learn from what we’ve done in the past to strategize for the future,” Warren said.

In the future, Warren predicts personalized medical experiences where each person’s genomes are on file for doctors to see, helping to anticipate needs and revolutionize the way doctors are able to treat diseases. A century ago, it would have been unfathomable for scientists to image the profound advancements the field has seen, and yet they have only begun to see what is possible.

The problem with placentas

April 11, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in Research Tags: placentas, R. Michael Roberts

MU scientists develop model to study complex pregnancy disease

Roberts Lab stem cells — Here, stem cells have undergone differentiation. The green shows the hormone used to diagnose pregnancy in humans and the ovals are nuclei, some of which stain a pinkish color, representing the protein GATA2.

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

Researchers have been exploring the complicated and difficult world of pluripotent stem cells for 15 long years on the second floor of the University of Missouri’s Bond Life Sciences Center.

A type of stem cell that can be turned into any cell in the human body and self-replicate, scientist Michael Roberts and his lab have used these cells to study the early stages of pregnancy in the hopes of understanding preeclampsia — the number one cause of maternal mortality worldwide.

Roberts and his lab have been using an innovative technique to see what occurs at the early stages of the disease with the ambition of understanding the disorder. Their most recent advancements were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March.

Their work has focused on the complex interaction between a mother’s body and the placenta. This temporary organ connects a fetus via an umbilical cord to the uterine wall of the mother to provide nutrients, gas exchange and waste elimination for the developing child.

“The very fact that you can remove the placenta to cure the patient suggests that this maternal condition has its origin in the placenta” said Roberts.

Preeclampsia comes in two main forms, early-onset starting around 20 weeks of pregnancy, and late-onset occurring after about 35 weeks. Symptoms can range from high blood pressure to headaches, fatigue and other forms of stress in the mom. Severe forms of preeclampsia are life-threatening for mother and child, and the only treatment is removing the placenta, which forces the mother to undergo cesarean section, invariably prematurely.

Researchers have struggled to understand this disease for multiple reasons. While the underlying defect is generally believed to be shallow formation of the placenta and failure of certain cells called trophoblasts to invade sufficiently deeply into the wall of the womb, early detection in the first trimester is almost impossible right now, and, by the time doctors can detect it, the placenta has faced so much damage that it is of little use to researchers.

Working with University of Missouri Health Care physician Danny Schust and basic scientists Laura Schulz and Bond LSC’s Toshihiko Ezashi, Roberts’ lab acquired real-world samples of cells related to the disease. Mothers who came into MU Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Columbia diagnosed with early onset preeclampsia agreed to give part of the tissue from their umbilical cord after childbirth, which was then used to grow primary cultures of connective tissue cells. These were reprogrammed into stem cells that are essentially identical to embryonic stem cells. These induced pluripotent stem cells were then converted to trophoblast cells — the cells in the fetus that make up the outer layer of the placenta — and examined for abnormalities associated with the disease.

“If you do this successfully, you essentially recapitulate the early stages of the pregnancy that led to preeclampsia.” Roberts said.

Upclosetian — Yuchen Tian, a research specialist in Robert’s lab, worked on the most recent publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and helped with four other research publications. All five used stem cells to make discoveries.

After this, the researchers tested the cells under various conditions to try and figure out the early stages of the disorder, something that had been relatively impossible previously. Since preeclampsia is difficult to detect in early stages and early placentas from such patients are unavailable for ethical reasons, this approach has allowed researchers a unique look at what happens during a preeclamptic pregnancy.

They compared normal pregnancy cells with cells from preeclampsia pregnancies. By putting the cells in incubators, they observed them under different conditions and levels of stress. Under 5% oxygen, the cells acted similarly to the normal pregnancy, but under 20% oxygen, the cells were highly stressed, resulting in their inability to function properly.

“So, we essentially showed that at least one feature of these preeclampsia cell lines was that they weren’t able to cope with high oxygen and so invaded poorly,” Roberts said. “What we assume is that in the disease there is some sort of stress occurring that causes these cells to not behave properly.”

Roberts’ lab members Toshihiko Ezashi, a research professor at Bond LSC, and Megan Sheridan, a former MU graduate student in the Roberts’ lab who is now at University of Cambridge in England, discovered that there isn’t one gene that leads to preeclampsia, but a few genes within a large cohort of genes involved in controlling a trophoblast cell’s invasive properties.

HayashiTianEzashi — Chuyu Hayashi, Yuchen Tian and Toshihiko Ezashi all work in Robert’s lab. Tian and Ezashi helped work on the most recent published article, and Ezashi helped discover how preeclampsia is involved in multiple genes and not just one.

While this discovery narrows the search for answers, it still leaves a lot of questions being asked.

“We are still nowhere near creating a test for preeclampsia and we are certainly far from a cure because how can you prevent a disease before you know a woman has it?” Roberts said.

This arduous, complicated and incredibly intriguing work looks ahead to dissecting the genetic abnormalities of the disorder in the hopes of creating a successful test and treatment, which could make all the difference for women worldwide.

“This is a disease that affects a large number of women,” Roberts said. “In this country, women can usually find proper care, but in countries outside the U.S. without hospitalization, the woman is going to die and so is the baby.”

#IAmScience Patience Okiring

April 6, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in #IAmScience Tags: Fiscal Office, Grant Funding, grants

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

In the warm, inviting atmosphere of the Bond LSC fiscal office reside the unsung heroes that make science possible.

When a new discovery is made, few look back to see who assisted researchers in writing the grant and securing funds that allowed the research to thrive, yet those staff members quietly fight for researchers every day.

After only a year as a grant writer, Patience Okiring has worked on so many grants that she can’t keep count.

“There are a lot of challenges, of course, but it’s like a new discovery every day,” she said.

Okiring appreciates each challenge she faces, saying it pushes her to be more than she was before. Each morning she walks into her office with the attitude that today can bring a new opportunity to learn and be more capable of securing funding for researchers.

“Experience offers a degree of excellence, so I want to grow in the field, be able to guide scientists and be in touch with what’s going on,” she said.

Though her title — grant writer — seems simple, each day is different from the next, and she values the diverse experience that not only her work but also the diverse relationships bring. The interdisciplinary nature of Bond LSC is something she doesn’t take for granted.

From diseases to genetics, plant health to animals, Okiring values how her work interacts with so many fields that aid in life and the pursuit of a better existence. She hopes to guide and support scientists in their pursuit of answers.

“It feels like being a part of a support system, being there to push through the process and bring the different components together,” she said. “No doubt, this is what I want to do; I am happy and content.”

Okiring’s love of science formed at a young age. She grew up in Kenya where her dad was an engineer who helped her find a passion for chemistry. Though her undergraduate degree focused on creative arts such as dance, music, film and acting, she never stopped appreciating and caring about the sciences.

After a graduate degree at the University of Central Missouri, she worked at the UCM Violence and Abuse Prevention Program where she wrote reports and assisted in grant writing. Eventually, she ended up at MU’s campus and has no plans of leaving.

“I feel pulled here,” she said. “I don’t want to work anywhere else.”

Okiring’s curious mind and attention to detail make her a fantastic grant writer, one who will continue working and growing in the hopes that what she does helps push scientific research in a positive direction.

“Scientists cover so many fields, and that shows how relevant this is to life and to our existence,” she said. “There is productivity and efficiency in this work.”

Hot topic research networking

March 18, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in Events and speakers Tags: Networking

Moving science forward through discussion

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

A casual conversation amongst friends two years ago turned into an initiative to better connect scientists doing related work across the University of Missouri campus.

Hot Topic research networking was born out of informal discussions, growing into a cross-campus and cross-discipline network.

“They need to talk and communicate to build things up and down the chain,” said Karla Carter, executive assistant to Bond LSC director. “That’s where some of the most exciting science is born.”

Carter explained that by helping facilitate these discussions, Bond LSC helps widen the scope of normal science and pull different researchers from across the MU campus together. Ultimately, that can lead to new, exciting types of research.

Three main research networks emerged from initial efforts, focusing on cancer biology, host/pathogens and metabolomics. In each discussion, a main presenter either shows successes they are experiencing in their labs or difficulties they face. By bringing diverse minds together, they can learn from one another and help each other overcome challenges in their fields.

At a recent research network for metabolomics, Aaron Ericcson, assistant professor of veterinary pathobiology, spoke about discoveries in his lab regarding colon and rectal cancer in mice.

“Research networks really open up everybody’s eyes to what else is going on throughout campus,” Ericcson said. “These are great ways to go out, show your science and just make yourself known.”

He spoke about how easy it is for scientists across disciplines to never meet or know what other fields may be doing differently right down the street.

“I always pick up something, some new tidbit of knowledge, but it’s definitely opened up some new collaborations. No matter what talk I go to, in the back of my mind I’m thinking of it in a microbial context,” Ericcson said.

At the end of the discussion, two gentlemen stayed behind to talk with Ericcson about his work and possibly begin a collaboration of their own.

Michael Petris, professor of biochemistry and Bond LSC primary investigator, was fascinated by the relationship between microbiome and cancer.

“For me, what’s cool is the different models that are available, which I can learn from and use in my own work,” Petris said.

He and Mark Hannink, professor of biochemistry and Bond LSC primary investigator, began discussing new possibilities for their own research afterwards, excited by new thoughts and ideas.

“Of the combination of different ideas and different approaches, the different approaches are more important,” Hannink said. “If we learn something can be done that we didn’t know was possible before, that’s what I think is the most beneficial part of these discussions.”

Hot Topic discussions happen at Bond LSC every week with the hope of inspiring more cutting-edge research. Anyone from any field is welcome to attend the discussions and to learn about the various practices happening all around campus.

“This is how science really moves ahead,” Petris said. “You have to bring people from different backgrounds together.”

Check out Bond LSC events page to see when the next Hot Topic session is.

#IAmScience Michael Greenlief

March 15, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in #IAmScience Tags: Gehrke Proteomics Center

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

In high school, Michael Greenlief had teachers that led his curiosity into a passion for science and problem-solving.

Decades later, he is an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Missouri and director of Charles W. Gehrke Proteomics Center located in Bond Life Sciences Center.

Depending on the day, Greenlief could be found many places on campus, but his favorite part of MU is working with students.

“They keep things going; they keep things fresh,” he said.

Through all aspects of his roles on campus, there exists an underlying educational component. From lecturing in class, to teaching young scientists how to use advanced equipment, Greenlief enjoys helping and talking with young minds in a field that is anything but regular.

“Chemistry is always changing,” he said. “I don’t get bored that way.”

Proteomics is the study of the structure and composition of proteins, and Greenlief’s core facility and lab use mass spectrometry to make these discoveries.

“You can look at small molecules that change very quickly, which can be metabolites. You can look at things that change slowly that are large, which can be genes. And then proteins are in the middle of that and change over days,” Greenlief said. “It’s a happy medium where you can learn a lot and have time to look at things.”

Greenlief enjoys the complexity that comes with science.

“There is always a problem to try and solve and there isn’t always a straightforward approach to solving that problem,” he said.

Whether it’s health related, environmentally related or anything in between, he believes that science isn’t just something that exists in the lab.

“Even though some of science seems esoteric, in the end, it always comes back and looks at something in the real world,” he said.

Greenlief has been at MU since 1989 and has experienced the transition that science has gone through since that time. He said the changes are a matter of complexity and expertise.

“The questions that are being asked and that need to be addressed have become more complex, and tied to that is expertise. Since it’s more complex you need more expertise than you may have by yourself,” he said.

He said that much of science now depends on interdisciplinary work, so scientists have had to learn to work well with one another.

“When I first started here the way to build your career was through what we call a single-investigator; it was your project, you did things by yourself,” he said. “The problems I’m addressing now I can’t solve by myself, so I have to talk and work with other people. And then together we can tackle something that we couldn’t do individually.”

Looking to the future Greenlief doesn’t plan on going anywhere.

“I’m interested in trying to push the limits of what we can do with protein analysis,” he said. “How we can do things quicker, at lower concentration, or smaller amounts and still find the same kinds of information.”

Greenlief plans to continue educating and learning from the students he interacts with across campus, helping to influence the next generation of science and scientists.

Learn more about the Gehrke Proteomics Center and services this MU Core Facility offers at proteomics.missouri.edu.

#IAmScience Yul Eum Song

March 1, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in #IAmScience Tags: Marc Johnson

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

As an undergraduate student, Yul Eum Song had experiences that put her on a path to help create change.

Now as an experienced and educated doctoral researcher, she studies the mechanisms of retroviruses in the lab of Bond LSC’s Marc Johnson, and she continues to love science and the way it answers questions and positively influences the world.

“I like viruses because they can be deadly, so it’s really fascinating for humans to learn about,” Song said.

Song received her undergraduate degree from Dongguk University in Korea. Though she started out as a philosophy major, she realized her love of science and decided to add an additional major of life sciences, or biology. While at Dongguk, she became interested in viruses, which ultimately influenced her decision to come to MU.

“Studying viruses can help get treatment, and that is really the big motivating thing for me to do science,” Song said. “Science makes me think that I can do small things every day to reach the goal of making the world a better place.”

Song says her goals in life all center around one idea, making the world a better place. She believes that each small discovery can lead to big ones.

“Understanding the basic mechanisms is the first step to understanding the virus and how to apply the therapy,” Song said. “I am doing really basic science, and I can see how HIV research affects society, and it is really cool to see that. I can see how the little things form the big research.”

In Johnson’s lab, Song focuses her research on the mechanisms of retroviruses such as HIV, particularly Env glycoprotein. She is fascinated by how viruses utilize their hosts through very minimum genes and acknowledges that learning about how a virus operates at the basic level can give a scientist clues on what further questions to ask.

“It’s motivating to do something that’s useful for the world and also that’s interesting,” Song said. “HIV is one of the most interesting viruses to work with because of how it affects society.”

In May, Song plans to have finished her Ph.D. and to continue her education at St. Jude Research Center for her postdoc. While there, she will have the opportunity to observe doctors and put her research into context. She will be able to observe the ways in which doctors use research to create therapies. She is excited to work with translational research and capture the big picture.

Song thinks that understanding the entire context is vitally important. By seeing both the big picture of her own research and the larger picture of how that research gets used in the medical world, she and other virologists can avoid problems and create better solutions.

“I am still thinking about what I’ll be doing after my postdoc. I like science, so I want to keep doing science,” Song said. “My ultimate goal in life is to make the world a better place.”

Though she is still figuring out what specific steps she will take in the future, she holds tight to her goal of positively influencing the world through science.

B TrCP protein required for HIV to hide in host cells

February 27, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in Research Tags: HIV

Researchers are one step closer to understanding HIV

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

Usually, the human immune system is good at recognizing infected cells and then killing them, but in the case of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus has ways to hide. One of the ways is by using a viral protein called Vpu.

Vpu helps HIV survive by hiding the fact that it is infected from its host cells. For the past few years, researchers at the University of Missouri have helped uncover how this works.

“If you delete Vpu, those virus-infected cells are killed more efficiently,” said Marc Johnson, a Bond LSC scientist and professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the MU School of Medicine.

Understanding the Basics

Johnson and his lab study the connection between viruses and their hosts, trying to understand how viruses convince the host to allow them to keep replicating. In the case of HIV, Johnson and his colleagues discovered that Vpu only functions with the help of B TrCP, another protein.

“The virus doesn’t do anything by itself,” Johnson said. “It only has nine genes, while we have 30,000. It works by tricking its host genes to doing its bidding for it.”

Yul Eum Song, a graduate researcher in Johnson’s lab, explained that CRISPR technology allowed them to alter the genome to see how the proteins operate. CRISPR is a gene editing technique adapted from the DNA of bacteria that allows scientists to add, remove or edit specific locations in a genome.

“So, we use this to target and knock out genes to see if they’re necessary for the mechanism of HIV,” Song said.

They used CRISPR to remove the two types of B TrCP strands from the genome to see if Vpu would still hide HIV without its help.

“CRISPR has lots of applications, but the simplest, and the one I use is basically just molecular scissors that you can put into cells. It will make cuts in the genome wherever you want,” Johnson said.

By removing a certain gene, researchers can see how cells will react with and without certain proteins. In this case, Johnson and his team discovered that without either type of B TrCP strand expressed in the genome, Vpu couldn’t function, so it couldn’t avoid being killed by the immune system.

The magnitude of the HIV problem

“Thirty-five million people are infected with HIV. There are more people living with HIV today than ever in history, and the number keeps going up every year because once they’re infected, they’re infected for life,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that in terms of public health, HIV is a huge concern. Though treatments have gotten substantially better, they can have nasty side effects and don’t always work for everyone, sometimes resulting in death.

“By understanding the mechanisms of HIV, researchers can help combat the virus and create treatments,” Song said.

Both researchers pointed out how discoveries in the area of HIV can translate into other fields. The knowledge that virologists researching HIV find can help other scientists figure out what questions to ask and what functions to look for.

“We’ve learned about the cell and how our own cells work by studying the virus, but the virus is constantly utilizing and counteracting in ways that we’re still figuring out,” Johnson said.

Looking forward, Johnson and his lab are trying to find compounds that will block Vpu, and consequently allow the immune system to kill the HIV infected cells. Though the virus can never be completely removed from someone’s system, virologists search for treatments that can target and kill those cells that are expressing HIV.

“Part of the process is nailing down how VPU works, and a big part of what my lab is doing now is actually screening and testing compounds that do block VPU activity,” Johnson said. “That means if you have an infected virus, you treat them with this compound, and then they behave just like VPU was not there.”

By understanding how various proteins function in cells, researchers can get closer to understanding ways to combat viruses, and closer to understanding the micro-complexities that exist inside the human body.

This research was published in the Journal “Viruses” in Oct. 2018 and was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease of the National Institutes of Health.

The start of an academic relationship

January 30, 2019 By Danielle Pycior in Events and speakers Tags: Graduate Life Sciences Joint Recruitment Weekend

Joint recruitment weekend welcomes prospective grad students to MU family

By Danielle Pycior | Bond LSC

As laughter and conversation began to fill the hall with the arrival of graduate students from across the country, new relationships began to form.

Entering its 10th year, the annual Graduate Life Sciences Joint Recruitment Weekend continues a unique recruitment tradition at the University of Missouri that has only grown with time.

Chris Pires, a Bond Life Sciences Center investigator, professor of biological sciences and associate dean for research in MU’s College of Arts and Science, has utilized the event every year as an opportunity to bring students together who wouldn’t otherwise meet. Though Pires plays a large role in recruitment, he acknowledges that giving students an opportunity to build relationships is crucial.

“They usually close the deal with each other and with the current students, I’m just throwing a party,” Pires said.

The weekend is a shared event between many programs across MU’s campus — biochemistry, biological sciences, the genetics area program, the informatics institute, molecular pathogenesis and therapeutics, plant sciences, the interdisciplinary plant group and the life sciences fellow-ship program —that come together to meet with students looking for research opportunities.

“It’s the largest group we’ve had to date, so that’s pretty exciting,” said Debbie Allen, MU coordinator of graduate initiatives.

Allen has organized this event since it began and says it’s important to show graduate students that MU is a community and not just a compilation of labs and offices.

“The most rewarding thing is when I see connections that start to be made, when I see the synergy between MU faculty and grad students and postdocs with the prospective students visiting our campus,” Allen said.

Pires is currently recruiting two students to join his research team. Both agreed that the weekend was greater than their expectations.

Michael Pisias from Sacramento State University said he hadn’t even thought about attending MU until he began speaking with Pires. After meeting, seeing the facilities and getting to know more of the MU community, Pisias said he could see a future here for himself.

Pires&Pisias — Michael Pisias is interested in research on polyploidy, or multiple chromosome duplications in plant species, and how that affects evolution and speciation. He plans to attend MU in pursuit of his PhD.

“It’s a really nice community, I love that everyone is super friendly,” Pisias said. “Every single person I have interacted with has been nice and more than helpful, and this facility is amazing.”

Pires said the recruitment weekend is to show students what this campus is all about.

“Being a grad student isn’t just being a member of your department, but part of this larger community of graduate students across MU,” Pires said.

Shawn Thomas from the University of Georgia was roped in by Pires at a UGA conference. Thomas said they talked for hours about his research and Pires convinced him to come look at MU.

“Coming to this recruitment weekend was amazing. It was a lot more than I expected. All the collaboration and the openness with faculty and students seem really great. I think this would be a cool place to start my graduate studies,” Thomas said.

Though this weekend may not be all that it takes to convince a student to attend the university, it does show them what MU is all about.

“The present and future of science is teamwork,” Pires said, “These collaborative events really start the spirit of, ‘hey we’re going to work together.’”

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