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Trustee Emeritus Richard C. Seaver dies

Trustee Emeritus Richard C. Seaver ’43 died June 10. The Pomona Biology Building is named in his honor recognize his many decades of exceptional service to the College as a trustee and honorary trustee.

• Richard C. Seaver, 85; oil-drilling exec, donor to L.A. Opera - Los Angeles Times obituary

Seaver Building wins Sustainability Award

The Richard C. Seaver Biology Building has received the Gensler Sustainability Award from the Los Angeles Business Council. The award notes that the building “integrates complex contextual site conditions, user requirements and sustainable design to reflect the college’s vision of the future while establishing it as a leader in environmentally responsible design.”

• Top International Architects and Seven Entertainment Studios Awarded for Outstanding Contributions to Los Angeles - Press Release from the Los Angeles Building Council ( pdf)

Prof. Hoopes reflects and reports on women in science

Prof. Laura Hoopes published several articles on women in science in the spring and summer issues of the magazine of the American Association for Women in Science (AWIS).

• Hoopes, L.L.M. 2007. Family-Work Issues for Women Scientists: An Interview with Diane F. Halpern. AWIS Magazine 36(3): 8-10
• Hoopes, L.L.M. 2007. Today’s Industrial Giants Welcome Women Scientists. AWIS Magazine 36(2)
• Hoopes, L.L.M. 2007. Support of Women in Science. AWIS Magazine 36(2)

Pomona receives $60,000 Merck Grant for student research at the biology/chemistry interface

Pomona College has been awarded a $60,000 Merck·AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program grant to fund research projects by 12 students over the next three years. The program is designed to foster interaction between biology and chemistry departments. Biology professors André Cavalcanti, Cris Cheney, Len Seligman, and Jonathan Wright will participate in the program.

• Pomona College Receives $60,000 Grant for Student Research - Pomona College News Release

Prof. Hoopes wins writing prize

Biology professor Laura Hoopes won second prize in the Writers’ Journal travel writing contest for her story, “A Crane Quest Behind the Scenes in China.” The story is published in Writers’ Journal 28: 34-35 (2007).

Three biology graduates receive Fulbright grants

Three biology majors from the class of ’07 have received grants from the Fulbright Program for a year of study, teaching, or research abroad. Lily Muldoon, a biology and public policy double major, will study public health and clean delivery in Kenya, Allison Bailey will be participating in a research project on Arctic plants and climate change at the University Center in Svalbard, Norway, and Rebecca Abbey will teach in Indonesia.

• Fulbright Grants Awarded to 24 Members of the Pomona College Class of 2007, Breaking School’s Record - Pomona College News Release
• Icebergs and Blackberries - Allison Bailey’s photo blog

Biology major Grace Wu receives Goldwater Fellowship

Grace Wu ’08, a biology and history double major, has been awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, which covers the cost of tuition, fees, books, room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.

• Goldwater Fellowships Awarded to Pomona College Students - Pomona College News Release

Prof. Karnovsky presents at Gordon Conference

Prof. Nina Karnovsky presented “From phytoplankton to predators: Foraging for patchy prey in Polar Seas” at the Gordon Research Conference on Polar Marine Science held March 25-30.

Biology and Chemistry Departments receive Beckman Scholars Award

The Pomona College Biology and Chemistry Departments were awarded a 2007 Beckman Scholars Award from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation to support undergraduate research. The award provides $19,300 per student for a sustained, in-depth undergraduate research experience and comprehensive faculty over two summers and an academic year.

Pomona biologists flock to seabird meeting

Prof. Nina Karnovsky and biology major Allison Bailey ’07 attended the annual Pacific Seabird Group meeting at Asilomar in Monterey from February 7-11, where the Karnovsky group presented several papers and posters:

• Spear, L.B., D.G. Ainley, W.A. Walker, and N.J. Karnovsky*. “Partitioning pelagic paella: The feeding strategies and diets of avifauna of the eastern tropical Pacific.” (oral presentation)
• Karnovsky, N.J., A. Harding, D. Gremillet, J. Wiktor, Jr., H. Routti, W. Walkusz, I. Goszczko, A.M. Bailey*, L. McFadden*, S. Zimmerman*, and J.K. Lee*. “Foraging dynamics of Little Auks (Alle alle) in the Greenland Sea.” (oral presentation)
• Harding, A.M.A., K.A. Hobson, W. Walkusz, K. Dmoch, T.I. Van Pelt, and N. Karnovsky*. “Sources of variation in the diet of Dovekies evaluated through stable isotope ¹³N and ¹⁵N analysis: Implications for assessing marine ecosystem change in the High Arctic.” (poster)
• N. Seifert*, J. Welcker, H. Steen, N. Karnovsky and G.W. Gabrielsen. “At sea distribution of foraging Little Auks (Alle alle) along the west coast of Spitsbergen: Do they avoid warm Atlantic water?” (poster)
• Bailey, A.M.*, N.J. Karnovsky, K. Wojczulanis, D. Jakubas, A. Harding, and W. Walkusz. “The effect of climate fluctuations on the chick diets and foraging trip durations of an Arctic seabird, the Little Auk (Alle alle). (poster)

* = Pomona students. Allison Bailey received an honorable mention in the student poster and paper competition. [Download the meeting abstracts pdf]

Prof. Karnovsky also hosted a meeting of “The Little Auk Working Group” here at Pomona following the Pacific Seabird meeting.

Brrrr! Laurel McFadden’s “Cold Photo” in the news

As she travels through the Arctic on her year-long Watson Fellowship Laurel McFadden ’06, an alumna of the Karnovsky lab, has been documenting her adventure in her photo blog “Cold Photo”. Both the Claremont Courier and the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin recently ran features on Laurel’s photographs.

• “Cold Photo” - Laurel McFadden’s Arctic photo blog
• Winter wonderland: Laurel McFadden ’06 carries on year-long Arctic adventure documenting community life in Earth’s northernmost reaches - Pomona College News Feature Article

Prof. Hoopes reflects on science, women, and the Human Genome Project

In ”My Genomics Sabbatical,” which appeared in the December Goucher Quarterly, Prof. Laura Hoopes reflects on women in science, getting people excited about science, the human genome project, and what it’s like to spend a year as a “Hood-lum“ in the laboratory of Caltech professor Leroy Hood.

• Hood, L.L.M. 2006. My genomics sabbatical. Goucher Quarterly 82: 34-38.

Talking to the Auks

Prof. Nina Karnovsky gave a talk, “Asking the Auks about Climate Change,” to the Pomona Valley Audubon Society on November 2.

Pomona biology students present research at conference

Sonia Fang ’08 and Allison Bailey ’07 from Prof. Nina Karnovsky’s lab, and Noah Rosenberg ’08 from Prof. David Becker’s lab presented posters on their research at the annual Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research (SCCUR) at Occidental College in November.

• Sonia Fang, “How Old Are Spawning Grunion (Leuresthes tenuis)?”
• Allison Bailey, “Responses of an Arctic Seabird to Prey Availability”
• Noah Rosenberg, “Expression of an Actinomyces 3-Hydroxysteroid Oxidase Gene Increased the Rate of Whole Chain Electron Transport in Nicotiana tabacum Chloroplasts”

Pomona biologists present at the Neuroscience meeting

Several Pomona biologists gave presentations at the 2006 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Atlanta. Prof. Karen Parfitt, together with colleagues from Cornell University, presented a poster, and two Pomona students, Joyce Sato-Reinhold ’07 and Emily Stryker ’07, presented posters at the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) poster session.

• Krans, J.L., K.D. Parfitt, P.K. Rivlin, D.L. Deitcher, and R.R. HOY, “The resting membrane potential of Drosophila melanogaster larval muscle depends strongly on the calcium gradient” (Regular poster)
• Stryker, E., and K. Parfitt. “The Effect of Axon Guidance Genes on Visual and Olfactory System Function in Drosophila melanogaster” (FUN poster)
• Sato-Reinhold, J., L. Van Ryswyk, and K. Johnson, “The Dallylike Story: A Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycan’s Role in Axon Guidance at the Drosophila Midline” (FUN poster)

Richard C. Seaver Biology Building receives LEED Silver certification

The Richard C. Seaver Biology Building has been awarded a silver certificate from the U.S. Green Building Council under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria, placing the building in the top 1 percent of all academic laboratory buildings in the country in energy-conscious design. The award was covered in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the Pasadena Star News , and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

• ‘Green’ Building Techniques Take Root - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
• Pomona College Biology Building Receives National Environmental Award - Pomona College News Release

Prof. Johnson addresses Drosophila conference

At the Southern California Drosophila Conference held at UC Irvine on September 8 Prof. Karl Johnson gave an invited talk entitled, “HSPGs act through LAR to control neuromuscular junction form and function.”

Prof. Karnovsky receives National Science Foundation Grant to study Little Auks

Prof. Nina Karnovsky has received a $415,619 grant from the National Science Foundation to compare breeding and foraging dynamics of two populations of Little Auks (Alle alle) that consume different prey. This study will increase the understanding of how perturbations, such as increases in warmer currents in the Greenland Sea, will impact energy flow to upper trophic predators and will be useful in making predictions about responses of Arctic marine predators to changes in climate.

• Consequences of Contrasting Foraging Conditions for Little Auks in the Greenland Sea – NSF award information

Making a protein recognize different DNA sequences

Homing endonucleases are highly specific enzymes that recognize and cleave unique DNA sequences in complex genomes. By analyzing protein-DNA contacts and employing a step-wise mutational approach Pomona students Laura Rosen ’08, Holly Morrison ’04, Selma Masri ’03, Mike Brown ’07, and Brendan Springstubb ’05, and Prof. Len Seligman, together with colleagues from the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, have engineered the homing endonuclease I-CreI to recognize and cleave DNA molecules with different sequences that the enzyme’s normal targets. Their work can inform future engineering of homing nucleases and provide insights into their evolution. The paper was published in the October 2006 issue of Nucleic Acids Research.

• Rosen, L.E., H.A. Morrison, S. Masri, M.J. Brown, B. Springstubb, D. Sussman, B.L. Stoddard, and L.M. Seligman. 2006. Homing endonuclease I-CreI derivatives with novel DNA target specificities Nucleic Acids Res. 34: 4791-4800 [abstract | full text | pdf]

“Life at the Limits” lecture series explores the physiology of organisms in extreme environments

How do organisms live at altitudes of 6,000 meters where the partial pressure of oxygen is less than half of that at sea level? Or in the Great Salt Lake where the salt concentration can be nearly ten times saltier than the sea? Or temperatures below freezing? “Life at the Limits: The Physiology of Extremophiles,” a lecture series co-sponsored by Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, Scripps and Harvey Mudd colleges, features world-renowned experts on extreme environments and the physiology and ecology of organisms that inhabit them. The lectures are:

• Tuesday, September 12, 6 pm dinner; 6:45 pm talk
  Atheneum, Claremont McKenna College
  Raymond B. Huey, University of Washington
  “Life and Death at High Altitude: What Himalayan Mountaineers and Late Permian Vertebrates Have in Common”
• Wednesday, September 13, 4:00 pm
  Beckman Auditorium, Harvey Mudd College
  Raymond B. Huey, University of Washington
  “Evolution of Temperature Sensitivity of Insects: Comparative and Experimental Approaches”
• Thursday, September 28, 11:00 am
  Seaver North Auditorium, Pomona College
  Richard E. Lee, Miami University (Ohio)
  “Life in a Frozen Gall and Other Chilling Tales of Insects in the Cold”
• Thursday, September 28, 6 pm dinner; 6:45 pm talk
  Atheneum, Claremont McKenna College
  Richard E. Lee, Miami University (Ohio)
  “Life in a Changing and Changeable Environment: The Antarctic Peninsula”
• Thursday, October 5, 6 pm dinner; 6:45 pm talk
  Atheneum, Claremont McKenna College
  Gerald Kooyman, Scripps Institute of Oceanography
  “Emperor Penguins: Residents of the 10^th Planet”
• Friday, October 6, 11 am
  Burns Lecture Hall, Joint Sciences Department
  Gerald Kooyman, Scripps Institute of Oceanography
  “Diving to Extremes”
• Tuesday, October 10, 6 pm dinner; 6:45 pm talk
  Atheneum, Claremont McKenna College
  Timothy J. Bradley, University of California, Irvine
  “Mono Lake: A Geological and Biological Wonder”
• Wednesday, October 11, 5:15 pm
  Burns Lecture Hall, Joint Sciences Department
  Timothy J. Bradley, University of California, Irvine
  “The Evolutionary Physiology of Saline Tolerance in Mosquito Larvae”

For more information, contact Prof. Jonathan Wright or read the Pomona College News Release.

How lung design influences oxygen uptake in terrestrial isopod crustaceans

Biology student Kevin Ting ’05 and Prof. Jonathan Wright published a study in the October 2006 issue of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology comparing metabolic performance among terrestrial isopod species showing different degrees of lung development. In the basal species lacking lungs, oxygen uptake is sensitive to dehydration and oxygen partial pressure. More elaborate lungs render metabolism increasingly insensitive to both parameters.

• Wright, J.C., and K. Ting. 2006. Respiratory physiology in the Oniscidea: aerobic capacity and the significance of pleopodal lungs. Comp. Biochem Physiol. A. 145: 235-244. [abstract]

Prof. Johnson invited speaker at Drosophila Conference

Prof. Karl Johnson gave an invited talk, “HSPGs act through LAR to control neuromuscular junction form and function,” at the Southern California Drosophila Conference at UC Irvine on September 8, 2006.

Understanding the abundance and distribution of a threatened seabird

Prof. Nina Karnovsky and colleagues from a number of universities, institutes, and consulting companies have published the results of shipboard and aerial surveys at sea of the Xantus’s Murrelets, which are designated as “Threatened” by the California Department of Fish and Game. Surveys conducted at sea can provide a more accurate census of crevice-nesting seabirds, which are difficult to count in their breeding colonies. Their data suggest that the populations are stable at present, but long-term monitoring needs to be conducted.

• Karnovsky, N.J., L.B. Spear, H.R. Carter, D.G. Ainley, K.D. Amey, L.T. Ballance, K.T. Briggs, R.G. Ford, G.L. Hunt Jr., C. Keiper, J.W. Mason, K.H. Morgan, R.L. Pitman and C.T. Tynan. 2006. At-sea distribution, abundance, and habitat affinities of Xantus's Murrelets. Marine Ornithology 33: 89-104. [abstract | pdf]

Aged yeast, microarrays, and statistics

Prof. Laura Hoopes, her students, and Pomona statistician Johanna Hardin have published two papers dealing with statistical analysis of microarrays -- one on its use in the curriculum and one on analyzing genetic changes as yeast age.

• Hardin, J., L. Hoopes, and R. Murphy*. 2006. Analyzing DNA microarrays with undergraduate statisticians (refereed paper). ICOTS (International Conference on Teaching Statistics) 7 (2006) 3E (Multivariate Statistics): 1-5. [pdf]
• Wise, A.*, J. Hardin, and L. Hoopes. 2006. Yeast through the ages: A statistical analysis of genetic changes in yeast aging. Chance (Publication of the American Statistical Association) 19: 39-44. [pdf]

Scrambled genes in ciliated protozoa

Ciliated protozoa have two nucleic – a micronucleus that is inherited and larger transcriptionally active macronucleus containing many copies of certain genes, some of which have DNA sequences that are scrambled compared to the micronucleus. In the July issue Journal of Molecular Evolution, Prof. André Cavalcanti and colleagues from Princeton and Witten/Herdecke University, Germany, show that one of the scrambled genes from the ciliated Stylonychia lemnae is rearranged in different strains, indicating a new molecular mechanism for ciliate evolution.

• Mollenbeck, M., A.R.O. Cavalcanti, F. Jonsson, H.J. Lipps, and L.F. Landweber. 2006. Interconversion of germline-limited and somatic DNA in a scrambled gene. J. Mol. Evol. 63: 69-73. [abstract]

How does a small millipede survive in a desert-like microclimate?

In a study in the July 1, 2006, issue of The Journal of Experimental Biology Prof. Jonathan Wright and collaborator Peter Westh of Roskilde University, Denmark, showed that a small millipede that inhabits lichen-covered rock-faces is able to absorb water vapor from sub-saturated humidities to combat desiccation. The uptake mechanism is similar to that used by mealworms and exploits a specialized hindgut that probably evolved to recover water from the feces.

• Wright, J.C., and P. Westh. 2006. Water vapour absorption in the penicillate millipede Polyxenus lagurus (Diplopoda: Penicillata: Polyxenida): microcalorimetric analysis of uptake kinetics. J. Exp. Biol. 209: 2486-2494. [Summary]

> Biology News for 2005-2006