Each year, the start of the holidays seems to get here earlier and earlier. This year is no different. It feels like just yesterday (or maybe last week) that we welcomed 6,400 CBS students back to campus for the start of fall quarter. And now, here we are—it’s time to wish them luck on their finals, and then send them back to their friends and loved ones for a well-deserved break.

This has been a busy—and productive!—year for the college, as you can see in our video of the year’s highlights. Among many great achievements, Jay Stachowicz, a professor of evolution and ecology, has received quite a lot of attention recently. He’s now the interim director of the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute and was just named the recipient of the UC Davis Prize for Teaching and Scholarly Achievement, one of the largest prizes of its kind in the nation funded by philanthropy. I hope you will join me in congratulating Jay.

The end of the year is also my chance to thank the college’s generous donors and supporters. CBS raised $18.4 million over the last fiscal year—a record for our college—and is well positioned to continue advancing our understanding of life on earth. On behalf of the College of Biological Sciences, I thank all those who have provided support for our students, faculty and programs. If you would like to make a year-end, tax-deductible donation in support of the college, please do so here.

As the year winds down, I hope the time away is restorative for you. Though each year comes with its share of challenges, at this point in the season it’s hard not to be grateful for all that’s happened, and all that’s to come in the New Year.

Go Ags!

______________



Mark Winey, Ph.D.

Dean, College of Biological Sciences

Distinguished Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology 

Featured image: In festive holiday colors, human skin cells in culture. Nuclei are in blue, actin filaments are in pink, tubulin was labeled with green.



Eimy Castellanos and Maria Ayala, graduate students in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, were recognized for their work with a protein complex essential for the normal function of cells in humans. 

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Christina Kim was recognized for her innovative and high-impact research and will receive $2.3 million in funding over five years to better understand how certain neuron functions are linked to disease.

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Researchers at the Genome Center led a three-part study of anal gland secretions from domestic cats. Their work shows how domestic cats send signals to each other using odors derived from families of bacteria living in their anal glands.

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New research from the Department of Evolution and Ecology shows that all modern maize descends from a hybrid created just over 5000 years ago in central Mexico, thousands of years after the plant was first domesticated.

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Researchers in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology have discovered that some immune cells can remodel ovaries into sperm-producing testes in zebrafish. Their work could lead to treatments for reduced fertility in humans. 

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Researchers in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics have shown how neutrophils, which swarm sites of infection in the human body, prioritize which signals to respond to when multiple threats are present.

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The “Coastal Marine Research” class trains undergraduates in all aspects of the research process through seminars, which take place before students conduct their own independent research projects. 

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Students are invited to the Phi Sigma Honor Society on the basis of outstanding academic achievement as a way for those studying the life sciences to meet peers, make friends, and participate in a community of learning and development.

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