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National Science Foundation and Other Summer Funding Opportunities for Students: Resources for Students Pursuing Degrees in the Sciences!
The National Cancer Institute Undergraduate Student Summer fellowships
Research Experience for Undergraduates.
Vaughn Cooper recently received $1 million CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to better understand beneficial mutations in bacteria by engaging high school students in data collection.
The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.
Cooper’s research explores the overarching evolutionary and ecological question of how adaptation proceeds and how new mutations may benefit organisms in their current environments as well as in others. With this CAREER grant, Cooper aims to improve understanding of the relationship between adaptation to one environment and ability to grow in other environments through study of two very different types of bacteria – E. coli and Burkholderia -- evolving in laboratory microcosms. While the work has broad implications for the evolution of other species, “studying adaptation these mutation processes normally takes a long time, which is why we study bacteria,” Cooper says.
While they’re arguably the most important mutations, these beneficial mutations are rare. “The innovation of our proposal to the NSF is that we came up with a good way to find them that’s easy to do,” says Cooper. His project will collect many beneficial mutants from bacterial populations and precisely quantify their adaptive value in a single selective environment, then measure the scope of indirect effects of these mutants. Contemporary techniques of molecular genetics and microbiology will be used to characterize the biological networks that link genetics, physiology, and ecology in the evolving populations of bacteria.
Cooper’s lab also will enlist high school students from the Seacoast School of Technology in Exeter to gather data and, he hopes, develop an interest in studying evolution in action. With a flow cytometer – a specialized microscope-like instrument that can analyze and isolate thousands of particles every second – that fits on a cart, “students will be able to pick their own mutations and characterizations, which then go into our central database,” Cooper says. He hopes to take this collaboration to other area schools. (11/17/09)
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After six months of curriculum design by MCBS faculty, the USNH Board of Trustees recently approved the creation of four new undergraduate programs: B.S. in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology; B.S. in Biomedical Science, with three options in medical laboratory science, medical microbiology, and medical & veterinary sciences; B.S. in Genetics, with an option in genomics; B.S. in Nutrition, with three options in dietetics, nutrition and wellness, and nutritional sciences.
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Cheryl Whistler, in conjunction with researchers from five other universities, has received $772,700 to study the genetic characteristics of the Vibrio bacteria that live in squid to see how the genetic characteristics of the colonizing bacteria are related to the success of the host-symbiont unit. The teams - almost exclusively undergraduates - will compile the data into a database that will be available to researchers worldwide.
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Vaughan Cooper has received $140,000 from NIH to study the impact of climate change on bacterial growth in oysters and shellfish habitats. This information will be used by scientists to understand the effects of climate change overall, and by shell fisherman, government officials, scientists and citizens as they work together to protect estuary habitats and the shellfish that live in them.
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Vaughan Cooper, in collaboration with two other universities, has received $196,800 to study how genetic background and different environments affect the response of bacteria and determine whether those can be predicted from known relationships between environments and genotypes. Understanding how bacteria adapt to novel environments and whether those adaptations would be favored in alternative environments is essential to medicine, public health, biotechnology, industry, and as a foundation for the science of biology. The strains of bacteria developed will be made available to the broader scientific community.
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The Tisa lab has been awarded two externally funded grants for our studies on plant-microbe interactions. In collaboration with Dr. Samira Mansour from Suez Canal University, Tisa was awarded a 3 year $99,115 US-Egypt Science and Technology Joint Research BIO13-001 grant titled “Exploration of endogenous Frankia strains in Egypt”. The major goals of this project are to use molecular tools to study Egyptian Frankia strains, train Egyptian students, and to foster collaborative research between Egypt and USA. Dr. Mansour was a visiting scientist in the Tisa during the summer 2009
Tisa was just awarded a 3 year $399,000 USDA NIFA 2009-04318 grant titled “Identification of Potential Signal Molecules in the Actinorhizal Symbiosis: The major goal of this project are to identify novel gene products involved in the actinorhizal symbiosis especially Frankia gene products involved in plant recognition, infection, nodulation, and nodule maintenance. The research project will involve collaboration between the Tisa Laboratory at University of New Hampshire and laboratory of Dr. Didier Bogusz at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) in Montpellier, France. The Tisa laboratory has been focused on the Frankia genomics and physiology, while Bogusz laboratory has centered on the molecular biology of the actinorhizal plants and developed genetic tractable system for Casuarina, actinorhizal plant. Tisa spent part of his sabbatical leave at the IRD with the Bogusz group where he initiated this collaboration.
Lastly, Tisa lab has a new visiting scholar in the lab. Medhat Rehan is a Genetics PhD student from the Kafrelsheikh University and is funded by the Egyptian Bureau Cultural and Education Bureau. As a student in the Egyptian Scientific Channel system, Medhat will be learning molecular genetics and pursuing Frankia research in the Tisa lab for his PhD. At the end of the 2 year term, Medhat will defend his research thesis back in Egypt. Prof. Tisa has agreed to be his mentor and will go Egypt as part of the defense committee.
