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The National Academy of Sciences today announced the election of 84 new members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing research achievements. Election to the National Academy of Sciences is one of the nation’s most prestigious scientific honors. Among the newly elected members, four are MCDB alumni.

Proper nutrition can unleash amazing powers, moms have always assured us, frequently citing Popeye the Sailor Man as evidence. Now, two University of Colorado Boulder scientists have confirmed just how potent some nutrients can be. In findings published today in the journal Cell, postdoctoral fellow Hongyun Tang and Professor Min Han, both of CU Boulder’s Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, detail how fat levels in a tiny soil-dwelling roundworm (C. elegans) can tip the balance between whether the worm makes eggs or sperm. Although the researchers discovered this phenomenon in worms, the research could have implications for future studies into human fertility and reproductive development.

Tom Perkins and JILA team unfold proteins with precise new instrumentation

The University of Colorado Boulder was selected by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundaution as one of eleven institutions in the United States to receive a 2017 Beckman Scholars Program Award. The Beckman Scholars Program offers an in depth research experience to exceptionally talented, full-time CU Boulder undergraduates in the biological and chemical sciences. Beckman Scholars will conduct independent laboratory research under the supervision of one of fifteen faculty mentors from five departments.

Undergraduate students at the University of Colorado will soon enjoy a new means of conducting scientific laboratory research, as CU Boulder is one of 11 U.S. institutions to receive a 2017 Beckman Scholars Program Award.

Two studies publishing on the 1st September in Open Access journal PLOS Biology identify overlapping groups of cells in the Drosophila larva that have unique properties. In one case, the cells are resistant to irradiation or drug-induced cell death and capable of moving to areas of damaged tissue where they adopt a new fate and initiate regeneration. The second study examines cells from the same location and reports that, upon inactivation of a tumor suppressor gene, these cells but not others elsewhere in the same tissue take a first step towards becoming aggressive tumors. Both sets of authors discuss potential implications for human tumors.

When it comes to mitochondrial inheritance, maternal genes rule the day at the expense of paternal ones. But why? A new study, published today in the journal Science and led by University of Colorado Boulder researchers, sheds new light on a longstanding biological mystery.

A University of Colorado Boulder research team, in collaboration with a researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has discovered how skin stem cells know when to stop dividing. The findings, published as the cover story in the Feb 5th issue of the journal Science, could point to...

Last month, Dick McIntosh, distinguished professor (emeritus), and Joy Power (’88 BIO), an alumna and lab coordinator, of the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Department at the University of Colorado Boulder, traveled to the University of Ghana in Legon to participate in a two-week course on modern cell biology for...

CU-Boulder Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Bradley Olwin, has been selected as one of 29 U.S. scientists to receive the 2015 Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging. The award, from the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, comes with a $60,000 grant to support Olwin’s research on how the body repairs and regenerates skeletal muscle after injury, in the face of disease, and during the normal aging process.