- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
He focuses his research on the behavioral, population and evolutionary ecology of parasitoid-host and predator-prey interactions. His work has direct applications to integrated pest management and biological control in agriculture.
Rosenheim explains on his website: "I am an ecologist with broad interests, including behavioral and evolutionary ecology as well as population and community ecology. I focus on predator-prey, parasitoid-host, pathogen-host, and plant-insect interactions. My general approach is to try to ask important, fundamental questions in ecology with an eye to advancing our basic understanding and, when possible, to simultaneously make contributions to solving problems in the real world. I attempt to integrate empirical studies (observational work, manipulative experiments) with theoretical investigations (simulation and basic analytical models); I often find that I can make the best progress with my research problems by conducting a dialogue between theory and experiment. I also try to balance work in natural ecosystems and in agricultural ecosystems, where predators and parasitoids are so important as biological control agents."
Rosenheim joined the UC Davis faculty in 1990 as an assistant professor, advancing to associate professor in 1994, and full professor in 1998. He is active in the Entomological Society of America, Ecological Society of America, Society for the Study of Evolution and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He received his bachelor's degree in entomology and genetics from UC Davis in 1983, and his doctorate in entomology in 1987 from UC Berkeley.
The International Organization for Biological Control was established in 1956 to promote environmentally safe methods of pest and disease control in plant protection. The Global Council sponsors many international working groups and publishes a newsletter.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Xu, professor of agro-ecology at the China Agricultural University (CAU), is on a yearlong sabbatical in the Hammock lab. He received assistance in obtaining the grant from project manager Bruce Hammock and program manager Shirley Gee, now retired, both co-investigators.
“This is a highly competitive program and this grant is a huge honor for Ting and for Shirley Gee,” said Hammock, who holds joint appointments in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Center.
The $330,000 grant, funded by China, is a cooperative agreement between UC Davis and China. “The grant is quite timely, as UC Davis is working to increase scientific exchange with China,” Hammock said. “We have been collaborating with Ting's group for several years on nanobody-based immunoassays to improve human and environmental health.”
Two previous students from Professor Xu's laboratory have studied in Davis and the funds will allow additional senior Ph.D. students from Xu's laboratory to join the Hammock lab.
Xu described immunoassays as “a rapid, sensitive and cost effective method of analysis for pesticides.” Technically, engineering antibodies “such as a variable domain of heavy chain antibody (VHH) from camelids and a single-chain antibody variable fragment (scFv) from chickens have advantages over monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies in the respect of small size, thermal stability, solubility and easy generation,” Xu explained. “The objectives of this project focus on the production of specific VHHs and scFvs for several pesticides and the development of engineering antibodies based immunoassays for pesticide environmental exposure and food safety. The novel pesticide antibodies are expected to improve the assay sensitivity and stability.”
“Nanobodies are revolutionizing immunoassay development and possibly disease therapy,” explained Shirley Gee, UC Davis collaborator on the proposal. “It was thrilling over the last few months to have Ting and his student here at the same time as Gualberto Gonzalez from Uruguay and his students since we are three of the major labs developing this technology for analyzing environmental and food toxins.”
Among other benefits, the research can aid farm workers, who would be monitored for pesticides in their urine. The assay could distinguish between exposed and unexposed populations and provide useful information about relative exposure related to crop or use of personal protective equipment.
Xu's publications directly address the fact that the immunoassay method, especially ELISA, is an effective screen tool for the agrochemicals and pollutants in the environment. His main contributions to science are associated with design of novel haptens, production of tradition (monoclonal and polyclonal) and engineering antibodies, and development of competitive and non-competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) for small molecules.
Xu received his doctorate in agro-ecology in 2003 from CAU, and did postdoctoral research in immunoassays in 2007 at the University of Hawaii. He joined the CAU faculty in 2003 as a lecturer and advanced to associate professor in 2007, and professor in 2013. Twice honored by Chinese governments, Xu received third prize for the Agriculture Science and Technology Award by the China Ministry of Agriculture in 2009, and second prize for the Technological Invention Award by the China Ministry of Education in 2013.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“We think that this research will lead to a very positive outcome to improve the lives of cystic fibrosis patients,” said co-author Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The research, published in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, links a newly discovered class of bacterial enzymes to battling cystic fibrosis, a progressive, genetic disease characterized by persistent lung infections and inability to breathe normally.
Senior author Jennifer Bomberger of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine explained that the opportunistic bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, outcompetes other microorganisms in a cystic fibrosis patient's lungs and establishes a stronghold.
The scientific discovery could lead to new therapies that would interrupt or correct the bacterial sabotage, Hammock and Bomberger said.
“This paper is the outcome of an exciting and interdisciplinary project,” said Hammock, who directs the UC Davis Superfund Program financed by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH-NIEHS).
“It started several years ago with the NIEHS Superfund Program funding both a group at Dartmouth and at UC Davis. A very productive and exciting collaboration resulted in looking at how to mitigate the effects of environmental chemicals on human health. Our collaborative work led to this joint publication which yields exciting hope for cystic fibrosis patients.”
Bomberger continues to work on the biology of the system while the Dartmouth and Davis groups have developed inhibitors of the action of CIF to stabilize pro-resolving mediators, reduce inflammation, and control periodic flare ups of bacterial infections.
"It will be key to devise a way to remove P. aeruginosa's ability to capitalize on the body's natural inflammatory response, without eliminating that response," said Bomberger. "Inflammation is happening for a reason—to clear infection. We just need it to temper the response when it is not effectively doing its job or is no longer needed."
Other co-authors of the paper include Hammock lab members Christophe Morisseau and Jun Yang, both from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. .Institutions involved in the study also included the Harvard School of Medicine.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bruce Hammock, director of the UC Davis Superfund Program, learned of the notable achievement at the directors' meeting Dec 5-8 in Durham, N.C.
"The productivity of the next two most productive programs combined, do not match that of UC Davis,” said (in jest) Hammock, distinguished professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.
UC Davis Superfund co-director Tom Young, professor of civil and environmental engineering, College of Engineering, quipped that UC Davis faculty will need bodyguards now if they are around the other programs.
Hammock credited the productivity to “great students and postdoctoral fellows and wonderful senior scientists,” but added that “we must not overlook executive administrative assistant Louisa Lo; UC Davis Superfund program manager Sukhi Aujla; and Hammock lab program manager Cindy McReynolds who ensured that the papers were filled correctly with NIH.”
The NIH NIEHS Superfund Research Program at UC Davis, funded for 30 years, has brought almost $100 million to the campus to study how to evaluate the risk of environmental chemicals as well as to remediate toxic waste sites.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The award recognizes a graduate student for distinguished research and scholarly activity in the field of social insect biology. Borowiec received a certificate, honorarium, and a one-year subscription to Insectes Sociaux.
Borowiec is now a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of evolutionary biologist/ant specialist Christian Rabeling of Rochester, N.Y. The lab will be moving to Tempe, Ariz. in January.
“What is notable about Marek is that even as he became trained as a highly accomplished molecular phylogeneticist and computational biologist, he remained focused on organism-centered questions, driven by a deep and abiding appreciation of natural history,” said Ward.
Borowiec is the first from the Ward lab to receive the Eickwort Award.
The IUSSI-NAS Committee, chaired by Terry McGlynn and Stephen Pratt, and including members Rebecca Clark, Hongmei Li-Byarlay, Juliana Rangel, and Chris Smith, praised his work as having a significant impact on the field of social insect evolutionary biology.
They issued this statement:
“Although he has just received his PhD, Marek's work has already had a significant impact on the field of social insect evolutionary biology,” said the committee of . “His dissertation, completed under the supervision of Phil Ward at UC Davis, included a landmark revision of the genera in the diverse army ant subfamily Dorylinae. Marek produced a classification of the army ants in which morphological and molecular genetic data are fully congruent with each other, an unprecedented feat in ant taxonomy. His work showed decisively that the ‘army ant syndrome' evolved independently in the New World and Old World tropics, settling a century-old controversy.”
“Besides his army ant work, Marek also contributed to phylogenomic research demonstrating that ants are the sister group of the bees and spheciform wasps, and he was first author of an important paper showing that Ctenophora, the comb jellies, is the sister group to all other metazoans, thus resolving one of the earliest phylogenetic bifurcations in the animal kingdom. Marek's strengths in taxonomy and phylogenetics are supported by his accomplishments in bioinformatics, which include developing and publishing a novel tool to manipulate DNA sequence alignments of genomic datasets.”
“Marek's recommenders praise him as a well-rounded biologist with a deep appreciation of natural history. “He doesn't just excel in ant taxonomy, or phylogenetics, or bioinformatics. He excels in all of these disciplines. It is his love for ants and his curiosity about the natural world that motivates his studies.”
Marek is also a good scientific citizen, actively serving the systematics community as a subject editor for ZooKeys and Biodiversity Data Journal and as a frequent contributor to online systematics resources and databases. His research and scholarly achievements make Marek Borowiec a very deserving winner of this year's George C. Eickwort Student Research Award.”
Borowiec's research interests include phylogeny, taxonomy, biogeography, and natural history of ants. Before enrolling at UC Davis, Borowiec received his master's degree in 2009 from the Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Taxonomy, University of Wroclaw, Poland.
"My focus has been primarily on ant diversity and evolution and in my research I combine field work, morphology, molecular phylogenetics, and comparative methods," Borowiec said. "I am also interested in computing and phylogeny estimation from next-generation sequencing data."