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Graduate students win NSF research fellowships

Three Washington State University College of Arts and Sciences students have been chosen for National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships. The prestigious awards have trained generations of American scientists and engineers, including Nobel laureates.

The College of Arts and Sciences’ honorees are:

Avery Anne Lane, an anthropology student from Tucson, Ariz., who is working on a master’s in Courtney Meehan’s biocultural anthropology lab.

Shawn Trojahn, a biology master’s student from Virginia Beach, Va., who is looking at the global decline in biodiversity in the vulnerable mangrove forest, a habitat affected by logging and water pollution.

Lindsey Marie Lavaysse, a psychology master’s student from San Francisco, is focusing on occupational health and safety threats to vulnerable populations like pregnant and minority workers.

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WSU News

Plant inner workings point way to more nutritious crops

Michael Knoblauch, biological sciences
Michael Knoblauch

Almost every calorie that we eat at one time went through the veins of a plant. If a plant’s circulatory system could be rejiggered to make more nutrients available – through bigger seeds or sweeter tomatoes – the world’s farmers could feed more people.

Washington State University researchers have taken a major step in that direction by unveiling the way a plant’s nutrients get from the leaves, where they are produced through photosynthesis, to “sinks” that can include the fruits and seeds we eat and the branches we process for biofuels. The researchers found a unique and critical structure where the nutrients are offloaded, giving science a new focal point in efforts to improve plant efficiency and productivity.

“If you can increase the sink strength by 5 percent, and you get 5 percent more product, you’d be looking at a multibillion dollar market,” said Michael Knoblauch, a professor in the WSU School of Biological Sciences.

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WSU News

Dramatic evolution within human genome may have been caused by malaria parasite

Omar E. Cornejo
Omar E. Cornejo

A genetic mutation that protects people from a common form of malaria spread like wildfire in sub-Saharan Africa about 42,000 years ago, according to a new study.

To learn more about how and when this mutation spread, Omar Cornejo, a population geneticist at Washington State University in Pullman, and colleagues analyzed full genome sequences from 1000 modern individuals from 21 population centers in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The researchers then employed a computer-based simulation that predicts how certain genetic variants spread throughout a population over time given the region’s known demographics and various selective pressures.

Based on rates of genetic change, the simulation suggests the most recent common ancestor of living Africans who possessed the DARC mutation lived about 42,000 years ago, the team reports this month in PLOS Genetics.

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Science Magazine

First cohort chosen for PNNL-WSU graduate research

Washington State University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have selected the first group of students for the PNNL-WSU Distinguished Graduate Research Program. Chemistry PhD students Ernesto Martinez, Austin Winkelman, and Anthony Krzysko were among the 12 WSU students selected for the program’s first cohort.

The program adds a new dimension to WSU and PNNL’s long partnership, which includes joint faculty appointments and research projects. The program is available to students who have been accepted into a WSU graduate program and are primarily pursuing research related to clean energy, smart manufacturing, sustainability, national security or biotechnology.

“Engaging graduate students with the talented energy, environment, national security and fundamental science researchers at our institutions will increase the scientific and research capacity in our region,” said Chris Keane, vice president for research at WSU.

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WSU News

Non-invasive prostate cancer diagnosing, monitoring

Clifford Berkman

Technology being developed at Washington State University provides a non-invasive approach for diagnosing prostate cancer and tracking the disease’s progression.

The innovative filter-like device isolates prostate cancer indicators from other cellular information in blood and urine. It could enable doctors to determine how cancer patients are responding to different treatments without needing to perform invasive biopsies.

“It may be possible to predict which drugs would be most effective in treating a patient’s cancer,” said WSU chemistry professor Clifford Berkman. “More broadly, this technology could be expanded to other types of cancers and diseases.”

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WSU News

Phys.org

Science Newsline

Knowridge Science Report