The Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center

In keeping with the mission of Dartmouth College, the faculty and staff of the Department of Biological Sciences are committed to providing educational and research experiences of the highest quality for undergraduate and graduate students as a means of developing a deeper understanding of biology at the levels of molecules, cells, organisms and the environment.The department offers numerous and diverse courses in biology, including our foreign studies program. These courses may be combined in different ways to complete the requirements of the major. We stress the development of critical thinking and problem solving skills both in the classroom and as students conduct original research in faculty laboratories.

The biology department is located in the new Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center. Be sure to visit the greenhouses to see a unique teaching collection that includes the Brout Orchid Collection.  The greenhouse is open to the public Monday through Friday, 9AM until 4PM (except during college holidays).

Biological Sciences Honors Student Presentations

Presentations will be given in room 201 of The Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center

All are welcome to attend. Each presentation will be thirty minutes in length.  

Kudos!

• Jon Anker '11 and Prof. Amy Gladfelter have published their paper "Axl2 integrates polarity establishment, maintenance, and environmental stress response in the filamentous fungus Ashbya gossypii." in Eukaryotic Cell.  For the journal article, please click here.
• Molly Redmond '02 was recognized by the National Science Foundation  for her worked on the microbial community responses to the Deep Horizon oil spill.  Molly's work has been published in PNAS.  For the journal article, please click here.
• Professor Albert Erives has published a paper on the origins of the amino acid codon table in the Journal of Molecular Evolution, titled "A model of proto-anti-codon RNA enzymes requiring L-amino acid homochirality."
• Cori D'Ausilio of the Gladfelter Lab and Simone Whitecloud of the McPeek Lab received prizes for their posters at the Dartmouth Graduate Student Poster Session.  Congratulations! 
• Professor Kevin Peterson has published the following paper in the journal Nature, “Acoelomorpha Flatworms are Deuterostomes Related to Xenoturbella.”
• The American Association for the Advancement of Science has elevated C. Robertson McClung, Professor of Biological Sciences, to the rank of Fellow for his important work on plant circadian rhythms as well as his academic leadership at Dartmouth and the American Society of Plant Biologists.  Prof. McClung served as President of the society in 2007 and 2008. Please click here to read the Dartmouth news release.
  
• Samuel Fey, a graduate student in Professor Kathy Cottingham's lab, has been awarded the David Cushing Prize for his paper that has been published in the Journal of Plankton Research.  Please click here for a link to his award-winning paper.
• Professor Sharon Bickel has received funding from the National Institute of General Medical Science to study meoisis.  To see the Dartmouth news release please click here.
• Professor Albert Erives' lab has published a groundbreaking discovery about the DNA regulatory code.  The article, "Dynamic Evolution of Precise Regulatory Encoding Creates the Clustered Site Signature of Enhancers," has been published in Nature Communications.
• Professor Mark McPeek,  has received the America Institute of Biological Sciences President's Citation Award for his "significant scientific contributions to the biological sciences."
• Christen DiPetrillo, a graduate student in Professor Elizabeth F. Smith's lab, has been selected to be a John H. Copenhaver, Jr. and William H. Thomas, MD 1952 Fellow.
• Ramsa Chaves, a graduate student in Professor Brad Taylor's lab, was awarded a fellowship from the Organization for Tropical Studies to support her research exploring the impacts of land use change on subsidies of aquatic insects to terrestrial consumers, such as spiders, bats, and lizards in her home country of Costa Rica.
• Ramsa Chaves, a graduate student in Professor Brad Taylor's lab, was awarded a grant from The Explorers Club Exploration Fund to investigate the impacts of land use change on fluxes of stream insects to terrestrial animals in her home country of Costa Rica. Her proposal was selected from over 222 proposals.
• Professor Ryan Calsbeek and post-doctoral researcher Dr. Robert Cox have published in journal Science their findings that lizards "have found a clever way to pass on genes with gender-specific effects on fitness."  Please click here for the Dartmouth news release.
• Professor Albert J. Erives has received an NSF CAREER Award to enlarge his group's study of the functional structure and evolution of regulatory DNAs.
• Professor Thomas P. Jack's lab has discovered that a gene (miR319a) that is known to be involved in leaf development is also involved in flower development.  Please click here for the Dartmouth news release.

An Historical Account

Learn more about Biological Research and Education at Dartmouth College, in this site created by Robin Levine and maintained by Professor Michael Dietrich.

Please note the biology department web site is a work in progress. Any concerns should be directed to the Department of Biological Sciences.