News

William & Mary's interdisciplinary environmental program is expanding, thanks to a new post-doctoral fellowship program.
Read about Biology Topics courses offered in the upcoming 2010 Spring Semester (Bio 404 - Topics in Biology course catalog listing).
Alex Gunderson (W&M '07) published a paper with Dr. Mark Forsyth and Dr. John Swaddle that is featured in a story by the BBC. Alex's work points to effects that feather-degrading bacteria have on bluebird plummage coloration and health.
A protein known as the thyroid hormone receptor shuttles in and out of the cell's nucleus, where it goes about the all-important business of turning genes on and off.
The department has regained its phosphorimaging capabilities with a new Storm 845 unit.

Congratulations to John Griffin on being named the Class of 2012 Associate Professor of Biology.
On Feb. 7, during William & Mary's annual Charter Day celebrations, Kelly Hallinger received the Thomas Jefferson Prize in Natural Philosophy for her work in biology and ornithology.
What can an understanding of the genetics of yeast do to get us closer to a cure for cancer? Plenty.
Graduating biology and neuroscience majors will defend their thesis research (Masters for Biology and Honors Theses with Biology Department faculty advisors). All interested students and faculty are encouraged to attend!
Two graduate students in William and Mary’s biology program received external grants totaling $42,900 to continue their work on environmentally-sensitive projects.
Every other Monday, behind closed doors, a group of people huddle over a platter of sandwiches in Millington Hall to discuss and refine their plans to disperse mercury throughout the College of William and Mary.
Heather McConchie's interest in biology began when she was a senior high school student in Chesapeake, Virginia.
For most William and Mary students with their eyes on med school, the fear of not getting accepted is enough to inspire nightmares. It's hard to imagine a future that wouldn't include everything going according to plan. Eight years ago, Julie Searle Vanas was one of those students who had no idea what to do after graduation when her Plan A, medical school, didn't pan out. Now, Searle Vanas, '98, a Senior Clinical Research Associate at Human Genome Sciences, Inc, wants other W&M students to know that there are plenty of other, exciting careers out there for the medically inclined.
This is a love story, really. Her sophomore year, William and Mary biology major Jenn Guyant fell in love on Spring Break. She knew it wasn't going to be easy, logistically or emotionally, to make it work in the future, but it was love and she was going to try. Her love? Africa.
Nothing is as charismatic as a bluebird, that nearly universal symbol of happiness and well being. Bluebirds are valuable for more than symbols of happiness. Their own pursuit of happiness makes them an ideal subject for scientific study.
A graduate from the William and Mary class of 1974, Linda Cauley now serves as director for Shenandoah Valley Governor's School (SVGS) in Fishersville, Virginia. She acts as a principal as well as an AP Environmental Science teacher SVGS. The school specializes in math, science, technology, and, more recently, the fine arts.
"Ridiculously cool." That is junior pre-med Jeff Burket's phrase of choice when describing his work in Prof. Mark Forsyth's lab, as well as when expressing his wonder at life on the molecular level in general.

















