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Saturday is Halloween, the end of October, and Daylight Savings Time will end as clocks “fall back” in the early hours of Sunday morning. CSUN Biologists can probably use the extra hour of sleep, and may even appreciate a sunnier start to their days as the semester enters the home stretch. Hopefully those aren’t the only treats we’re enjoying this week—and indeed some of us have new projects to celebrate, and former students to welcome back to the department for a special Colloquium seminar.
The LA County vote center on campus is open for early voting in the midterm elections held on Tuesday, November 3—anyone eligible to vote can complete and submit a ballot at the center, in Redwood Hall Room 180.
The Biology Colloquium Seminar Series continues Friday with a presentation by Emily Hatanaka and Basia Gala, CSUN Biology alumni who have gone on to doctoral programs at Cedars Sinai. Their talk, which is sponsored by CIRM, will be titled, “Finding our path in science: From CSU classrooms to PhD research”. Colloquium seminars are held Fridays this semester at 2:30 pm in Chaparral Hall 5122; and after their talk, Hatanaka and Gala will join a meet-the-speaker gathering with students in Chaparral Hall 5201.
Flores Lab will probe potential probiotic potency of prokaryote
Major new grants from NIH and the Danish dairy producer Arla Foods International will support CSUN Professor of Biology Gilberto Flores and his lab in ongoing studies of Akkermansia, a key member of the human gut microbiota. Akkermansia helps process the complex sugars unique to milk, and it feeds on the mucus lining the intestine. In the context of a healthy diet and intestinal microbiome, this prompts renewal of the lining, rather than damaging it. The new projects will focus on Akkermansia‘s functional role in comparison to other common gut bacteria, and provide a better understanding of how it can be used as a preventative or therapeutic probiotic supplement.