| Message from the Chair | 
Greetings from the Department of Biology! This winter our faculty, staff, and students have been busy – receiving awards, fellowships, and grants; presenting their research findings; and highlighting the classroom experiences in our investigative labs. We look forward to an exciting and productive Spring semester. This Spring, Biology will host an Alumni Event during the Iowa City Darwin Day Celebrations (April 10-11); keep an eye out for more information. The Annual Department Awards Ceremony will be May 7. We hope you can join us for one or more of these events!
Tina Tootle, Ph.D.
Chair and Professor
Department of Biology | | | | Bin Z. HE, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, has been awarded the James Van Allen Natural Sciences Fellowship for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. This fellowship, which provides $15,000 to support a scholarly project, is a competitive award designed to encourage and support scholarly work in the physical, natural, and mathematical sciences. With the Van Allen Fellowship, Dr. HE and his team will build a series of computational and experimental tools for comprehensively evaluating the evolutionary history of all yeast adhesin families and their contribution to infection and virulence. The results are expected to have translational impacts on the identification of novel yeast pathogens and potential development of novel treatment strategies. | | | John Manak, a Professor in the Department of Biology, received a Summer 2026 Interdisciplinary Research Grant from the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies to study Intellectual disability (ID). ID is a common neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant limitations in learning, memory, and problem-solving as well as social interaction and communication. Using health databases and fruit fly genetic approaches, Dr. Manak will work with Dr. Benjamin Darbro from the Stead Family Department of Pediatrics to identify genes associated with ID. The project will be funded by a Laura Spelman Rockefeller grant.
| | | | Bin Z. HE, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, received a three-year, $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the evolution of oxidative stress resistance and response in diverse yeasts. With this grant, Dr. HE and his team will aim to uncover new biology in oxidative stress response and reveal how genetic changes in the TF-target relationship drive transcriptional response divergence. The project will also feature a workshop to teach basic scientific coding skills to biology undergraduate and graduate students conducting research at the University of Iowa.
| | | Cathy Yea Won Sung, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, received a three-year, $739,338 grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) to study the role of macrophages in hearing loss caused by the chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin. In this project, Dr. Sung and her lab will investigate how macrophages regulate blood-labyrinth barrier permeability in the inner ear during cisplatin-induced ototoxicity, using both non-tumor-bearing and tumor-bearing mouse models. This work aims to provide a rational framework for developing therapies that prevent cisplatin from entering the inner ear, thereby protecting the hearing of cancer patients undergoing cisplatin-based chemotherapy.
| | | | Six graduate students in the Department of Biology received fellowships from the UI Graduate College for the Spring 2026 semester. The following Ph.D. students received the Ballard and Seashore Dissertation Fellowship: Adrianna Caro (iBio Graduate Program, Green Lab), Ashley Goll (Cell & Developmental Biology Program, Tootle Lab), Shulin Liu (iBio Graduate Program, Fassler Lab), Joseph Oberlitner (Genetics Graduate Program, Smolikove Lab), and Israel Wipf (Cell & Developmental Biology Program, Tootle Lab). Varshu Saravanakumar (iBio Graduate Program, Neiman Lab) received the Post-Comprehensive Research Fellowship.
Congratulations to all of these students!
| | | Graduate Students successfully defend theses Integrated Biology Master's student, Kieran Coffey, successfully defended his thesis titled, "Investigating Synapse Regeneration: Transcriptional mechanisms and temporal constraints," on November 24, 2025. Kieran's mentor is Steven Green, Professor of Biology.
Genetics Ph.D. student, Julianna Koenig, successfully defended her dissertation titled, "Restoring protein synthesis in a neuronal model of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease," on November 21, 2025. Julianna's mentor is Dan Summers, Assistant Professor of Biology.
Congratulations Kieran and Julianna!
| | | Undergraduate Student News | | | | Biology Honors Colloquium The Department of Biology Undergraduate Honors Colloquium for the Fall 2025 semester was held on December 8, 2025, in Biology Building East and via Zoom. Evan Meyer, a Biology student in Sarit Smolikove's lab (Department of Biology); and Colin Reis, a Biomedical Sciences student in James Byrne's lab (Department of Radiation Oncology), presented on their honors research.
Great job by Evan and Colin! | | | The annual Fall Undergraduate Research Festival (FURF) was held on November 19, 2025, on the 2nd Floor of the University Capitol Centre. Several students affiliated with the Department of Biology's majors, research labs, or programs (i.e. Iowa Sciences Academy) presented on their research. We congratulate all of these very talented undergraduate students on their hard work and dedication to research!
| | | | Animal Behavior Lab Student Presentations Students in the Animal Behavior Laboratory course in the Fall 2025 semester gave their end-of-the-semester presentations on December 10 and 11, 2025. In this course, students receive hands-on experience observing and analyzing the behavior of different species of vertebrate and invertebrate animals. Three new species in Fall 2025 were introduced for students to experiment with: Planarian flatworms, Neocaridina shrimp, and fiddler crabs. A major feature of the course is the opportunity for students to develop their own independent project and present on their experimental results. The course, taught by Biology Professor Dan Eberl, had two sections with a total of 31 students in the Fall 2025 semester. | | | Entomology Lab Insect Collections Showcase Students in the Entomology Lab course, taught by Biology Professor Andrew Forbes, held their annual showcase of insects collected throughout the Fall 2025 semester on December 8, 2025, in the Biology Building East lobby. The event, open to the public, showed the variety of insects the 16 students in the course collected in the field. Students in the course study myriad aspects of insects in both lab and field settings including their diversity, evolution, ecology, physiology, relevance to agriculture and medicine, and prospects as a sustainable food source. | | | Other Biology News | Sean Strand, a Biology undergraduate student, received the first place People's Choice Award in the 2025 Capture Your Research Photo Contest for his work in the Tootle Lab.
Louis Nastasi, a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Forbes Lab in the Department of Biology, Mia Dukle and Riley McCoy, both Biomedical Sciences students, were all featured in the Dare to Discover campaign, which showcases student and postdoc researchers across the University of Iowa on banners throughout downtown Iowa City.
Amil Brown, who worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Forbes Lab in the Department of Biology and graduated with a bachelor's degree in December 2025, reflects on her experience as a student at the University of Iowa.
Jim Young and Caleb Craven, former students in the Animal Behavior Laboratory course (Fall 2023 semester), recently had their paper published on Madagascar hissing cockroaches.
Tyler Draayer, a Biology undergraduate student on the pre-medicine track, shapes his future as a doctor.
Kara Juhl, a Biology undergraduate student, shared about her recent experience studying abroad in Santiago, Chile, at the CIEE 78th Annual Study Abroad Conference held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
A study led by Biology Professor, Maurine Neiman, traced the evolutionary history of a tiny freshwater snail from New Zealand through its genome and discovered that the species duplicated all of its genetic material – a finding that could further reveal how major evolutionary shifts in animals occur.
Maurine Neiman, a Professor of Biology, was named Treasurer of the Society for the Study of Evolution for 2026.
Riley McCoy, a Biomedical Sciences student, and Bhoomika Shettigar, majoring in Neuroscience, attended the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Conference held November 15-19, 2025, at the San Diego Convention Center. Riley and Bhoomika were able to attend SfN with funding from the Iowa Sciences Academy and shared their experiences in this amazing opportunity.
Kristina Venzke, Associate Director of the Iowa Sciences Academy, celebrated her 25 years at the University of Iowa.
Check out the Department of Biology's Spring 2026 Seminar Schedule. Seminars are open to all faculty, staff, students, and the public. Seminar announcements will also be listed each week under the "Seminars" section on the front page of the Biology website. To receive the weekly seminar announcements through email, send an email to biology@uiowa.edu and indicate you want to join the seminar email list.
Iowa City Darwin Day will be celebrated April 10-11, 2026! Events will kick off with three talks focusing on vaccine science and public health on Friday, April 10, in Kollros Auditorium (Room 101), Biology Building East (BBE), with the first one beginning at 3:00pm. All events are free and open to the public.
Mark your calendar! One Day for Iowa, the University of Iowa's 24-hour online giving day, will be held on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. | | | |
