AMES – Teaching a machine to finish a complex task can save humans a lot of time, effort and money. But first, the machine has to learn how, and that comes with plenty of its own challenges.

An interdisciplinary team of Iowa State University scientists turned to crowdsourcing, or relying on large groups of minimally trained people, to repeat a task often enough that researchers could formulate an algorithm that allows a computer to carry out that task automatically. In this case, the scientists wanted to teach a machine to identify the tassels of corn plants when given a vast number of photographic images to sort through.

A large number of BCB students from the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Graduate Program at Iowa State University will be presenting at an international conference to be held in Chicago, IL, July 6 through 10th.  The conference entitled, Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) 2018, is in its 26th year. 

From their website: "ISMB brings together scientists from computer science, molecular biology, mathematics, statistics and related fields. Its principal focus is on the development and application of advanced computational methods for biological problems.

Julie Dickerson, a BCB faculty member in ECPE, was P.I. and Gaurav Kandoi, a PhD BCB student in her lab, was coP.I. on a successful Broadening Participation Allocation which requested computing time and disk storage on the Blue Waters supercomputer.  Theirs was one of 21 successful proposals.

Blue Waters is one of the world's most powerful computing systems. The allocations are for computing resources, i.e. quota for use of the super computer and data storage. They have received 84900 node-hours of computing time and a total of 5.0 TB of on-line disk storage on the system.

From the National Center for Supercomputing Applications which administers the Blue Waters Supercomputer:

Several BCB students took part in the GPSS Conference held April 11 in the Memorial Union at Iowa State.  More information about the conference is below.

Congratulations to Sayane Shome from Robert Jernigan's lab, a BCB faculty member in the BBMB Department who won the Best Poster Award, and Carla Mann from Drena Dobbs' lab, a BCB faculty member in the GDCB Department who won first place in the 3MT presentations.  Gaurav Kandoi, from Julie Dickerson's lab, a BCB faculty member in ECPE, received a GPSS Leadership Award honoring his work as CIO of the GPSS organization.

Jonathan Wendel, Distinguished Professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, and BCB Faculty member was awarded two international professorships for 2019, including a Fulbright Scholar. During the first half of the year, he will be a Leverhulme Professor at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London. He will mentor early career researchers to help enhance their scientific productivity and understanding of career opportunities, deliver a course of Leverhulme Lectures at Kew and seminars elsewhere in the UK, co-organize two 1-day meetings and teach masters of science students in plant and fungal taxonomy, diversity and conservation. He also will initiate additional new research collaborations with Kew scientists, and contribute to Kew’s outreach agenda.

Two BCB PhD students presented at the 60th Annual Maize Genetics Conference in Palais du Grand Large, Saint-Malo, France which took place March 22 to March 25, 2018.   Gokul Wimalanathan and Keting Chen presented their research and their abstracts are below.

The EPA recently awarded $760,000 to Iowa State Researchers to study blue-green algae, known as cyanobacteria, a microscopic organism that lives in lakes and streams, usually in low numbers.  Cyanobacteria has the ability to produce toxic byproducts, and can grow quickly and form blooms that discolor the water.  Recent large scale blooms in lakes and reservoirs across the country have focused attention on the problem.

Adina Howe, a BCB faculty in the Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department, and PI on the grant, will be focusing on understanding the bacteria that produce the harmful toxins. Doing so will provide insights into the dynamics of these harmful algal blooms, helping us to understand how and why they form, she said.

The BCB Graduate Student Organization (BCBGSO) will once again participate in the Girl's in Science event in Des Moines on February 10th.  BCB students have been participating in this outreach event for a number of years.

Please contact Valeria Velasquez Zapata if you are interested in taking part in this exciting outreach activity to introduce STEM to younger audiences.

The Science Center prepares a venue with several tables set up to receive the girls (all ages - 4-18) and their families who will walk around to each of the tables to do the activities. Planned activities include a word search activity, laptops set up with a sequence alignment activity (http://phylo.cs.mcgill.ca/), and a table with a phylogenetic tree and little toy animals for participants to put on the tree. 

Iowa State University Animal Science Researcher Honored for Genetic Discoveries

AMES, Iowa — An Iowa State University animal geneticist was honored today for discoveries in swine genetics that have saved pork producers and processors money and increased meat quality for consumers.

Max Rothschild, a C.F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Ensminger Endowed Chair of International Agriculture, was one of several scientists named a Fellow by the National Academy of Inventors.

Alicia Carriquiry, Distinguished Professor of statistics, and a BCB faculty member, received a 2017 Women of Innovation Award for research innovation and leadership from the Technology Association of Iowa. Winners were selected based on their professional experience, history of innovation, ability to think creatively and solve problems, and demonstration of leadership. 

A Mass of Christian Burial for Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering emeritus Peter Reilly will be held on Saturday, Nov. 11 (11 a.m., St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 2210 Lincoln Way). A visitation will be held Nov. 10 (4-6 p.m., also at the church). Reilly died Nov. 2 of cancer at age 78. He was a member of the chemical engineering faculty from 1974 until his retirement in 2014.

Michael Zeller, a BCB student, working with Phillip Gauger, VDPAM,  and Amy Vincent, USDA, has won the Oral Presentation award at a national conference, AAVLD, the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians.  The conference was held in San Diego in mid-October. 

The conference provides a venue to share diagnostic scientific information, enable discussions regarding foreign animal diseases, and create committees that are responsible for oversight of different areas of diagnostic tests.  Finally it provides an accreditation board for all veterinary diagnostic labs in the nation.

Michael presented: Human to Swine transmission of novel H3 Influenza A Viruses from 2010 to 2017.  His abstract follows.  Congratulations, Michael!

Cyclone Career Strategy Workshop Series

What have others learned from this workshop?

       “It has helped me set goals and create a timeline for my career search, which has been very helpful.”        “Helped me in networking & develop the right skills for advancing in career.”        “These are things you won’t learn from a class.”

This series is a 4 week, 1-hour workshops that will allow students and postdocs to develop a career plan. We will be introducing the Cyclone Career Strategy. The goal is to provide a time-bound and organized opportunity to research, investigate, and develop a career search plan.

BCB Thesis Seminar Priyanka Surana June 15, 2017

 

Membrane trafficking in resistance gene-mediated defense against the barley powdery mildew fungus

 

Home Department: Plant Pathology and Microbiology

 

Major Professors: Roger Wise and Dan Nettleton