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September 26, 2022

UC Merced Lands $12.5M NSF Grant to Predict the Impact of Climate Change on Symbiotic Systems

UC Merced has received a $12.5 million grant funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop the Biology Integration Institute (BII): INSITE — the INstitute for Symbiotic Interactions, Training and Education — a research collaborative that aims to expand the fundamental knowledge of symbioses and inform immediate and long-term conservation strategies in the face of climate change.

A multi-disciplinary team from UC Merced, Michigan State University (MSU) and Resilient Oceans will look at how climate change will impact ecosystems through a symbiotic lens.

UC Merced’s Mobile Maker Lab, aka Mobi, is used by faculty and students to bring STEM-related activities and experiments to schools and the community.

“There’s a lot of funding directed toward climate change, but everyone is looking at what you can see. We wanted to approach this problem through a microbial lens, so we proposed looking at symbiotic interactions,” the project’s lead principal investigator, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Professor Michele Nishiguchi, said. “Microbes are invisible, and they are important because they are on everything.”

BII-INSITE officially began Sept. 1 through a five-year agreement with NSF. As one of the campus’s largest institute grants, it will create a framework for how researchers in the field and laboratory can evaluate and understand the impact of climate change broadly on interdependent species. It will also provide critical information to help guide environmental managers to, and, ultimately shape policies locally, nationally and globally.

December 26, 2023

New Research Led by the Bennett Lab Shows the Effects of Environment and Microbial Symbioses on the Evolution of Host Genomes

Chromosome-level genome assembly of the aster leafhopper (Macrosteles quadrilineatus) reveals the role of environment and microbial symbiosis in shaping pest insect genome evolution

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April 5, 2023

ERATO Evolving Symbiosis Project International Seminar Series #22

Prof. Michele Nishiguchi (University of California Merced, USA) “Interpreting the road map between ecological and molecular boundaries using a squid-bacterial mutualism”

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March 11, 2023

CSU Stanislaus Science Day

The CSU Stanislaus Science Day took place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 11, 2023 at Naraghi Hall of Science, CSU Stanislaus Main Campus in Turlock and was free and open to the public.

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November 9, 2022

Nishiguchi Joins California Academy of Sciences, Recognized for Contributions to Microbiology

Molecular and Cellular Biology Professor Michele “Nish” Nishiguchi has been inducted as a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and was recently named president-elect for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB).“Interpreting the road map between ecological and molecular boundaries using a squid-bacterial mutualism”

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October 7, 2022

RadioBio Podcast: Dr. Michele Nishiguchi-Ink-redible Squids

Prof. Michele Nishiguchi (University of California Merced, USA) “Interpreting the road map between ecological and molecular boundaries using a squid-bacterial mutualism”

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September 26, 2022

UC Merced Lands $12.5M NSF Grant to Predict the Impact of Climate Change on Symbiotic Systems

UC Merced has received a $12.5 million grant funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop the Biology Integration Institute (BII): INSITE — the INstitute for Symbiotic Interactions, Training and Education — a research collaborative that aims to expand the fundamental knowledge of symbioses and inform immediate and long-term conservation strategies in the face of climate change.

Read More
August 15, 2022

Integrative Biological Science and Training are the Focus of 4 New Institutes

From understanding the multifaceted transmission of disease to deciphering how living organisms adapt to harsh conditions, answering big questions in biology requires interdisciplinary research and scientists engaging and partnering with those from other fields of study.

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