DEPARTMENT of BIOLOGY

• Research Interests: Development of the visual system; molecular mechanisms of retinal axon guidance abstract (pdf - 32.3KB)
  
• Dr. Birgbauer's website

• Research Interests:  Fish physiology; Conservation physiology; Investigating the cellular mechanisms governing fish osmoregulation, ion-regulation, and thermoregulation while living in dynamic and anthropogenically influenced aquatic environments.

• Research Interests: Impact of academic strengthening programs on student retention and success (204E project).
• Previous research - Tissue culture models of heart disease; Citoplasmic Male Sterility in wild-type tomatoes.

• Research Interests: Bacterial diversity and evolution in aquatic ecosystems, Bacteriophage genomics and evolution - SEA-PHAGES/SEA-GENES.

• Research Interests: Focuses on the role of proteases and their receptors in prostate cancer progression.
• Dr. Glasscock is specifically interested in how these proteins regulate the ability of prostate tumor cells to invade and metastasize and how they regulate the process of angiogenesis.

• Research Interests: Conservation of an endangered sunflower species (Schweinitz's sunflower) that endemic to the Piedmont region.
• Dr. Grubbs research work also includes the study of higher plant systematics with a focus on a genus Eupatorium, a member of the sunflower family (Asteraceae).

• Research Interests:Various aspects of meiotic and mitotic recombination using both transmission genetics and molecular genetics in the model system drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly). 
• This basic research has implications for human health since DNA repair is crucial to maintaining genome stability and aberrant meiotic crossing over can result in gametes (sperm or eggs) with an improper chromosome complement (aneuploidy).

• Research Interests: Conservation Biology, Dendroecology, Behavioral Ecology, Evolutionary Ecology, and Herpetology.

• Research Interests: Plant Ecology and Fire Ecology.

• Research Interests: Systematics and evolution of free-living flatworms; biology of marine meiofauna. abstract (pdf - 44.5KB)
• Dr. Smith's website.

• Research Interests: Contribution of abnormal epigenetic mechanisms to disease progression in breast and prostate cancers and glioblastoma. Specific interests include chromatin remodeling enzymes, transcription factors, and noncoding RNAs. 

• Research Interests: Evolution of biomedically important viruses such as Hepatitis B, HIV, and Influenza A. abstract (pdf - 27.3KB)

• Research Interests: Developmental Biology and Cell Biology, focusing on a developmental comparative anatomy approach to understand how one organ that accomplishes one goal, to detect light and convert it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons, can be utilized in so many diverse ways.