News

CU Boulder engineers and faculty from the Consortium for Fibrosis Research & Translation (CFReT) at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus have teamed up to develop biomaterial-based “mimics” of heart tissues to measure patients’ responses to an aortic valve replacement procedure, offering new insight into the ways that cardiac tissue re-shapes...

Mycobacteria are a diverse bacterial group ubiquitous in many soil and aquatic environments. Members of this group have been associated with human and other animal diseases, including the nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), which are of growing relevance to public health worldwide. Although soils are often considered an important source of environmentally...

Premise Lichens are fungi that enter into obligate symbioses with photosynthesizing organisms (algae, cyanobacteria). Traditional narratives of lichens as binary symbiont pairs have given way to their recognition as dynamic metacommunities. Basidiomycete yeasts, particularly of the genus Cyphobasidium , have been inferred to be widespread and important components of lichen...

Striated muscle myosins are encoded by a large gene family in all mammals, including human. These isoforms define several of the key characteristics of the different striated muscle fiber types including maximum shortening velocity. We have previously used recombinant isoforms of the motor domains of seven different human myosin isoforms...

Understanding the contact and friction between soft materials is vital to a wide variety of engineering applications including soft sealants and medical devices such as catheters and stents. Although the mechanisms of friction between stiff materials have been extensively studied, the mechanisms of friction between soft materials are much less...

Diatoms are the most diverse lineage of algae, but the diversity of their chloroplast genomes, particularly within a genus, has not been well documented. Herein, we present three chloroplast genomes from the genus Halamphora ( H . americana , H . calidilacuna , and H . coffeaeformis ), the first...

Zinc (Zn 2+ ) is an integral component of many proteins and has been shown to act in a regulatory capacity in different mammalian systems, including as a neurotransmitter in neurons throughout the brain. While Zn 2+ plays an important role in modulating neuronal potentiation and synaptic plasticity, little is...

I just got back from the Evolution Meeting in Providence and I’m full of information and ideas for research. I had the opportunity to reconnect with past colleagues and meet some new people. Other CU Boulder folks attended, including the labs of Dan Doak, Nancy Emery, Nolan Kane, Stacy Smith,...

Recent lichenological investigations of Fox Hills Formation sandstone outcrops in Colorado resulted in the discovery of three populations that represent an undescribed member of the Lecanora dispersa group (¼Myriolecis). This new species is different from all others in the group in its production of usnic acid, which yields apothecia that...

One of the challenges of the 21st century is creating a sustainable economy that is able to serve the needs of a growing population with the decreasing supply of natural resources. In addition to alternative energy sources, renewable economy concerns production of materials and chemicals. The chemical and polymer industries...