UMBC Biological Sciences Department
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With more than 30 tenured and tenure-track faculty members and lecturers, UMBC’s Department of Biological Sciences is one of the university’s largest academic departments encompassing a wide breadth of research and teaching. Research faculty in the Biological Sciences focus on:
- Cell Biology
- Computational Biology
- Developmental Biology & Immunology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Molecular Biology & Genetics
- Neuroscience
- Plant Biology
Recent Submissions
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Team-Based Learning in STEM and the Health Sciences
(Springer, Cham, 2020-02-24)Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a collaborative learning pedagogy in which students work in permanent teams during class time to solve discipline-relevant problems. TBL has been shown to improve scores on measurements of ... -
Reinforcement in the banded darter Etheostoma zonale: The effect of sex and sympatry on preferences
(Wiley, 2020-02-12)Reinforcement occurs when selection against hybrid offspring strengthens behavioral isolation between parental species and may be an important factor in speciation. Theoretical models and experimental evidence indicate ... -
Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of the Corneal Endothelium With Smartphone Specular Microscopy
(Wolters Kluwer, 2020-02-14)Purpose: We sought to demonstrate the feasibility of a lower-cost, portable method for qualitative and quantitative analysis of the corneal endothelium using a smartphone and slit lamp biomicroscope. Methods: In this study ... -
Factors Influencing Quality of Team Discussion: Discourse Analysis in an Undergraduate Team-Based Learning Biology Course
(American Society for Cell Biology, 2020-02-14)Group activities as part of active-learning pedagogies are thought to be effective in promoting student learning in part because of the quality of discussion they engender in student teams. Not much is known, however, about ... -
Diferences in signal contrast and camoufage among diferent colour variations of a stomatopod crustacean, Neogonodactylus oerstedii
(Nature, 2020-01-27)Animal colouration is often a trade-off between background matching for camouflage from predators, and conspicuousness for communication with con- or heterospecifics. Stomatopods are marine crustaceans known to use colour ... -
DomainScope: A disease network based on protein domain connections
(2019-11-20)Protein domains are highly conserved functional units of proteins. Because they carry functionally significant information, the majority of the coding disease variants are located on domains. Additionally, domains are ... -
Holobiont: is the whole more than the sum of its parts?
Biology has traditionally operated on the organism as the natural unit for understanding life and evolution. Advances in sequencing technologies have recently made it possible to uncover the contribution of multiple organisms ... -
Melanopsin Carboxy-terminus Phosphorylation Plasticity and Bulk Negative Charge, not Strict Site Specificity, Achieves Phototransduction Deactivation
(2020-01-11)Melanopsin is a visual pigment expressed in a small subset of ganglion cells in the mammalian retina known as intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) and is implicated in regulating non-image forming ... -
How do processes interact across levels of biological organization?
Biological systems are organized in a size-hierarchy, from sub-molecular, via cells, tissues, and organisms to ecosystems and biomes. Different entities within each level of organization interact at varying spatial and ... -
Properties of orb weaving spider glycoprotein glue change during Argiope trifasciata web construction
(Springer Nature, 2019-12-30)An orb web’s prey capture thread relies on its glue droplets to retain insects until a spider can subdue them. Each droplet’s viscoelastic glycoprotein adhesive core extends to dissipate the forces of prey struggle as it ... -
New Roles for the Heterochronic Transcription Factor LIN-29 in Cuticle Maintenance and Lipid Metabolism at the Larval-to-Adult Transition in Caenorhabditis elegans
(Genetics Society of America (GSA), 2020-01-23)Temporal regulation of gene expression is a crucial aspect of metazoan development. In the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, the heterochronic pathway controls multiple developmental events in a time-specific manner. The ... -
The next generation of biopanning: next gen sequencing improves analysis of bacterial display libraries
(BioMed Central, 2019-12-21)Background: Bacterial surface display libraries are a popular tool for novel ligand discovery due to their ease of manipulation and rapid growth rates. These libraries typically express a scaffold protein embedded within ... -
A Novel Genus of Actinobacterial Tectiviridae
(MDPI, 2019-12-07)Streptomyces phages WheeHeim and Forthebois are two novel members of the Tectiviridaefamily. These phages were isolated on cultures of the plant pathogen Streptomyces scabiei, known for its worldwide economic impact on ... -
Optic lobe organization in stomatopod crustacean species possessing different degrees of retinal complexity
(Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2019-12-06)Stomatopod crustaceans possess tripartite compound eyes; upper and lower hemispheres are separated by an equatorial midband of several ommatidial rows. The organization of stomatopod retinas is well established, but their ... -
Effect of Diet on the Enteric Microbiome of the Wood-Eating Catfish Panaque nigrolineatus
(Frontiers, 2019-11-29)Wood is consistently found in high levels in the gastrointestinal tract of the Amazonian catfish Panaque nigrolineatus, which, depending on environmental conditions, can switch between xylivorous and detritivorous dietary ... -
Why do females sing?—pair communication and other song functions in eastern bluebirds
(Oxford University Press, 2019-08-03)Female bird song has been underappreciated and understudied, especially in temperate species. Birdsong was originally thought to be a trait used primarily by male songbirds for mate attraction and male/male contest. However, ... -
Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells: Not Only in Tumor Immunity
(Frontiers Media S.A., 2019-05-15)Since the realization that immature myeloid cells are powerful modulators of the immune response, many studies on “myeloid-derived suppressor cells” (MDSCs) have documented their ability to promote tumor progression in ... -
Survival of the fittest: how myeloid‑derived suppressor cells survive in the inhospitable tumor microenvironment
(Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2019-09-09)Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) are present in most cancer patients where they are signifcant contributors to the immune suppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). The TME is a hostile locale due to defciencies in ... -
Long-Wavelength Reflecting Filters Found in the Larval Retinas of One Mantis Shrimp Family (Nannosquillidae)
(Elsevier B.V., 2019-09-23)Both vertebrates and invertebrates commonly exploit photonic structures adjacent to their photoreceptors for visual benefits. For example, use of a reflecting structure (tapetum) behind the retina increases photon capture, ...
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