Tetrahymena, a tiny single celled-organism, turns out to be hiding a surprising secret: it’s doing respiration – using oxygen to generate cellular energy – differently from other organisms such as plants, animals or yeasts. The discovery, published March 31 in Science, highlights the power of new techniques in structural biology and reveals gaps in our knowledge of a major branch of the tree of life.
There are myriad ways to view the world. Some people view it through the lens of art, others through the lens of anthropology or psychology. But Connie Rojas views the world through the lens of biology.
“Everything around you—the tree outside, how tall it is, the bark—everything makes sense when viewed through the lens of biology,” said Rojas, who was selected to join UC Davis this year as a 2021-2022 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow. “That type of thinking was very intuitive for me growing up.”
We would like to highlight the achievement of Dr. Kishana Taylor, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics (CBS), who under the mentorship of Dr. Sam Díaz-Muñoz was recently awarded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Inclusive Excellence Teaching Fellowship Award!
For her work, Sarikaya recently received the University of California’s President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, which is meant to encourage women and minority Ph.D. recipients to pursue academic careers at the University of California.
