User:Aeboornazian/sandbox

Article Evaluation

Model organism - After reading this article it doesn't appear that there's too many distractions. It's easy to navigate the page and the information flows in a logical order which is definitely helpful when learning about this topic and all the facets of it. All of the links work and seem to be form reliable sources. The wikipedia article goes a lot more into the history of the organisms than we do in class however the information matches how we talk about these organisms/goes over the evolution that allowed them to be model organisms. It's definitely been edited a lot if you look at this history

Nancy Moran (Week 2)

I chose this topic because I was reading about her work and found it very fascinating and I'd really love to contribute to her page as a woman in science. I plan on contributing to the page by expanding on her background, detailing her past work, and current work. There's very little on her right now. I think the page would be a really neat way to interact with her research since that's a very important component to her information on the wiki page. The current info is very straightforward, none of it really needs to be changed it just could be expanded upon.

Here are some potential sources:

http://web.biosci.utexas.edu/moran/

https://patch.com/texas/downtownaustin/secret-life-bees-texas-researchers-find-gut-bacteria-passed-through-millennia

https://www.livescience.com/45549-studying-bugs-in-bees-nsf-bts.html

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/47/16916.full

Nancy A Moran (Week 3) Leads

Nancy Moran currently researches Honey bee s and their recent decline. Nancy Moran has completed research on the Microbial ecology of bees. Her research includes Convergent evolution in bacteria. Nancy Moran's research and contributions to biology have won her a number of awards.
 * http://www.beeculture.com/honey-bees-antibiotics-gut-microbia/
 * https://phys.org/news/2017-03-social-bees-gut-microbes-million.html
 * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28452983

150 New Words due Nov 10

Nancy Moran researches microbiota environments in insects. Her research in Drosophila gut microbiomes demonstrated that, unlike other species, Drosophila's microbiome content was ingested with food and varied widely between individuals and populations. Her research provides information on this model organism and the bacteria it possesses which affects research done with Drosophila. She previously researched honey bee and their interaction with gut microbiota. Her research found that microbiota interact with host metabolism and hormone signaling. This research showed that microbiota in social bees degrade plant polymers that the organisms consumes in their diet. The research compared the bee's microbiome to other species and determined it can model host-microbiota interactions due to similarities such as types of bacteria. Her work with eusocial corbiculate bees demonstrates that different phylogenies within this class of bees share a common ancestor for their gut microbiota independent of geography or sympatry. Corbiculate bees include honey bees, bumble bees, and stingless bees. She completed research on the symbiotic relationship between host insects and their gut microbiota and her research team has found that the honey bee's exposure to antibiotics disrupts the microbiota, which regulates weight and hormone signaling, and increases mortality rates. The data collected demonstrates the bee's susceptibility to fatal pathogens after antibiotic exposure.

Plan to finish article:

There's more research that needs to be expanded on that would be a good addition to her page

There are some awards that I would like to mention what research she won them for

In her intro, her role as an evolutionary biologist could be expanded on and I plan to work on that

current article mentions bacterial evolution, would like to include section on what bacterial evolution is/what her research is on that

Other sources: https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v521/n7552_supp/full/521S56a.html, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28435856

 500 New Words due Dec 1 

(new words in intro bolded): Moran began her undergraduate studies at the University of Texas in 1972. She started out as an art major, and later switched to philosophy. For an elective requirement she took an introduction to biology course. From this, she became interested in biology. During her senior year at college, she undertook an honours project, and tried something in biology. The class was on animal behaviour, and provided her with an opportunity to experience independent research, and solidified her interest in evolution and behaviour. She applied to graduate school and ended up at the University of Michigan, where she studied under W.D. Hamilton and Richard D. Alexander.

Moran graduated from the University of Texas with a bachelor's degree in biology in 1976, and from University of Michigan with a Ph.D. in zoology in 1982. '''In 1984, she was a National Academy of Sciences Fellow in the Institute of Entomology in Czechloslovakia. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Northern Arizona University from 1984-1986 .''' She was a research professor at the University of Arizona from 1986-2010, and at Yale University from 2010-2013. At Yale University, she was a William H. Fleming endowned professor . Her research has focused on the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum and its bacterial symbionts. In 2013, she returned to the University of Texas at Austin, where she continues to conduct research on bacterial symbionts in aphids, bees, and other insect species. She has also expanded the scale of her research to bacterial evolution as a whole. She believes that a good understanding of genetic drift and random chance could prevent misunderstandings surrounding evolution. Her current research goal focuses on complexity in life-histories and symbiosis between hosts and microbes .

= Notable Awards and Honors = The Yale Microbial Diversity Institute, which was co-founded by Nancy Moran, is an interdisciplinary research program at Yale University. The researchers involved in the Institute study microbial ecology, evolution, cell physiology, cell biology, and pathogenesis. The research has contributed to medical and health discoveries, oil spill clean ups, and biological advancements. The most recent research from the Institute includes using Bacteriodes, a type of gram-negative bacteria, as an indication to the microbiota environment in the gut. The microbiota environment, difficult to determine due to the diversity and complexity of the system, is governed by Bacteriodes and therefore many insights into the environment can be provided through the determination of the Bacteriodes present.

In 2014, Dr. Moran won her most recent award, the Jim Tiedje award, an award through the International Society for Microbial Ecology honoring the contributions of ecologists across the world. The award noted her research on the symbiotic relationship between hosts and microbiota and their effects on microbiology diversity and host health.

Dr. Moran has won a number of other awards including : (following is old text except for bolded parts)
 * 1988 American Society of Naturalists President's Award
 * 1997 MacArthur Fellows Program
 * 2001 University of Arizona Regents' Professor
 * 2004 Member of the American Academy of Microbiology
 * 2004 Member of the National Academy of Sciences
 * 2006 Galileo Circle Faculty Fellow, College of Science, University of Arizona
 * 2006 Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
 * 2007 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
 * 2008 University of Arizona Amumni Association Extraordinary Faculty Award
 * 2010 International Prize for Biology
 * 2012 Member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering
 * 2014 James Tiedje Award for lifetime contribution in Microbial Ecology (International Society for Microbial Ecology)

= Research = Nancy Moran researches microbiota environments in insects. Her research in Drosophila gut microbiomes demonstrated that, unlike other species, Drosophila's microbiome content was ingested with food and varied widely between individuals and populations. Her research provides information on this model organism and the bacteria it possesses which affects research done with Drosophila. The research demonstrated that gut microbiota in Drosophila used as model organisms is more representative of the food they eat as opposed to the wild-type Drosophila gut microbiota. The conclusion of the research stressed the importance of including fieldwork into microbiota research to better understand the environment-driven gut microbiota makeup.

She previously researched honey bee s and their interaction with gut microbiota. Her research found that microbiota interact with host metabolism and hormone signaling. This research showed that microbiota in social bees degrade plant polymers that the organisms consumes in their diet. The research compared the bee's microbiome to other species and determined it can model host-microbiota interactions due to similarities such as types of bacteria. Her work with eusocial corbiculate bees demonstrates that different phylogenies within this class of bees share a common ancestor for their gut microbiota independent of geography or sympatry. Corbiculate bees include honey bees, bumble bees, and stingless bees. She completed research on the symbiotic relationship between host insects and their gut microbiota and her research team has found that the honey bee's exposure to antibiotics disrupts the microbiota, which regulates weight and hormone signaling, and increases mortality rates. The data collected demonstrates the bee's susceptibility to fatal pathogens after antibiotic exposure.

Her past research also includes genomic evolution of symbiotic bacteria. This research sequenced genes of symbionts in invertebrate animals and compared the sequences to non-symbiont bacteria to determine the gene characteristics that differentiate the different bacteria. She continued this research more recently to demonstrate the relatively fast evolution of endosymbiotic bacteria and the accumulation of mutations through Muller's ratchet. The research demonstrated that Muller's ratchet was the cause for the more rapid evolution in the asexual population and the research uncovered a mutational bias in the reproduction of symbionts.

total new words 621, posted it live 11/29 @ 11:19pm

Peer Review - completed Claire and CJ's peer review 11/16

= References =