Faculty Highlights

Spotted for the first time: a fish holding its breath underwater

Like us, fish need oxygen to survive. But to breathe, most pull oxygen-containing water into their mouths and pump it through their gill chambers before expelling it out of their gill slits. Now, for the first time, scientists have seen fish “holding” that breath, some for up to 4 minutes at a time.

See video below.

Host targeted antiviral (HTA): functional inhibitor compounds of scaffold protein RACK1 inhibit herpes simplex virus proliferation

The Ullah lab has previously developed dozens of RACK1 inhibitor compounds (based on their lab's derived RACK1 crystal structure- with collaboration from Georgetown University). Recently, work has successfully shown anti-viral effects against several human pathogenic viruses and in several cancer cell lines. The recent work was published in OncoTarget

Population genetic evidence for positive and purifying selection acting at the human IFN-γ locus in Africa

Dr. Michael Campbell has published a paper in Genes and Immunity and it made Editor’s Choice of best papers:  "Therefore, we contend that positive and purifying selection have influenced levels of diversity in different regions of IFN-γ, implying that these distinct genic regions are, or have been, functionally important."