04/30/08 - Bond Center researcher is recognized as a mentor.
April 29, 2008 - Life Sciences Center investigator Dr. Chris Pires was one of two University of Missouri faculty mentors recognized with the 2008 Undergraduate Mentoring Award! To quote from one of the student letters, "He deserves this award because of his example setting, hard work, and devotion towards developing young minds to improve their life so that one day they can enjoy their career as much as he enjoys his." Congratulations Chris!

04/30/08 - A mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade
MU Researcher Discovers Pathway Plants Use to Fight Back Against Pathogens. The March 31, 2008 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) carried a study by MU biochemistry researcher and Bond Life Sciences Center investigator Dr. Shuqun Zhang about chemical defenses in Arabidopsis. According to the study, plants first sense pathogen attacks, and then activate defense respionses by triggering a complex signaling cascade. Dr. Zhang's study isolated the specific signaling pathway, known as a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade. Dr. Zhang believes that there could be agricultural benifits to his research, "By understanding at the molecular and cellular levels how plants protect themselves under adverse environmental conditions, such as pathogen attacks, we could eventually improve the disease resistance of crops."