Dylan Shropshire, assistant professor of biological sciences, studies Wolbachia, a bacterium that lives inside insect cells and can manipulate reproduction, suppress pathogens, and influence population dynamics—all while being passed maternally from one generation to the next. Originally interested in insect behavior, Shropshire was drawn to microbiomes during his graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, where he began working with Wolbachia. His lab now focuses on understanding how this microbe becomes common across species, populations, and individuals, with implications for public health efforts that use Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to combat diseases like dengue and Zika. Despite success in some regions, these interventions are often slow or fail due to weak bacterial traits. Shropshire’s team uses fruit flies to study the genetic and cellular mechanisms that underlie Wolbachia’s behavior, including how it spreads, exits and enters host cells, and manipulates reproduction through a process called cytoplasmic incompatibility. Since Wolbachia cannot be cultured outside host cells, the lab develops innovative tools such as genetic insertions and molecular techniques to measure bacterial presence and function. Their work not only aims to answer fundamental questions about microbial ecology and evolution, but also to refine and accelerate the use of Wolbachia as a targeted, sustainable tool for controlling vector-borne diseases.

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Tickle College of Engineering is part of a groundbreaking statewide initiative to introduce nuclear energy concepts to students in kindergarten through second grade.

Approximately 1 in 6 individuals or couples face difficulties conceiving naturally, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO)'s statistics. On the other hand, assisted fertility cycles with the support of genetic testing improve implantation and pregnancy rates by as much as 70%. Precision medicine, which integrates preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) into in vitro fertilization (IVF) offers the ultimate solution.

Timothy Allerton, PhD, is an assistant professor of vascular metabolism at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. He is a licensed clinical exercise physiologist. During his postdoctoral fellowship, also at Pennington Biomedical, Dr. Allerton developed a strong interest in the link between vascular function and metabolism. In May, several research data posters, presentations, and publications were evaluated by Pennington Biomedical faculty, with Dr. Allerton’s publication “Exercise Therapy Rescues Skeletal Muscle Dysfunction and Exercise Intolerance in Cardiometabolic HFpEF” selected as the Publication of the Year among those produced by peers and colleagues. 

Eric Nauman’s lab looks like the kind of place where engineering problems are unravelled and solved. Students work on novel biomedical and sports-related projects in every corner of the University of Cincinnati’s Human Injury Research and Regenerative Technologies Lab.

Construction scientists and engineers are learning lessons in space that can be applied for better construction here on the home planet.