http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:12:07 GMT Connecting you with the University of Missouri’s innovative research and creative activity http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles/show/92 Doing maize genetics, according to one geneticist, is “really cool.” It is exactly this kind of enthusiasm that fuels <a href=http://www.biology.missouri.edu/people/person.lasso?-Search=Action&-Table=Faculty_Research&-Database=Tracking&-KeyValue=73>Karen Cone</a>, Professor of <a href=http://www.biology.missouri.edu/>Biological Sciences</a> at MU, who specializes in plant genetics. Asked to summarize what researchers in her field actually do, Cone laughs and responds, “Geneticists make mutants…a geneticist learns about the way something works in real life by screwing it up, trying to figure out what’s wrong with the mutant, and then inferring what is normal when the mutant isn’t there.” The mutants that Cone makes involve corn and purple pigmentation. Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:00:00 GMT http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles/show/92 (LuAnne Roth) http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles/show/120 Marc Johnson began his research career studying a rabies-like virus in fish. “Working with fish viruses is really cool research,” he notes, but there are just not a lot of people doing it,” and that sense of isolation was eventually too much. In search of collaboration and community, Johnson switched from fish viruses to HIV. Since then, the assistant professor in MU’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology has dedicated his research efforts to the study of these related humans viruses. He and his collaborators have made great progress in understanding how the HIV virus works in order to develop new therapeutics to combat the disease. Mon, 29 Mar 2010 05:00:00 GMT http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles/show/120 (Tanya Sneddon)