UI faculty work with students on their interests in biology and evolution
This content was reported on and written by a high school student for the University of Idaho’s annual journalism workshop.
A scientific legacy continues to be upheld at the University of Idaho through the growing faculty and student participation in the Institute for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies (IBEST).
“There is a subculture, and some people really do like discovery, and once you get into the research you realize that the process of discovery is really quite a creative process,” said Larry Forney, professor of biological sciences. “You have to create the experiment, you have a vision, you have it see it in your head.”
Forney said he joined IBEST in 2000.
According to the official IBEST website, 31 faculty members, from biologists to philosophers, find a common theme in their interests of real-time evolution. They work together with curious students and answer questions they have toward biology.
Each different background in research brings varying angles, which creates a “cauldron of ideas” in understanding evolution, Forney said.
“It’s a state of mind in that you have people that have varying kinds of research interests, but they have a common interest in some basic questions in biology,” Forney said.
Forney said the group focuses on the evolutionary ecology of bacteria, or how bacteria evolves and adapts to its given environment. They work to find how bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, the rate at which they reproduce and become resistant to the antibiotics and if there are common factors that lead to the resistance.
“To do this kind of work requires some pretty amazing technology, and so we have three core facilities,” Forney said. “These are research facilities that have very expensive instrumentation in them.”
One of those instruments is the Optical Imaging Core, which is a powerful microscope that creates images of living material. They are currently using this to sequence the genome of a beetle that eats roots to see if there are ways they can control its larval stage.
“You’re the first person on the planet to know something,” Forney said. “You discovered it, you saw it, for the first time. And that being on the front of knowledge is a pretty amazing thing.”
They also use the facilities to run mathematical simulations to predict possible outcomes of biological experiments before conducting them Forney said.
“These core facilities are unsurpassed in the state and are probably unsurpassed in the region,” Forney said. “Not everybody has these in their garage.”
Forney said the facilities have served as an attractor for students interested in what IBEST is all about.
“People are either a little bit interested in what IBEST does or a lot interested,” Forney said. “This forms a cohesive center, a magnet that brings everybody together to share expertise and knowledge.”
Forney said he has high hopes for the future of IBEST and believes it has a bright future. He hopes the group continues to follow the same ideas, but begins to undertake learning more about the total complexity of the subject.
“At the end of the day, people that are in research are just interested in learning stuff,” Forney said. “It feeds their passion.”
Hailey Sorenson | Guest Writer