UPBM Office nominated for Gwennie Award
The Department of Biology's UPBM (Undergraduate Program in Biology & Medicine) staff – Caroline Fratianni and Sarah Marvin-Foley – were nominated for a Gwennie award by the Greene Center! The event was first held in 2017 and honors partners who exemplify the center’s values and support career education efforts for students and alumni.
This nomination is a pretty outstanding affirmation that even in the most tumultuous times, our UPBM staff is hitting all the marks and raising the bar for other departments.
Twitch at TAGC 2024 chatted with Michael Welte
Twitch live stream from TAGC 2024 chatted with Michael Welte about exploring STEM as a LGTBQIA+ member.
iGem Team won 5th gold medal
In October 2024, the Rochester iGem team—called Team CyanoVolt—submitted their research to the 2024 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, where student-led teams from around the globe compete to tackle real-world challenges using synthetic biology. The 2024 iGEM team won a gold medal (Rochester's fifth gold medal in a row!) for engineering microalgae to produce electricity.
Anne Meyer visited DC to advocate
Anne Meyer traveled to Washington, D.C., in May 2025 and met with 9 New York members of the US House of Representatives to advocate for science funding through the NSF.
Undergraduate Poster Session a big success during Meliora Weekend
On September 19, 2025, the Undergraduate Program of Biology & Medicine held a poster session for declared undergraduate biology majors. Approximately 30 students requested permission from their Principal Investigators to present the data on their research projects. These presenters are typically in their junior or senior year. In fact, many are also recipients of summer fellowships such as the deKiewiet, Recny, Speakman, or Donald R. Charles Memorial Fellowship, in addition to various grant awardees such as Schwartz Discover, Beckman and McNair Scholars.
Visitors to the Meliora poster session included biology faculty, alumni, fellow undergraduate students, and graduate students, as well as parents and family members. We had an excellent turn-out this year with many posters and many visitors, including Rocky the Yellowjacket!
Undergraduates honor the legacy of Martha Chase
A two-year effort led by students and researchers in the Department of Biology culminated with the unveiling of the Martha Chase Commemorative Plaque in Hutchinson Hall on Sept. 26. The plaque can be viewed on the second-floor vestibule in Hutch Hall.
Chase worked as a research associate in the biology department from 1953 to 1958. Prior to joining the University of Rochester, the landmark “Hershey-Chase Experiment” conducted by Chase and Alfred Hersey settled the debate on DNA’s role in heredity. Their groundbreaking work was published in 1952.
The plaque lauds Chase as a “pioneering geneticist and an inspiration for women pursuing careers in STEM.”
ROC-fest: A day-long celebration of U Rochester’s impact on adaptation, speciation, and selfish genetic elements
On October 4, 2025, biologists came from far and wide to honor the scientific contributions of four of our E2G2 professors - Tom Eickbush, John Jaenike, Allen Orr, and Jack Werren.
The weekend commenced with a social gathering on Friday night and folks spent all day Saturday at the University listening to fantastic talks and sharing great memories.
The ROC-fest organizers were Kelly Dyer, Justin Fay, Amanda Larracuente, Bob Minckley, and Daven Presgraves.
Department Retreat 2025
On October 13, 2025, the Department held its annual retreat at Camp Stella Maris in Livonia, NY. Folks had fun listening to scientific talks, sharing super creative lab videos, and munching snacks during a great poster session. There was also plenty of time for kayaking, playing basketball, enjoying the outdoors, and just relaxing with a book under a shady tree. It was a great day for all who attended.
2025 iGem team wins again!
Our Rochester iGEM team has just returned from Paris where the students were competing at the iGEM Giant Jamboree. The Rochester team won several awards at the Awards Ceremony:
- Gold Medal
- Best Space Project Nominee
- Best Hardware Nominee
- Best Entrepreneurship Nominee
- Best Wiki Nominee
With our gold medal and four nominations, our team was the 1st most recognized college team in the United States (once again achieving more than teams including Stanford, Yale, and Cornell). Our team competed with a total of 421 teams from 6 continents in the 2025 iGEM competition.
Researchers awarded $1.2 million grant from Beckman Foundation
In 2021, a group of researchers from Biology and other departments at UR was awarded a $1.2 million grant from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation to support light sheet microscopy. Light sheet microscopy is a cutting-edge technology to visualize biological processes at the cellular and tissue level. The group proposed to build a new type of light sheet microscope, apply it to three tough biological problems, and develop new strategies for data handling and image analysis. This video summarizes the major themes of the project. It is a collaboration between researchers from Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Optics, and Data Science. Biology is well represented in this collaboration with Elio Abbondanzieri (Engineering team), Ning Wang (Biology team), Anne Meyer (Biology team), and Michael Welte (leadership team). The newly built microscope is now available for use by researchers from all over the university.