Research

Squeezing years of work and thousands of words into a three-minute talk, graduate students Shayan Nazari and Danny Yonto earned first and second place in UNC Charlotte’s inaugural Three-Minute Thesis competition.

Teachers lay the foundation for students to understand and embrace science. This significant role holds true whether the students aspire to scientific careers or simply need as citizens to understand how scientific research can help their everyday lives. Despite their critical role, teachers often find themselves limited in their exposure to the settings where scientific research occurs. Charlotte Teachers Institute has worked to address that gap, including through a new research experience for teachers.

New research by UNC Charlotte scholar Shan Yan and colleagues has revealed the function of a widely shared enzyme component, the Zf-GRF domain, as a critical molecular tool necessary for manipulating DNA during repair processes.

When Vasily Astratov explains complex principles of physics, specifically in the world of optics, he turns to St Paul’s Cathedral in London and its Whispering Gallery. Whisper on one side of the iconic dome, and someone standing a hundred feet away on the other side can hear the whispered words. The same principle is at work in optics, which has helped shape the groundbreaking work in Astratov’s lab in the Department of Physics and Optical Science at UNC Charlotte.

Through a pilot program called the Summer Research Experience for Teachers, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers collaborated with professors and graduate students in UNC Charlotte lab settings for the first time in summer 2016, to increase teachers’ access and exposure to the settings where scientific research occurs.

Frogs and their tiny eggs are helping a UNC Charlotte researcher unlock the mysteries of genomic instability, with implications for cancer and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease. Biological sciences assistant professor Shan Yan researches DNA damage that human cells sustain from thousands of internal and environmental assaults each day.

English language learners in Mariella Duarte’s eighth-grade class at Whitewater Middle School in Charlotte face the steep task of learning middle school math in a language they have yet to master. For these students, the cognitive load can prove overwhelming. Anthony Fernandes, a mathematics professor at UNC Charlotte, is seeking solutions to that struggle.

An international research team led by Adam Reitzel of UNC Charlotte Biological Sciences is investigating how epigenetic regulations and microbial communities influence the adaption of coastal marine species to climate change. The team received funding in March from the Human Frontier Science Program, as one of only seven teams to receive a Young Investigators’ Grant.

What began as a biological sciences’ extra-credit assignment bloomed into a project that is helping to slow the erosion of sediment into Toby Creek by converting a barren parking lot into a diverse natural habitat.

As people worldwide cry out for safe drinking water, UNC Charlotte master’s degree student Billy Johnson has discovered a way to help, through nanoscience. Working with his UNC Charlotte faculty mentor Jordan Poler, Johnson has developed a novel nanomaterial.