PBRC News Archive

Celebrating the International Year of Biodiversity
Thursday May 6, 2010
8:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Keoni Auditorium, Hawaii Imin Conference Center
East- West Center

More Info

Ken Kaneshiro's work with Hawaiian Drosophila was featured in a video clip produced by the Richard Dawkins Foundation For Reason and Science.

watch the video

visit the CCRT website

Dr. Mark Q. Martindale, director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory and professor in the Pacific Biosciences Research Center (PBRC) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, has been awarded the Alexander Kowalevsky Medal for Comparative Embryology for his contributions to the field of evolutionary developmental biology.

UH Press Release        News@UH

A grant of $499,999 has been awarded by the National Science Foundation to Dr. Robert Cowie of UH Manoas Center for Conservation Research, part of the Pacific Biosciences Research Center.

The grant supports a project to advance understanding of the biodiversity of apple snails. Led by Dr. Cowie, it involves a team of scientists from Hawaii, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

UH Press Release        News@UH

A $1 million grant has been awarded to the University of Hawaii Kewalo Marine Laboratory for five years by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to work with Pacific islanders on land-sea interactions and damage to coral reefs, recreational and fishery resources.

Robert Richmond, a world-renowned coral reef conservationist and principal investigator for the project, said the funding continues an earlier grant dealing with watershed issues at the community level throughout islands in Micronesia.

Honolulu Star Bulletin Article

The University of Hawaii Faculty Senate has passed a resolution opposing Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw's plan to close the Kewalo Marine Laboratory on the advice of Gary Ostrander, vice chancellor for research and graduation education.

Honolulu Star Bulletin Article

PBRC researcher Angel Yanagihara co-authored a recent publication in The Proceedings of the Royal Society (B) that describes the evolution of box jellyfish.

Evolution of box jellyfish (Cnidaria: Cubozoa), a group of highly toxic invertebrates (abstract)
NOAA Press Release
NY Times Photos
Dr. Yanagihara's Website

The uncertain future of PBRC's Kewalo Marine Laboratory was recently featured in the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

read the article

Pacific Biosciences Research Center Symposium on Biodiversity
Thursday May 7, 2009
East-West Center, UH Manoa Campus

Symposium Flyer   •   Program   •   Posters

Angel Yanagihara's work with the Hawaiian Box Jellyfish was featured on KITV News on April 17, 2009 during a break in the Merrie Monarch Festival.

watch the video

Visit Dr. Yanagihara's web pages for more information.

"Two University of Hawai`i at Manoa scientists have contributed to research that helps answer an evolutionary question about how early organisms developed a "through-gut," with separate orifices for a mouth and an opposite-end anus. Mark Q. Martindale and Andreas Hejnol work at the Kewalo Marine Lab in the Pacific Biosciences Research Center. The subjects of their research were acoel flatworms, which are easy to collect and raise at Kewalo, and which have been determined to be an evolutionary stepping stone in the development sequence for bilateral animals -- animals with a definite left and right side and a definite top and bottom -- such as humans."

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"In an October-December 2008 article in the International Journal of Pest Management, snail/slug biologists Robert H. Cowie, Kenneth A. Hayes, Chuong T. Tran and Wallace M. Meyer III of the UH Center for Conservation Research and Training (CCRT) expressed concern about the local horticultural industry's role in inadvertently introducing a number of alien species."
 
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Pacific Biosciences Research Center Symposium on Biodiversity
Friday May 9, 2008
East-West Center, UH Manoa Campus

Symposium Flyer   •   Program

The work of PBRC researchers has been featured on the cover of the April 10 edition of the journal Nature. The accompanying scientific paper is the result of a four-year study of the evolutionary relationships among a large group of marine invertebrates. Investigators from PBRC's Kewalo Marine Laboratory were Casey W. Dunn, Andreas Hejnol, David Q. Matus, Kevin Pang, William E. Browne, Elaine Seaver, and Mark Q. Martindale.

Martindale is the Director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory.

More information:

These honeybees (Apis mellifera) at the Békésy Laboratory of Neurobiology may look like they've been dusted with freshly fallen January snow but they've actually been sprinkled with powdered sugar. The sugar is being used in an attempt to reduce the numbers of the parasitic Varroa mites (Varroa destructor) that plague honeybee colonies here and on the mainland.

The January issue of Malamalama features an article profiling the research of Jeff Bitterman and Patricia Couvillon. Their work focuses on complex learning mechanisms in the honeybee.

For more information:
Bee-lieve It or Not
Malamalama
January, 2008

A recently published scientific article authored by PBRC Researchers Brenden Holland and Robert Cowie was featured on the cover of the journal Molecular Ecology.

For more information:

About the Cover

Read the Article (PDF Format)

Visit the Cowie Lab Website

Gary K. Ostrander, UH Manoa Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, has been appointed Interim Director of PBRC. Dr. Ostrander will serve in this position until a new permanent Director is selected. Dr. Marilyn Dunlap will continue to serve as Interim Associate Director.

For more information about Dr. Ostrander, see the the News@UH article or his Curriculum Vitae (PDF).

Mark Martindale is one of three recipients of the 2004 Regents' Medal for Excellence in Research.

For more information, see the articles in News@UH and on the UH System website.

Marilou Andres has received a 2004 Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD). Marilou is the program coordinator for the Specialized Neuroscience Research Program. Her research will examine genetic changes in potassium channels that may cause some symptoms of schizophrenia.

For more information, see the article in UH News.

Rich Chock is one of three UH Manoa employees named to receive the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Service and he has been nominated for the Governor's Award for Distinguished State Service.

For information about the Chancellor's Award, see the articles in UH News and News@UH.

For information about the Governor's Award nomination, see the articles in UH News and News@UH.

Robert Richmond has been selected for the prestigious Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship. He is among only 20 scientists worlwide to receive this award for 2004.

More Information:
Aldo Leopold Leadership Program
Honolulu Star-Bulletin article.

More information
The University of Hawaii SNRP Program
3rd Annual Conference of Specialized Centers in Neuroscience

More information:
The University of Hawaii RCMI Program

PBRC's Laboratory of Matrix Pathobiology receives 9.3 million dollar research award for Cardiovascular Research

For more information visit these web pages:
Laboratory of Matrix Pathobiology
Ku Lama November 2, 2001
Honolulu Star-Bulletin October 29, 2001
Honolulu Adverstiser October 30, 2001

Tina Carvalho's award-winning Microangela web pages have been featured in an article entitled What You Can't See Microscopically on the web edition of the New York Times (June 14, 2001).

Richard Allen's work with the contractile vacuole of Paramecium is featured on the cover of the November, 2000 issue of BioEssays (Vol. 22, No. 11, pp. 1035-1042).

Kewalo Marine Laboratory researchers Jamie Foster and Margaret McFall-Ngai have their work featured on the cover of the October, 2000 (Vol. 226, No. 2) issue of Developmental Biology.

Work from the laboratories of Margaret McFall-Ngai and Ned Ruby at PBRC's Kewalo Marine Laboratory provided the cover article for the August 29, 2000 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For more information:
The U.H. Press Release
Visit the PNAS website to see the cover illustration
Download a reprint in PDF format (approx. 1MB)
Visit the Kewalo Marine Laboratory Website

PBRC's Laboratory of Matrix Pathobiology Identifies Gene Mutation Responsible for PXE.

For more information:
U.H. Lab Identifies Rare Gene Mutation (Ku Lama June 23, 2000)
Visit the Laboratory of Matrix Pathobiology Website