Celebrating Valentine's Day and science

Emory biophysicists Jennifer Rieser and Gordon Berman enjoy a hike in Aspen following a summer conference.

Jennifer Rieser, assistant professor of physics, and Gordon Berman, associate professor of biology, connected at Cornell University in 2006. They are fascinated by the biophysics of animal behaviors, tackling esoteric questions such as variations in how organisms move. 

“We both noticed each other,” Berman recalls of their first meeting. Berman was already working on his PhD, studying the biodynamics of insect flight, when Rieser attended a recruitment weekend for graduate students. 

“I reached out to him afterwards to learn more about what it’s like at Cornell,” Rieser says. 

Berman didn’t discourage her. She was enrolled that fall, and, by Christmas, Berman informed his mother he had a girlfriend. 

They married in 2010. Their eventual move to Atlanta was a homecoming for Rieser, who grew up in nearby Lawrenceville, while Berman is from Michigan. 

During the COVID-19 lockdown they shared a Midtown loft, teaching online on opposite sides of the space, sometimes simultaneously. “And we didn’t get tired of each other,” Berman says. “We survived that test.” 

They now live just a few blocks from campus with daughter, Naomi, who is two-and-a-half, and dogs Escher and Kona. 

Berman focuses more on theoretical and computational methods, while Rieser takes an experimental approach to the locomotion of everything from snakes to ants. They often run their research by one another to get feedback from their complementary strengths. 

They manage to combine work and play, traveling together following conferences or summer teaching gigs that took them to Brazil, Italy and Germany. And they enjoy cooking and eating nice meals. 

“I tend to bake things,” Rieser says. 

“She’s more a creature of precision,” Berman explains. “Her signature dish is a chocolate babka, a very decadent bread.” 

"He’s more of an improvisational chef,” Rieser says. 

“Give me a cabinet of ingredients and a couple of adjectives,” Berman says, “and I can make you a bespoke, likely unrepeatable cocktail.”

Read more stories of Emory scientific power couples.

Plant extract inspires new chemistry and new early lead against triple-negative breast cancer

The extract that inspired the research comes from Curcuma phaeocaulis, a flowering plant in the ginger family. (Wagner Campelo / Alamy Stock Photo)

Chemists at Emory University invented a reaction to streamline the total synthesis of a compound, phaeocaulisin A, extracted from a plant used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine. 

In laboratory dish experiments conducted with biologists at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, the researchers showed the compound’s efficacy against HER2-positive breast cancer cells and triple-negative breast cancer cells. An analogue of the compound the chemists constructed boosted this efficacy. 

“We not only efficiently replicated a complex natural product,” says Mingji Dai, Emory professor of chemistry. “We also improved upon it by turning it into a more potent compound.” 

The Journal of the American Chemical Society published the work, led by Dai and Yong Wan, professor of pharmacology and chemical biology at Emory School of Medicine and director of basic research for the Glenn Family Breast Center at Winship Cancer Institute.

Read the full story here.

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Bittersweet secrets of the fruit fly brain

Fruit flies have served as an important laboratory organism for more than 100 years. (Sanjay Archaya/Wikipedia)

The sense of taste carries evolutionary benefits key to survival. A sweet taste, for instance, signals energy-dense nutrients important to animals foraging for food — including humans. A bitter taste may warn of a toxic substance. 

“We use our sense of taste to decide what to eat and how much to eat,” says Anita Devineni, a neuroscientist and assistant professor in Emory University’s Department of Biology. 

Despite the importance of taste, little is known about how taste cues spark the firing of cells across a brain and evoke a variety of behavioral responses. Devineni is exploring this mystery by mapping the neural circuitry for the taste system of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. 

Tinier than a poppy seed, the fruit fly brain contains around 140,000 neurons. 

“That’s 1,000 fewer neurons than a mouse brain and a million times fewer than a human brain,” Devineni explains, making the fly brain a simple starting point for studying general mechanistic principles of cognition. 

Compared to the incredible complexity of its cognitive powers, the human brain’s basic biology appears relatively straightforward. 

“The brain is just an organ like any other organ in your body,” Devineni says. “It’s made up of neurons that are cells like any other cells — lipid membranes containing proteins, DNA and other molecules. What makes a brain cell different from a skin cell or a lung cell is that a brain cell fires. Firing means that sodium ions flow in and out of the cell. Everything that you do, from thinking to talking to walking, is a result of patterns of neurons firing. How could this be?”

Read the full story here.

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High temperatures dampen immune systems of wild capuchins

A capuchin mother carries a baby on her back. The study found that the immune systems of juveniles were most impacted by high temperatures. (Capuchins de Taboga)

High temperatures lower the immune performance of wild capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica, especially in young individuals, finds a new study published by Science Advances. The work, led by scientists at Emory University and the University of Michigan, provides some of the first data on the relationship between the immune system and ambient temperature in a wild mammal. 

“Capuchin monkeys are super intelligent, highly adaptive primates that do well in diverse ecosystems,” says Marcela Benítez, Emory assistant professor of anthropology and co-senior author of the paper. “The fact that we’re seeing their immune responses affected by high temperatures suggests that many mammalian species that are less adaptive may be experiencing even worse effects as average temperatures warm globally.” 

Read the full story.

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A snapshot of scientific thought on emotions in animals

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A snapshot of scientific thought on emotions in animals

Wild capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica where Emory anthropologist Marcela Benítez is studying their social behaviors. (Capuchinos de Taboga)

The journal Royal Society Open Science published a survey of 100 researchers of animal behavior, providing a unique view of current scientific thought on animal emotions and consciousness. 

“As far as we know, this is the first assessment of how animal behavior researchers across a range of disciplines think about emotions and consciousness in non-human animals,” says Marcela Benítez, assistant professor of anthropology at Emory University and corresponding author of the paper. “It gives us a snapshot in time so that 20 years from now, we can revisit how scientific experts may have changed their views.” 

A majority of the survey respondents ascribed emotions to “most” or “all or nearly all” non-human primates (98%), other mammals (89%), birds (78%), octopus, squids and cuttlefish (72%) and fish (53%). And most of the respondents ascribed emotions to at least some members of each taxonomic group of animals considered, including insects (67%) and other invertebrates (71%). 

The survey also included questions about the risks in animal behavioral research of anthropomorphism (inaccurately projecting human experience onto animals) and anthropodenial (willful blindness to any human characteristics of animals). 

“It’s surprising that 89% of the respondents thought that anthropodenial was problematic in animal behavioral research, compared to only 49% who thought anthropomorphism poses a risk,” Benítez says. “That seems like a big shift.” 

Anthropomorphism, she notes, has long been a leading argument against those who attributed feelings to animals.

Read the full story by clicking here.

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