Department of Biology | San Francisco State University

First lab meeting of the school year. Going over the basics of Drosophila genetics. @sfstatebio.bsky.social #drosophila

Shea from Prof. Kevin Simonin’s lab is measuring the water cost of flowers 🌼 in California poppy populations at Mt. Diablo. Flowering is essential for reproduction, but it comes with a price. This work uncovers how plants balance beauty, survival, and resilience.

#PlantScience #CaliforniaPoppy

The Tonos lab headed to the field to kick-off a project examining the relationship between Malagasy fruit-eating #birds and fruiting #plants. They seek to understand these relationships in degraded and #protected areas, and how they may recover due to community-led #conservation efforts!

☀️🔥 Nothing says dedication like hauling wetland soil cores under the blazing sun! Huge shout-out to our postdoc Sona and lab tech Danica for braving the heat to bring back samples that hold secrets of microbial life and carbon cycling. 🌱🦠 #fieldwork #wetlands #phages

Summer in the field with the Boria Lab @SFSU 🌿 Students monitored small mammals across Bay Area habitats, from dunes near the Golden Gate to redwood forests. Hands-on training + real data for conservation science.

#Fieldwork #Ecology #BoriaLab

Science meets storytelling 🌍✨
Check out this new blog post from the Sehgal Lab that dives the hidden connections between parasites, biodiversity, and human health.

Read more here: www.ravindersehgal.com?p=2899

#ScienceBlog #ResearchMatters #Microbiology #Conservation #LabLife

New from the Swei lab in Science Advances: In California’s Mediterranean climate, infected ticks don’t respond to weather like uninfected ticks. Cloud cover ↑ density; wind ↓ it. Implications for Lyme risk forecasting.
#LymeDisease #DiseaseEcology #ClimateChange #VectorBiology #SFSU

Phage season in the lab 🧫🦠
We kicked off a DOE-supported workshop with students from @sfstatebio.bsky.social & @sdsuresearch.bsky.social trained by @berkeleylab.lbl.gov From streaking to top-agar pours to plaques: future viromics pros in the making!
#PhagePathways #PhageDiscovery #Microbiology

Our #PASEDB community is growing thanks to passionate leaders like ours! ✨🙌
@karen-crow.bsky.social president from @sfstatebio.bsky.social , Leslie Pick previous president from @umdentomology.bsky.social and Chris Amemiya past president from @ucmerced.bsky.social

Today was special. My first master’s student successfully defended his thesis! Michael Hajkowski was the first student to ask to join my lab in Jan 2023 determined, and passionate. Now, he’s off to UC Riverside for a PhD! While we’ll miss him deeply, I couldn’t be prouder. @sfstatebio.bsky.social

Our very first thesis defense!
Anand Lab is proud to support this milestone in environmental microbiology and public health.
Friday, May 9 | 10 AM–12 PM | Thornton Hall (Blakeslee Room) + Zoom
#AnandLab #ThesisDefense #OneHealth #AMR @sfstatebio.bsky.social @archanand.bsky.social #Metagenomics

Animal lovers + science nerds, unite!
Join Dr. Jan Randall @ SF State on May 8 for a student lunch & seminar on how animals talk to each other!
Lunch: 12:30 | HH 520
Seminar: 2:00 | SEC 116
#Biology #AnimalBehavior #SFStateEvents

Such an interesting talk today @sfstatebio.bsky.social Seminar by Dr. Shannon Yan from #StanfordBiology Answering physical tension questions during various stages of mitosis, vesicle budding, and migration 🔬🧫🥼👩🏻‍🔬

Today’s @sfstatebio.bsky.social seminar with a “Mechanic in the house” #ShannonYan #StanfordBiology asking a big question: how does a cell physically divide? Amazing to see #mitotic membrane tension profiles generated by pulling at membrane with #optical_tweezers #optical_laser_trap #optogenetics

Excited to host Dr Shannon Yan (Stanford) at SF State Bio on May 1! 🥪 Student lunch 12:30–1:30 PM (HH 520) & 🔬 Seminar 2–3 PM + BIOL 870 Q&A 3–3:30 PM (SEC 116). Join us to dive into mechanobiology & live-cell force dynamics! #SFStateBio #Mechanobiology

Do baby poop #microbiomes correlate with higher risk for allergies & #asthma in early childhood? #SusanLynch #ucsfmicrobiome has evidence that microbiota products can promote #allergic #inflammation in mouse model! #intergenerational #12,13-diHOME #epigenetics #siolta @sfstatebio.bsky.social seminar

Excited to host Dr @taeseokmoon.bsky.social for our next #PhagePathways seminar! He’ll discuss how programmable microbes and microbiota are transforming diagnostics, waste management & sustainable bioproduction.
Apr 18, 10AM PT. Scan QR code to join! #SyntheticBiology #Microbiome #DOE #PhagePathways

Earth Week at SFSU is here!
From healing meditations to hands-on upcycling, come be part of a powerful movement toward climate and environmental justice.
April 21–24.
Check the full schedule and join us on campus!

#EarthWeek #Sustainability #SFState #ClimateAction

Excited to host UCSF’s Dr. Susan Lynch @ SFSU Bio Colloquium, April 17.
Topic: Leveraging early life microbiomes to treat disease.
12:30PM: Student lunch (HH 520)
2PM: Seminar (SEC 116)
#Microbiomes #Asthma #ScienceTalk #SFSUBiology

Congratulations to Gen-PINC Scholar, Maria Anjum who has accepted a research internship at the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology, Marson Lab!! The PINC program at SFSU is very proud to announce this well-deserved achievement!

@sfstatebio.bsky.social
@gladstoneinst.bsky.social

CSU Biotech members

@sfstatebio.bsky.social Professor, Mike Goldman, an inspiration for many @csubiotech.bsky.social program faculty and students, attended his last Strategic Planning Council meeting yesterday at Kellogg West, Pomona. We will miss you Mike! #CalStateUniversity #Biotechnology

Just out: Prof. Jonathon Stillman’s new review in Journal of Experimental Biology from his Spring ‘24 BIOL865 course. It explores how heat waves affect intertidal organisms.

Read: journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
#MarineBio #HeatStress #TeachingToPublication

This was an incredible, international, tree-of-life spanning collaborative effort led by @roseamarks.bsky.social. I had fun and it was great model for how we can start to reach across disciplinary barriers and silos. @naturecomms.bsky.social #interdisciplinary

Life without water? A few organisms manage it.
A new paper by Assistant Professor Jenna Ekwealor and co-authors in Nature Communications explores desiccation tolerance. Read more here!
🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#biology #desiccation #biotech #conservation

Join us at SFSU for a powerful panel featuring Women of Color in Science!
April 10th, 2025
Lunch, panel, and student time — all are welcome!
Let’s celebrate Black Excellence in STEM across the Bay Area.
#SFSU #STEM #BlackInSTEM #WomenInSTEM

Come explore the wonders of life with us! Visit the Department of #Biology stall at #Explore SF State Day and discover research, hands-on #opportunities, and what makes our community so special!

Congratulations to future @sfstatebio.bsky.social students attending #ExploreSFState today! Welcome to #SFSU!! Happy to highlight our microbiology labs, organismal bio labs, neuroscience labs, seawater core facility, human anatomy lab, and greenhouse!!

Welcome back to @sfstatebio.bsky.social alum Fred Santana (Burrus Lab) as today’s seminar speaker sharing progress on #TRIB2 in #melanoma from #JuraLab #UCSF-CVRI. Learning about #pseudokinases! Btw, there are 3 human #tribbles genes #LiveLongAndProsper @calstate.bsky.social

Thanks to the amazing generosity of our donors, we’ve surpassed our initial goal! We’d love to keep the momentum going, and every extra dollar we can raise goes directly to support more students, more research and more ways to transform lives. Please consider a gift to reach our next goal of $4000!

It’s #GatorsGiveDay! Your support helps us:
🔬provide #scholarship & #research opportunities,
🧫 hands-on #experiences,
🥼 build mentorship and community. Visit lnkd.in/gYdD3qSM; Gifts made on this special day may also help unlock any matching gifts or challenges so your support can go even further!