For three years, anthropologist Alan Rogers has attempted to solve an evolutionary puzzle. His research untangles millions of years of human evolution by analyzing DNA strands from ancient human species known as hominins. Like many evolutionary geneticists, Rogers compares hominin genomes looking for genetic patterns such as mutations and shared genes. He develops statistical methods […]

Cynthia Burrows, chair of the department of chemistry at the University of Utah, is the 2019 recipient of the Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence, the U’s highest faculty accolade. The $50,000 cash award is presented annually to a faculty member who transcends ordinary teaching, research and administrative efforts. A group of distinguished faculty members on the […]

Gone are the days of heavy science textbooks with over-used examples and hard-to-grasp lessons. The Genetic Science Learning Center (GSLC) at the University of Utah is bringing science education into the 21st century with an online, interactive and multimedia curriculum that teaches up-to-date concepts in evolution and genetics to high school students. The newly released and […]

In a new study, a University of Utah-led team has discovered that different versions of a single gene, called NDP (Norrie Disease Protein), have unexpected links between color patterns in pigeons, and vision defects in humans. These gene variations were likely bred into pigeons by humans from a different pigeon species and are now evolutionarily advantageous […]

University of Utah Health biochemist Dana Carroll is one of four honorees who will be awarded the 2018 Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology. “These medal recipients are defined by their tireless passion and service to promoting science, technology and innovation here in Utah,” said Gov. Herbert in a statement. “These individuals’ contributions in scientific advancement […]

When viruses infect the body’s cells, those cells face a difficult problem. How can they destroy viruses without harming themselves? Scientists at University of Utah Health have found an answer by visualizing a tiny cellular machine that chops the viruses’ genetic material into bits. Their research shows how the machine detects the intruders and processes […]

August 7, 2017—Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the ancestors of modern humans diverged from an archaic lineage that gave rise to Neanderthals and Denisovans. Yet the evolutionary relationships between these groups remain unclear. A University of Utah-led team developed a new method for analyzing DNA sequence data to reconstruct the early history of the […]

The University of Utah is one of just five institutions in the world to be awarded a $2.5 million grant to purchase a state of the art cryo-electron microscope (cryo-EM), the Beckman Foundation announced today. The microscope, which will be able to visualize the structure of proteins and DNA at an atom-by-atom scale, will be […]

New research published by University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Associate Professor Jorge Contreras in the journal Science today proposes that universities currently holding CRISPR patents open their licenses to broader segments of the biopharma industry — a change that could potentially lead to important discoveries for human health and medicine. “Because the potential for CRISPR as the […]

SALT LAKE CITY – Evolution is often thought of as a gradual remodeling of the genome, the genetic blueprints for building an organism. In some instances it might be more appropriate to call it an overhaul. Over the past 100 million years, the human lineage has lost one-fifth of its DNA, while an even greater […]