On 27 May 2003, the department's Conradi computer lab expanded from two rooms to three, in response to the increasing use of computers for everything from laboratory exercises to research and preparation of term papers to self-help tutorials to student-faculty communication. View the department's computer labs and offices live; click on the room you wish to view.
The September 2003 issue of Florida State Times featured the research of Dr. Kenneth H. Roux, who, together with research associate Dr. Ping Zhu, has deciphered the structure of a "bizarre antibody" that may be able to fight the AIDS virus.
Also in September, virtually the entire faculty and their spouses assembled at the Capital City Country Club to honor the five of their colleagues who retired in 2003 and to recognize Dr. Thomas M. Roberts, who stepped down from the department chairmanship in August. The retirees honored were Professors Loran Anderson, plant systematist and director of the herbarium; Donald L. D. Caspar, structural biologist and member of the National Academy of Sciences; Kurt G. Hofer, radiation biologist and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor; Frances C. James, ornithologist and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and Richard N. Mariscal, invertebrate zoologist and scholar of anemone-fish biology. Each of the retirees received a plaque, and avid golfer Dr. Roberts was given a polished wooden numeral "1" with a golf ball embedded in the center because, as new chairman Dr. Timothy S. Moerland remarked, he had "scored a hole in one as chairman." In accepting the token, Dr. Roberts admitted wistfully that he had never, in fact, scored an actual hole in one on the golf course, only to follow up the following Monday morning with the news that over the weekend he had sunk his second shot (a 180-yard 4-iron) on a par 4 hole--the "moral equivalent" of a hole in one!
On October 12, while proud parents-to-be Becky Fuller and Jeff Birdsley awaited the arrival of young Samuel Richard Birdsley (born Thanksgiving Day, 27 November 2003), friends and colleagues gathered for a quilting bee at the home of faculty members Tom Miller and Alice Winn to complete the baby quilt to which many of them had contributed squares.
The 3-16 November issue of the State newsletter included an article on assistant professor Debra Ann Fadool and her research on neuroscience.
In December 2003, Dr. Hank W. Bass received a four-year grant (FSU's first) from the National Science Foundation's Plant Genome Research Program (NSF-PGRP, press release, FSU Headlines radio version of the story). The project builds on a new technology developed in the Bass laboratory and first announced in a Plant Journal paper coauthored by Dr. Bass and graduate student George Koumbaris. The project will produce a new cytogenetic map of the genome of maize, a classical tool in genetic research and the workhorse of American agriculture. The project was featured prominently in late 2003 and 2004 on the website of MaizeGDB, a web-based resource for maize genetics and genomics.
The 9 December 2003 edition of FSU Headlines featured Biological Science faculty member Dr. Thomas M. Roberts. A recent paper from Dr. Roberts' laboratory (Miao, L., O. Vanderlinde, M. Stewart, and T. M. Roberts. 2003. Retraction in amoeboid cell motility powered by cytoskeletal dynamics. Science 302:1405-1407.) reveals the mechanism crawling cells use to retract their trailing edges during amoeboid movement.