Blair Perry was interviewed by National Geographic in article titled “Hibernating bears could hold a clue to treating diabetes” regarding his recent work published with Michael Saxton in iScience. Their work identified 8 key proteins that prevent bears from developing diabetes despite massive weight fluctuations and seasonal insulin resistance. Great work, Blair! There has been other exciting press on the article:

PC: Robert Hubner, Washington State University.

Blair Perry presented his postdoctoral work at Parsons North Brewing Co. in Columbus, OH! Looks like it was a “beary” good time!

Congratulations to Ellie Armstrong, Blair Perry, and Joanna Kelley for their article “A beary good genome: Haplotype-resolved, chromosome-level assembly of the brown bear (Ursus arctos)” published this month in Genome Biology and Evolution! Link to the full article here.
Brown bear at sunset, Katmai National Park, Alaska, USA. Photo Credit: Dave Shumway, ForTheLoveOfBears.org

Congratulations to Graduate Student Tait Algayer for her Natural Resource Conservation Endowment Fund Award!

Dr. Joanna Kelley’s ongoing research into the genetic changes occurring during grizzly bear hibernation is featured in Washington State Magazine’s spring issue! The article also discusses the research of collaborators Dr. Heiko Jansen and Dr. Charles Robbins. Read the full article here.

Ellie recently presented her grizzly bear research at the PacBio Plant and Animal Genomics Day. Congratulations, Ellie!

Kerry was awarded a 2022 NASA Space Grant Fellowship to study evolutionary rate divergence in poeciliid fishes. Congratulations, Kerry!

The Kelley lab recently worked with Neill Public Library to host a bird feeder activity for K-12 youth. Attendees made a bird feeder to take home and hang in their backyard to participate in the 2022 Great Backyard Bird Count. The Backyard Bird Count is a fun citizen science opportunity to record bird sightings from February 18-21 (more info here). If you would like to construct your own bird feeder out of popsicle sticks, glue, and string to participate in the count, find instructions here, a list of Palouse-specific birds here, and a printable observation journal here. Happy birding!

Blair was recently awarded a National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Post-doctoral Fellowship to study the genomic basis of Arctic adaptation in polar bears. His project will use functional and population genomic data to understand the role of regulatory sequence evolution in facilitating rapid adaptation to the Arctic. Read more here. Congratulations, Blair!