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View of the Colorado river inside the Grand Canyon.
Research

Transforming river health, ecology, seaweed, and pest control: Revolutionary SciRIS research

Founded in 2018, SciRIS funds interdisciplinary research projects that aim to create meaningful societal impact. This year, biologist David Lytle’s project focuses on understanding the complex interactions between multiple biotic components, including food base, disease landscape and microbiome in the lower Colorado River, including the Grand Canyon.

A man in a white button-up gestures to molecular art on a table, explaining it to onlooking students.
Teaching Innovation

Students bake, sculpt and stitch molecular structures to life in Protein Portraits colloquium

Taught by biochemistry and biophysics professor Phil McFadden, the Honors colloquium course Protein Portraits offers a uniquely artistic perspective on biomolecules.

A hand holding tweezers picks up seeds on a blue background.
Statistics

Helping Oregon farmers thrive with smarter seed testing solutions

A multidisciplinary research group is combining expertise in robotics, artificial intelligence, computer science, statistics and crop science to create a modern solution for an outdated system.

Two scientists use equipment in the GCE4All lab.
Biochemistry & Biophysics

GCE4ALL leads global advancements in genetic code expansion for advanced therapies

For billions of years, all life on Earth, from tadpoles to humans, have relied on the same 20 amino acids to build proteins — the fundamental building blocks of life. But what if that list of fundamental amino acids was expanded to include any chemical ability of our choosing? What new potential could be unlocked?

AJ Damiana wears a striped button-up with a smile, her dark, curly hair falling to her shoulders.
Students

Biochemistry PRAx fellow conveys science through art

To take science from a nebulous image to an understandable craft, honors biochemistry major AJ Damiana turns to art. Now a Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts fellow, her ambitions have never been closer to reach.

DNA strands.
Faculty and Staff

Research grants to seed the next great idea

Seed funding from the College of Science Research and Innovation Seed (SciRIS) program continues to bolster ambitious and expansive research projects across biomedical science, fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics and more.

Portrait photo of Michael Freitag
Faculty and Staff

Michael Freitag Awarded University Distinguished Professor

Congratulations Michael Freitag, University Distinguished Professor!

Chris Beaudry working in a lab with a student
Faculty and Staff

Grants to boost advances in mental health and cancer research

The College of Science awarded two interdisciplinary teams funding to pursue promising leads in mental health and cancer research. One team will investigate the role of the gut-brain axis on sex differences in anxiety, and another will explore ways to develop an synthetic version of HHT-- a rare plant alkaloid that is showing great promise in the development of new medicines for multiple forms of cancer.

Corals along seafloor in Lizard Island.
Research

Scientists awarded grant to investigate how microbiomes can help species withstand climate change

A pivotal National Science Foundation award will enable Oregon State scientists to investigate how microbes influence their wildlife host’s sensitivity and resilience to disruptive changes in the natural environment.

Bo Sun working in physics lab with student
Faculty and Staff

Scientists garner innovation awards for cancer and materials research

The Science Research and Innovation Seed awards were given to four multidisciplinary research teams working on cancer diagnostics and materials science.

group photo of bio ethics team holding banner
Events

Science students helm inaugural biomedical ethics conference

Science students organize a very successful biomedical ethics conference.

Spiral icon above lit-up cityscape
Biomedical Science

Synergies unleashed to tackle human health and disease

OSU scientists take an interdisciplinary approach to human health, working across the life, physical and mathematical sciences to spur fresh thinking and innovations.