Biological Sciences

Ants, Endurance and a Ph.D. at the Finish Line

March 18, 2026

UC Merced graduate student Reo Maynard studies a carpenter ant from one of his many ant colonies.

On most days, Reo Maynard’s life swings between two ecosystems: the microscopic world inside an ant’s gut and the sprawling one that stretches from Fresno to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The 51-year-old Navy veteran, dad of two, screenwriter-in-waiting and newly minted Fresno City...

Ancient Biological Clockwork Revealed Using ‘Secret Sauce’

In finding a way to see assemblies of the proteins that direct cyanobacterial circadian rhythms, or biological clocks, UC Merced biochemistry Professor Andy LiWang and his colleagues have done what...

Precision Targeting Provides New Insights Into Therapy-Resistant Cancers

The National Cancer Institute’s “cancer moonshot” tasks researchers with, among advancing other new biotechnologies, delving into immunotherapy and epigenomic analysis. UC Merced Professor Fabian V....

Researcher Illuminates the Olfactory Life of Crabs

If you want to know what the ocean really smells like, you’ll have to ask a crab. Yes, crabs have a sense of smell. In humans, chemicals in the air flow into our nasal cavities toward specialized...

UC Merced Professor Delivers Pellissier Lecture

Everyone is invited to hear UC Merced Professor Clarissa Nobile, this year’s Pellissier Distinguished Speaker, discussing biofilms. “Microbial Films: Why are They Important? How do They Form? And...

New UC Grant Enables Deeper, Broader Valley Fever Research

Researchers at UC Merced are playing key roles in the new UC Valley Fever Research Initiative, studying how the Valley fever fungus, Coccidioides immitis, causes disease in its mammalian hosts, and...

Genetic Changes Made Native Americans Susceptible to Smallpox, Study Shows

A new study identifies genetic changes in Native Americans that came about when Europeans settled in the Pacific Northwest and might have played a major role in why so many natives died of infectious...

Students Building Living Machines Out of Engineered Tissues

There are many labs at UC Merced where visitors can see students huddled over microscopes and petri dishes, using tweezers to extract and examine different items. But no one at UC Merced has ever...

Study: Warming Could Slow Upslope Migration of Trees

By Dan Krotz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists expect subalpine trees to advance upslope as global temperatures increase, following their climate up the mountains. But new research...

Researchers Enlist Hospital in Fight Against Antibiotic Resistance

There are 1.7 million multidrug-resistant, hospital-acquired infections that extend hospital stays, increase medical expenses and decrease quality of life. The United States alone reports at least...