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...

Alumnus Expands Science Literacy Nonprofit to South America

A science literacy nonprofit created by UC Merced students is gaining an international foothold with planned expansion into classrooms in Ecuador. Growth is nothing new for BEAT — short for Biology,...

Studying the ’Saurs: New Class is a ‘Gateway to Science’

One of the campus’s newest professors is teaching one of its newest classes on one of the world’s oldest subjects: dinosaurs. But there’s much more to Professor Justin Yeakel’s Natural History of...

Scientists Unveiling the Complexity of Mysterious Protein Folding

Imagine trying to reverse engineer a car when all you have is a finished product or a box full of parts — no instructions. That’s what scientists have been trying to do with proteins, the mysterious...

Campus Getting Greener with New Research Growing Spaces

Everyone knows UC Merced is growing, but pretty soon, the campus will be growing lots of plant specimens for research, too. The School of Natural Sciences is buying a pair of greenhouses that will be...

Study Links Cancer Cell Growth to Nervous System

Cancer cells divide with more frequency and are more resilient when they are closer to the brain, indicating a potential link between cell growth and the nervous system, according to new research...

New Supercomputing Cluster to Expand Campus Capabilities

A proposal to conduct high-performance computing across science and engineering disciplines has won UC Merced and Professor Christine Isborn a research computing cluster that will be used for a...

NIH Funds Research Into Stem Cells, Bone Disease

A new study from UC Merced Professor Jennifer O. Manilay promises to shed new light on how bone diseases can affect the maintenance of healthy blood and immune cell development throughout life....

UC Merced Receives $5 Million for Interdisciplinary Research Center

Researchers at the University of California, Merced, won a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how biological matter like proteins or cells come together to perform...

Internship Program Enhances Students’ Academic Experiences

Last fall, the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of Undergraduate Education launched an internship program with the goal of providing undergraduate students an opportunity to build...