News

How UNC Charlotte is helping the world prepare for the next pandemic Since 2020, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte) has played a significant role in Mecklenburg County’s COVID-19 response — from wastewater testing to identifying new SARS-CoV-2 variants and analyzing their characteristics via artificial intelligence (AI). Now, AI has become the […]

Detecting COVID-19 before it spreads using wastewater COVID-19 wastewater testing. Wastewater can be a valuable way to detect SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) before it spreads. In this video, Erika Edwards (health and medical reporter/writer, NBC News shows how UNC Charlotte used wastewater collection to stay open during the pandemic. shows us how one […]

Graduate Students Share Research Notes With State Legislators L-R: David Brown (Graduate student, Bioinformatics), Representative Terry M. Brown, Jr., and Kaitlin Klotz (Graduate student, Biology). Graduate students David Brown, Bioinformatics, and Kaitlin Klotz, Biology, demonstrated the value of graduate education for state legislators as part of the N.C. Council of Graduate Schools 11th Annual Graduate […]

Dr. Colby Ford and seven other 49ners in Charlotte Business Journal’s 40 under 40 class for 2022 Congratulations to Dr. Colby T . Ford, from UNC Charlotte’s School of Data Science The Charlotte Business Journal has recognized Dr. Colby T. Ford as part of its 40 Under 40 class of 2022. Dr. Ford is an […]

Adam Reitzel won The Harshini V. de Silva Graduate Mentor Award Dr. Adam Reitzel won the Harshini V. de Silva Graduate Mentor Award On March 15, 2022, Dr. Adam Reitzel, a UNC CHarlotte’s professor of biological sciences, won the Harshini V. de Silva Graduate Mentor Award for his commitment to graduate students. The Harshini V. […]

What is the Current COVID-19 Situation? Dr. Daniel A. Janies, Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Bioinformatics and Genomics. UNC Charlotte UNC Charlotte’s Professor Daniel A. Janies joins Alex, Jamie, and Jack from WBTC’s Good Question to answer important questions about the pandemic: What is the current COVID-19 situation? Should we prepare for more variants, […]

WBTV: Dr. Janies talks about the do’s and don’ts as you adjust to Phase 1 of reopening North Carolina Read the article here: https://www.wbtv.com/2020/05/08/dos-donts-you-adjust-phase-reopening-north-carolina/ https://www.wbtv.com/2020/05/08/dos-donts-you-adjust-phase-reopening-north-carol…

Why some viruses die out in summer, but others thrive It’s increasingly clear that summer won’t quell the new coronavirus. (Sorry.) The preponderance of research suggests warmer weather might have a small impact on slowing the spread of coronavirus, but the summer itself certainly won’t end the historic pandemic. We’re going to be living with […]

Dr. Adam Reitzel (Professor in Biological Sciences) has been awarded a R15 AREA grant by NIGMS (NIH) to study the roles of genetic and environmental variation in the epigenetics of the model sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. This research will determine how biotic and abiotic variation impacts the distribution and quantity of DNA methylation using a […]

Modeling Plasmodium falciparum Diagnostic Test Sensitivity using Machine Learning with Histidine-Rich Protein 2 Variants Colby T Ford, Gezahegn Alemayehu, Kayla Blackburn, Karen Lopez, Cheikh Cambel Dieng, Eugenia Lo, Lemu Golassa, and Daniel Janies Malaria, predominantly caused by Plasmodium falciparum, poses one of largest and most durable health threats in the world. Previously, simplistic regression-based models […]

COVID-19 WEBINAR: UNDERSTANDING THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE PANDEMIC You can access the webinar recording here. To learn more about COVID-19 related research that is being conducted at UNC Charlotte, visit Janies Lab. Dr. Denis Jacob Machado is also organizing a symposium on Virology in the SARS-CoV-2 Era. More information about that virtual meeting can be […]

Industrial use of antibiotics may cause unusual evolutionary process. A new study, published in the current issue of the journal Cladistics, analyzes a massive genetic data set involving genomes of 29,255 strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) collected between 1884 and 2018 to examine the evolution of 409 different genes that enable various […]

The CVS drive-through line isn’t just for picking up prescriptions anymore, it’s also a one-stop shop for COVID-19 testing. And the person who is collecting the sample to be tested, isn’t a health care worker—it’s you. If you’ve wondered what the self-swab process is like, WFAE’s Sarah Delia has this hands-on account. Read the full […]

SYMPOSIUM: VIROLOGY IN THE SARS-COV-2 ERA I MEETING OF SYSTEMATICS, BIOGEOGRAPHY, AND EVOLUTION July 28-30, 2020 [Recorded on YouTube] UNC Charlotte Speakers: Phylogenomics of Orthocoronavirinae: evolutionary relationships between coronaviruses and their hosts. Visualizing transmission networks of pathogens using phylogenetic data with StrainHub July 28, 2020 | 4:50-5:15pm EST Denis Jacod Machado, Ph.D. July 28, 2020 […]

New Article Published in Cladistics by Marc W. Allard and Eric W. Brown Abstract What are considered fundamental principles within the Willi Hennig Society and published in their journal are not always fully appreciated by many other biological fields that have not been schooled in these disciplines of systematics principles and the reasons for why […]

New Article Published in Cladistics by John Wenzel Abstract In the rush to understand the coronaviruses that threaten human health, authors of many prominent papers have not performed phylogenetic analyses to the standard of the field today. Errors include faulty placement of the root of the phylogeny, outdated methods of reconstruction, poor taxon sampling, inappropriate […]

Article Published: Four Challenges Associated with Current Mathematical Modeling Paradigm of Infectious Diseases and Call for a Shift Shi Chen, Ph.D , Patrick Robinson, M.D., FIDSA, FACP, Daniel Janies, Ph.D, Michael Dulin, M.D., Ph.D Open Forum Infectious Diseases, ofaa333 Abstract: Mathematical models are critical tools to characterize COVID-19 dynamics and take actions accordingly. We identified […]

Cover Image: Global molecular phylogeny of Escherichia coli isolates from the Pathogen Detection project akin to the data used in Ford et al., in this issue of Cladistics entitled “Genetic capitalism and stabilizing selection of antimicrobial resistance genotypes in Escherichia coli”. (Image Credit Daniel Janies and Zachary Witter, University of North Carolina at Charlotte). Small […]