To request a media interview, please reach out to School of Biological Sciences experts using our faculty directory, or contact Jess Hunt-Ralston, College of Sciences communications director. A list of faculty experts and research areas across the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech is also available to journalists upon request.
School of Biological Sciences Professor Marvin Whiteley has been named the 2026 recipient of the American Society for Microbiology's D.C. White Award for Interdisciplinary Research. This award recognizes Whiteley’s distinguished accomplishments in interdisciplinary research and mentoring in microbiology.
American Society for Microbiology | 2025-09-05T00:00:00-04:00
Reproduction is strange in many social insects, but the Iberian harvester ant (Messor ibericus) takes the weirdness to the next level. Queens mate with males of another species and then clone them, researchers report today in Nature, which means this ant is the only known organism that propagates two species by itself. Evolutionary biologist Jonathan Romiguier of the University of Montpellier, who led the team, calls M. ibericus “in a sense, the most complex, colonial life form we know of so far.”The finding “is almost impossible to believe and pushes our understanding of evolutionary biology,” says Michael Goodisman, an evolutionary biologist and professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology who was not involved with the new research. “Just when you think you’ve seen it all, social insects reveal another surprise."
Science Magazine | 2025-09-03T00:00:00-04:00
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and India's National Center for Biological Sciences have found that yeast clusters, when grown beyond a certain size, spontaneously generate fluid flows powerful enough to ferry nutrients deep into their interior.In the study, "Metabolically driven flows enable exponential growth in macroscopic multicellular yeast," published in Science Advances, the research team — which included Georgia Tech Ph.D. scholar Emma Bingham, Research Scientist G. Ozan Bozdag, Associate Professor William C. Ratcliff, and Associate Professor Peter Yunker — used experimental evolution to determine whether non-genetic physical processes can enable nutrient transport in multicellular yeast lacking evolved transport adaptations.A similar story also appeared at The Hindu.
Phys.org | 2025-06-24T00:00:00-04:00
David Hu, professor in the Schools of Biological Sciences and Mechanical Engineering, drew on ant behavior in his commentary of a study that examined towering behavior in nematodes.Ants, which assemble to form buoyant rafts to survive floodwaters, are among the few creatures known to team up like nematodes, said Hu.“Ants are incredibly sacrificial for one another, and they do not generally fight within the colony,” Hu said. “That’s because of their genetics. They all come from the same queen, so they are like siblings.”Notably, there has been a lot of interest in studying cooperative animal behaviors among the robotics community, Hu said. It’s possible that one day, he added, information about the complex sociality of creatures like nematodes could be used to inform how technology, such as computer servers or drone systems, communicates.
CNN | 2025-06-05T00:00:00-04:00
This week could be a jackpot for birders in Georgia, as an estimated 10 million will fly every night over the state. When they aren't flying, they'll be on the ground feasting. In an 11Alive interview, Benjamin Freeman, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, discusses the “river of migrating birds” over Georgia skies:"So most of these small birds, they're actually... flying at night. So when they're flying, they're spending so much energy they're heating up, so they like to fly when it's cool at night. And they're flying a couple thousand feet up. They're flying all night and then sometime in the morning they'll land and they'll spend the day looking for food. And then the next night, they'll often rise up again and keep flying north, so they're flying a couple 100 miles a night.”Discover the full interview here.A similar story also appeared at The Atlanta Journal Constitution.
11 Alive | 2025-04-28T00:00:00-04:00
In an article published in Science, Maria Martignoni, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech’s Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection, reflects on her path as a scientist and shares advice to students: "One does not need to have a clear life plan to belong in science. Many scientists know from the start that they want to be academic researchers. But for others the path unfolds gradually, with spurts of doubt and uncertainty along the way. In a way, that’s fitting. As researchers we are explorers, and part of our mission involves finding our way without always knowing where we are going.”
Science Magazine | 2025-04-10T00:00:00-04:00
In an article published in The Washington Post, Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences James Stroud provides an overview of his research: Every morning in Miami, our fieldwork begins the same way. Fresh Cuban coffee and pastelitos — delicious Latin American pastries — fuel our team for another day of evolutionary detective work. In this case, we are tracking evolution in real time, measuring natural selection as it happens in a community of Caribbean lizards.Our research takes place on a South Florida island roughly the size of an American football field — assuming we are successful in sidestepping the American crocodiles that bask in the surrounding lake. We call it Lizard Island, and it's a special place.Since 2015, we have been conducting evolutionary research here on five species of remarkable lizards called anoles. Our team is working to understand one of biology's most fundamental questions: How does natural selection drive evolution in real time?This also appeared in The Conversation.
The Washington Post | 2025-03-23T00:00:00-04:00
How life on Earth evolved from unicellular to multicellular organisms remains a mystery, though evidence indicates that this may have occurred multiple times independently. To understand what could have happened, Will Ratcliff, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, has been conducting long-term evolution experiments on yeast in which multicellularity develops and emerges spontaneously.In a recent episode of “The Joy of Why” podcast, Ratcliff discusses what his “snowflake yeast” model could reveal about the origins of multicellularity, the surprising discoveries his team has made, and how he responds to skeptics who question his approach.
Quanta Magazine | 2025-03-20T00:00:00-04:00
Marvin Whiteley, professor in the School of Biological Sciences, has been named the new editor in chief of mBio, an open-access journal that explores the interconnected microbial world and publishes research in microbiology and allied fields. Whiteley’s term will begin on July 1, 2025.
American Society for Microbiology | 2025-02-07T00:00:00-05:00
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden may look serene at first glance, but beneath the resplendent orchids and majestic banyans, two invasive lizards are waging a turf war.The war started a few years ago when Cuban brown anoles, who have called South Florida home for about 100 years, came face to face for the first time with a new rival: crested anoles from Puerto Rico.As the two species, which look almost identical and occupy the same ecological niche, faced off, biologists were able to document who was winning, and more importantly, how quickly the losers were adapting to survive on new turf.A new study published in Nature Communications by researchers, including School of Biological Sciences Assistant Professor James Stroud, reveals that the losing species is adapting at a rapid pace, changing their behavior, but also their bodies. This fast adaptation is altering what we know about how evolution works.(This story also appeared in Futurity and New Atlas.)
Sun Sentinel | 2024-12-01T00:00:00-05:00
