Contributors

Meet some of the people featured in the February 2017 issue of The Scientist.

| 2 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
2:00
Share

Ning Wang is a professor of biomechanics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Wang started off as a mechanical engineering major in the late ’70s at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China. But after listening to a lecture on the possible role of mechanical properties in soft tissue physiology, a new and unexplored idea at the time, he decided to pursue biomechanics. “I was intrigued by that idea of describing living tissues with mechanics,” he says. After earning a master’s in biomechanics and an ScD in physiology, Wang worked as a postdoc under Harvard’s Donald Ingber, an early proponent of the notion that mechanical tension governs the structure and behavior of cells. In Ingber’s lab in 1993, Wang provided the first evidence that integrins mediate mechanical signaling in cells, a discovery now recognized as foundational to mechanobiology. Since then, Wang has continued to characterize cellular mechanosensing and its possible implications for medicine, particularly cancer cell metastasis and stem cell development.

Wang delves deep into the past, present, and future of the field in “May the Force Be with You.”

“I’ve always been into natural history, especially some of the more macabre aspects of it,” Bill Schutt admits. The author of Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, and Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures, Schutt teaches anatomy and zoology at Long Island University–Post and is a research associate in residence at the American Museum of Natural History. Schutt completed a PhD in zoology at Cornell University studying vampire bats, and his interest in the blood-feeders became the inspiration for Dark Banquet, his first book, published in 2008. “I like to take subjects that people are grossed out by and turn them around,” Schutt says, “so people realize these are natural occurrences” and that “it’s not all sensationalism.” Schutt now divides his time between writing and teaching. Currently, he is working on The Himalayan Codex, a sequel to his 2016 novel Hell’s Gate, a World War II thriller set in the Brazilian wilderness, the plot of which drew heavily upon Schutt’s familiarity with zoology’s more lurid side.

Schutt explains why eating one’s own is a regular part of nature (here), and in his book Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History, published this month.

A number of February authors are past contributors to the pages of The Scientist. Sandeep Ravindran (“What Sensory Receptors Do Outside of Sense Organs,” September 2016) writes about novel drug-discovery methods that depend on activating silent gene clusters (here). A Notebook by David R. Smith describes a parasitic plant that adroitly pilfers mitochondrial genes from its ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Enhancing Therapeutic Antibody Discovery with Cross-Platform Workflows

Enhancing Therapeutic Antibody Discovery with Cross-Platform Workflows

sartorius logo
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo

Products

Photo of a researcher overseeing large scale production processes in a laboratory.

Scaling Lentiviral Vector Manufacturing for Optimal Productivity

Thermo Fisher Logo
Collage-style urban graphic of wastewater surveillance and treatment

Putting Pathogens to the Test with Wastewater Surveillance

An illustration of an mRNA molecule in front of a multicolored background.

Generating High-Quality mRNA for In Vivo Delivery with lipid nanoparticles

Thermo Fisher Logo
Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide