A man examining the soil and vegetation by a natural water source.

School of Life Sciences News

Life sciences involves studies of living organisms and their life processes, including their evolution and relationships with other living organisms and our planet. The courses and programs offered by the School of Life Sciences are designed for those students pursuing professional careers in medicine, science, and science education.

Current Life Sciences News

Spring Flowers (Becca Schwartz)
Campus News |

A roundup of the top news stories featuring UNLV students and faculty.

two women in graduation gowns with "UNLV Latinx" Stolls
Research |

UNLV-led grant project creates a hub for faculty across the country to share resources, learn, and collaborate with each other.

UNLV professor standing in lab with computer screen in front of him
Research |

International team explores how our cells detect and destroy disease-causing proteins with specificity; findings published Feb. 20 in the journal Molecular Cell.

a man at a table with a microscope and open book
UNLV History |

The late biology professor documented the history of Southern Nevada through its plants.

woman holding a framed photo of her pet Great Dane
People |

This administrative assistant left a career in medical education to learn something new, and then found the School of Life Sciences.

A biology student working in a lab.
Campus News |

Science fiction meets reality in this biology lab course that uses mutant enzymes to transform students into scientists.

Life Sciences In The News

Parade

Get ready for a noisy summer: Double the normal amount of cicadas are predicted to emerge this year. Melodramatically dubbed by some as a "cicada apocalypse," there is a reason why we're going to see so many of them in 2024. Find out everything to know about why there will be so many cicadas in 2024 (AKA a double-brood!), how many cicadas to expect and which states they'll hit the hardest.

Parade

Get ready for a noisy summer: Double the normal amount of cicadas are predicted to emerge this year. Melodramatically dubbed by some as a "cicada apocalypse," there is a reason why we're going to see so many of them in 2024. Find out everything to know about why there will be so many cicadas in 2024 (AKA a double-brood!), how many cicadas to expect and which states they'll hit the hardest.

City Cast Las Vegas

Yesterday, the feds signaled their approval for a long-awaited agreement between the Colorado River states — collectively, the lower basin states (Arizona, California, and Nevada) will reduce our water use by 3 million acre-feet by 2026. The hope is that we’ll be able to replenish our crucial reservoirs, including Lake Mead, the source of 90% of our city’s water. But damming rivers to create reservoirs isn’t without problems. So… was creating Lake Mead in the first place a mistake? Today, we’re bringing back a conversation co-host Dayvid Figler had with UNLV hydrologist Dr. David Kreamer, who explains the history of Lake Mead’s creation and why reservoirs can be so essential for cities — but also controversial.

Smithsonian Magazine

Every day, thousands of tourists flock to the Bellagio Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip to see the “Fountains of Bellagio,” a choreographed show involving light, music and more than 1,000 fountains shooting water up to 460 feet into the air. This week, a rare bird decided to join them.

Las Vegas Review Journal

Tourists circled the Las Vegas Strip’s impressive Fountains of Bellagio on Tuesday, taking selfies against the lush background of the resort. What they didn’t know was that they may have gotten an exclusive photo with Las Vegas’ hottest new celebrity — the yellow-billed loon, a migratory bird that has taken up residence in the property’s crystal blue waters.

Las Vegas Review Journal

When Martin Schiller decided to launch his own company based off the research he did at UNLV, he picked Las Vegas despite the prospect of being one of only a handful of biotechnology firms in the valley.

Life Sciences Experts

An expert in ecology, fire management, and U.S. National Parks.
An expert on hibernation, pupfish, evolution, and cellular biology.
An expert on bacterial gene regulation and bacterial pathogens, including E. coli, Shigella, and Salmonella. 
An expert in insect physiology and evolution.
Nora Caberoy is an expert on eye diseases, specifically the factors and pathways associated with damage of the retina. 
An expert in bioinformatics, virology, AIDS/HIV, Alzheimer's disease, and genetics.

Recent Life Sciences Accomplishments

Noehealani Antolin (Public Health), Manoj Sharma (Public Health), Gabriela Buccini (Public Health), Chad Cross (Public Health), Eduardo Robleto (Life Sciences), Jason Flatt (Public Health) gave an oral presentation on "Understanding Fruit and Vegetables Consumption Behaviors Among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander College…
Jessica Grifaldo (Life Sciences), Erin Cassin (Life Sciences), Dengxun Lai (Life Sciences), Landon Netherton (Life Sciences), Efren Heredia (Chemistry), Ryan Doss (Life Sciences), and Monika Karney (Life Sciences) all won prizes for their oral or poster presentations at the Regional American Society for Microbiology Meeting that was held in the…
Chad Cross (Epidemiology and Biostatistics) and Allen Gibbs (Life Sciences) were interviewed for an article titled, "'Double' the Amount of Cicadas Are Coming This Spring in Once-in-200-Year-Event—And These 2 States Will Be Hit the Hardest" by Parade magazine. Cross and Gibbs discussed why there are so many cicadas this year, how many there will…
Elizabeth Stacy (Life Sciences) coauthored the recent publication, "Toward the integration of speciation research," in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society. This paper outlines the major roadblocks to — and potential solutions for — both the integration of the many subfields of speciation biology and the entry into these…
An undergraduate student researcher in the laboratory of Kelly Tseng (Life Sciences), Karla Akari Garcia (Nevada State University) won the 1st Place Undergraduate Poster Presentation Award at the 2024 Southwest Regional Meeting of the Society of Developmental Biology. Garcia presented her research findings on identifying conserved mechanisms in…
Kelly Tseng (Life Sciences) was an invited speaker at the 2024 Southwest Regional Meeting of the Society of Developmental Biology. Her talk was titled "Eyeing Regrowth: Mechanisms Regulating Retinal Repair During Development." She presented her research group's findings on the mechanisms regulating eye stem cells and regeneration. Group…