Mindy Farris, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
CCCS 312A
(501) 450-5551
Education:
Ph.D., Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Univ. of Vermont, 2007
Started at UCA in 2014
Courses Taught:
Principles of Biology I
Biology Capstone
Cell Biology
Recent Advances in Molecular Biology
Molecular Mechanisms of Aging
Research Interests:
Why do we grow old? Why do we die? The Farris Lab examines the molecular pathways that address these questions. We primarily use the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, and study effects of nutrients, stressors, genetic mutations, and hormones. Because C. elegans normally live ~2-3 weeks, they are an ideal animal in which to study aging and late-onset diseases like neurodegeneration. Many of their pathways are highly conserved through more complex animals, including humans. We are interested in understanding these pathways.
Lab Webpage:
https://mfarris36.wixsite.com/farris-lab
Selected Publications:
Huggins B, Farris M. (2023) Vitamin D3 promotes longevity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Geroscience, 45(1): 345-358. doi: 10.1007/s11357-022-00637-w.
Gatrell, L., Wilkins, W., Rana, P., Farris, M. L. (2019). Glucose effects on polyglutamine-induced proteotoxic stress in Caenorhabditis elegans. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 522(3), 709-715.
Farris, L. (2019). Steroid signaling mediates longevity responses to the eat-2 genetic model of dietary restriction in Caenorhabditis elegans. Translational Medicine of Aging, 3, 90-97.
Farris, M., Hedbor, A., Manuelyan, Z., Statnekov, J., and Francklyn, C. (2011) Altered nuclear co-factor switching in retinoic acid resistant variants of the PML-RARα oncoprotein of acute promyelocytic leukemia. Proteins 80(4): 1095-109.
Guth, E., Farris, M., Bovee, M., and Francklyn, C. (2009) Asymmetric amino acid activation by class II histidyl-tRNA synthetase from Escherichia coli. Journal of Biological Chemistry 284(31): 20753-62.