life without waterProtecting macromolecules, cells, and organisms during desiccation and rehydration across kingdoms of life
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Our planet’s surface and all life forms on it are composed mostly of water. Yet, survival at extremely low water content, anhydrobiosis, is essential for organisms across all kingdoms of life. The Water and Life Interface Institute (WALII) will study how life interacts with water from the molecular to the whole organism level across plants, fungi, and animals, considering reduced water across the entire spectrum.
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Muscles (red), nuclei (purple), and enlarged lipid droplets (green) are labeled in this tardigrade specimen. Photo credit: Thomas C. Boothby
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Breaking News
17 April 2025
WALII member Rose Marks brought together a team of 39 researchers across the globe to outline a comprehensive roadmap for advancing research on desiccation tolerance in a newly published paper with Nature Communications.
Read More About it Here
13 March 2025
Join us on April 3 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET for the next “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines" webinar, featuring Anja Thalhammer. Click here to learn more and register.
16 January 2025
The “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines" webinar series is continuing in 2025! Join us February 6, March 6, and April 3 at 8 am PT / 11 am ET for talks by Stephen Fried, Jon Hibshman, & Anja Thalhammer. Click here to learn more and register for the talks.
8 January 2025
WALII Labs are seeking undergraduate summer interns and we've launched a handout with helpful tips for applying for summer internships. Click here to see the handout.
26 November 2024
WALII Labs are seeking undergraduate summer interns! Interns will have opportunities to attend seminars, participate in a mentorship program, and engage with online career development activities. All internships are paid opportunities. Click here to learn more and apply.
18 November 2024
Join us for the next talk in the “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines" webinar series on December 5, 2024 at 8 am PT/11 am ET for a presentation about quantum ghost imaging in plant by Duncan Ryan from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Read the abstract and register for the talk here.
22 October 2024
Members of WALII's Sukenik, Boothby, and Holehouse labs have a new preprint on BioRxiv. The paper is titled "Protein surface chemistry encodes an adaptive tolerance to desiccation" and examines how desiccation tolerance is encoded on specific residues on protein surfaces. Read it here.
18 October 2024
Join us for the next talk in the “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines" webinar series on November 7, 2024 at 8 am PT/11 am ET for a presentation about how a dessert moss responds to UV radiation and desiccation stress by Jenna Ekwealor from San Francisco State University. Talk Title: "Harnessing the sun: The beneficial role of ultraviolet radiation in desert moss desiccation tolerance." Read the abstract and register for the talk here.
15 October 2024
WALII Researcher Dr. Rose Marks gave a talk on resurrection plants at Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) in Switzerland last week! Check out her talk and the panel she participated in about climate resilience and agriculture.
18 September 2024
We’re hosting a public webinar series! Join us for the first talk in the “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines Webinar Series” on October 3, 2024 at 8 am PT/11 am ET for a presentation about molecular modeling and soft matter physics by Dr. Matthias Heyden. Talk Title "Collective Motions in Proteins, their Hydration Shell, and Both Combined." Read the abstract and register for the talk here.
13 September 2024
The second cohort of WALII Seed Grant Awardees has been announced! Learn about the 2024 awardees here.
14 August 2024
Please join us in congratulating the 2024 WALII Travel Grant awardees, Olivia Maria Silva Carmo (Baylor College of Medicine) and Sheila Ferer (California State University Channel Islands). Read about their projects in the WALII Researcher Spotlight blogs.
5 August 2024
Congratulations to WALII Researchers Dr. Rose Marks, Jenny Schuster, and Dr. Robert VanBuren for being featured on the cover of Nature Plants! Read their paper “Convergent evolution of desiccation tolerance in grasses” and other WALII publications here.
1 June 2024
The 2024 WALII Retreat, which took place at Michigan State University from May 30 - June 1, 2024, brought together a cohort of scientists, from undergraduate students to faculty members, from across the nation to celebrate our second successful year of creative, bold, and curiosity-driven research! This retreat provided participants with a valuable opportunity to promote open communication and share cutting-edge discoveries through activities such as poster flash talks, breakout group discussions, and training sessions. Learn more about our events here.
11 May 2024
The Rhee Lab is looking to hire a Research Assistant at MSU! This job is perfect for recent college graduates with a degree in biology, biochemistry, or a related field. If this sounds like you, please apply here!
8 April 2024
Members of the Fleming, Rhee, and VanBuren labs will be hosting booths at the MSU Science Festival STEAM Expo on April 13 – 14, 2024. Join us at the STEM Teaching and Learning Facility in Room 3202 between 10 am – 4 pm to explore the fascinating world of life without water!
22 March 2024
Congratulations to WALII researchers Alejandra Arroyo (undergraduate student) and Sheila Ferer (research assistant) from the Tapia Lab at CSUCI for presenting their work at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) 2024 in Washington D.C. and being featured in a CSUCI News Release.
2 March 2024
Members of WALII’s Boothby, Sukenik, and Holehouse labs have a new pre-print out on how “Disordered proteins interact with the chemical environment to tune their protective function during drying.” Here they show that across 2 different desiccation tolerant organisms, intrinsically disordered proteins work with endogenous co-solutes to protect the organism during desiccation.
13 February 2024
WALII Director Dr. Sue Rhee and WALII member Dr. Neusa Steiner will be presenting at the CRYO2024 conference hosted by the Society for Cryobiology in Washington D.C. from July 23-25, 2024. Register here to attend.
12 February 2024
Congratulations to two graduate students from WALII labs, Kara Hunter (Sukenik Lab – UC Merced) and Jeff Lotthammer (Holehouse Lab – Washington University in St. Louis)! Both Kara and Jeff won Student Research Achievement Awards (SRAA) for their poster presentations at the 2024 Biophysical Society meeting.
7 February 2024
Glencairn Elementary Science Night
Members of the Fleming and Rhee labs will be hosting expo booths at the Glencairn Elementary Science Night from 6 – 8 pm.
7 February 2024
John Ramirez and Vindya Kumara from the Boothby lab have a second paper out on “The effect of sucrose polymer-size on glass transition temperature, glass former fragility, and water retention during drying” in Frontiers in Materials. They show that while enzyme protection, water content, glass transition temperature, and glass former fragility were affected by polymer size, only the glass transition temperature correlated with desiccation protection.
24 January 2024
Members of the Boothby lab and Theme 1 researchers, John Ramirez and Vindya Kumara, recently published an article with collaborators in BBA Advances on “Water content, transition temperature and fragility influence protection and anhydrobiotic capacity.” Their research shows that the material properties of different vitrified sugars have different enzyme-protective capacities.
19 December 2023
WALII is hosting a “How to apply for summer internships” webinar for undergraduate students on January 8, 2024, at 11 am PT (12 pm MT; 1 pm CT; 2 pm ET) – register here.
18 December 2023
WALII's Grace (Margaret) Fleming was interviewed by BBC CrowdScience presenter Caroline Steel about her work on seed longevity! Listen to the "Are Seeds Alive?" episode from BBC CrowdScience here.
15-18 November 2023
WALII will be attending ABRCMS 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona! Come find the PCA booth in the Exhibitor Hall (Booth #1528) to learn more about WALII initiatives and career opportunities.
26 - 28 October 2023
WALII members will be attending the SACNAS National Diversity in STEM (NDiSTEM) conference in Portland, Oregon! Come find the WALII booth (#807) in the Exhibit Hall Symposium to learn more about WALII initiatives, the 2024 summer internship program for undergraduates, and careers in WALII labs.
11 September 2023
The inaugural WALII Symposium was held on September 11, 2023.
4 August 2023
First WALII Seed Grant Awardees Announced! Learn about the 2023 awardees here.
5 December 2022
WALII team member Hugo Tapia explains in this news interview how his lab's research into tardigrades' stress resistance and yeast's ability to survive without water could help humanity, as it deals with climate change and having to grow food with fewer water resources.
31 October 2022
WALII will be onsite at #ABRCMS2022 November 9-12 in Anaheim, California! The Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists is one of the largest communities for underrepresented scientists in STEM. Come by booth #521 to chat with Sterling Field and Evan Saldivar about WALII's commitment to diversity, inclusion, and retention for undergrad, grad, postbac, and postdoc trainees. And check out our open positions!
24 October 2022
WALII’s Selena Rice and Elena Lazarus will be at the @SACNAS National Diversity in STEM Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico on October 27-29. If you're onsite, come by the PCA booth (#1725) to say hello, and learn about our new job postings! #2022NDiSTEM
14 September 2022
Catch WALII team members Marisa Otegui, Sue Rhee, and Thomas Boothby at 9:45 am PT with WPRs The Larry Meiller Show as they discuss the science and aims of WALII!
30 August 2022
The University of Wisconsin-Madison published a nice press release on WALII featuring team member Marisa Otegui.
23 August 2022
The WALII website launched and the new Biology Integration Institute was recognized by the Carnegie Institution for Science.
15 August 2022
The U.S. National Science Foundation announces funding award for the Water and Life Interface Institute (WALII).
WALII member Rose Marks brought together a team of 39 researchers across the globe to outline a comprehensive roadmap for advancing research on desiccation tolerance in a newly published paper with Nature Communications.
Read More About it Here
13 March 2025
Join us on April 3 at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET for the next “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines" webinar, featuring Anja Thalhammer. Click here to learn more and register.
16 January 2025
The “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines" webinar series is continuing in 2025! Join us February 6, March 6, and April 3 at 8 am PT / 11 am ET for talks by Stephen Fried, Jon Hibshman, & Anja Thalhammer. Click here to learn more and register for the talks.
8 January 2025
WALII Labs are seeking undergraduate summer interns and we've launched a handout with helpful tips for applying for summer internships. Click here to see the handout.
26 November 2024
WALII Labs are seeking undergraduate summer interns! Interns will have opportunities to attend seminars, participate in a mentorship program, and engage with online career development activities. All internships are paid opportunities. Click here to learn more and apply.
18 November 2024
Join us for the next talk in the “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines" webinar series on December 5, 2024 at 8 am PT/11 am ET for a presentation about quantum ghost imaging in plant by Duncan Ryan from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Read the abstract and register for the talk here.
22 October 2024
Members of WALII's Sukenik, Boothby, and Holehouse labs have a new preprint on BioRxiv. The paper is titled "Protein surface chemistry encodes an adaptive tolerance to desiccation" and examines how desiccation tolerance is encoded on specific residues on protein surfaces. Read it here.
18 October 2024
Join us for the next talk in the “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines" webinar series on November 7, 2024 at 8 am PT/11 am ET for a presentation about how a dessert moss responds to UV radiation and desiccation stress by Jenna Ekwealor from San Francisco State University. Talk Title: "Harnessing the sun: The beneficial role of ultraviolet radiation in desert moss desiccation tolerance." Read the abstract and register for the talk here.
15 October 2024
WALII Researcher Dr. Rose Marks gave a talk on resurrection plants at Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) in Switzerland last week! Check out her talk and the panel she participated in about climate resilience and agriculture.
18 September 2024
We’re hosting a public webinar series! Join us for the first talk in the “Anhydrobiosis Across Organisms, Scales, and Disciplines Webinar Series” on October 3, 2024 at 8 am PT/11 am ET for a presentation about molecular modeling and soft matter physics by Dr. Matthias Heyden. Talk Title "Collective Motions in Proteins, their Hydration Shell, and Both Combined." Read the abstract and register for the talk here.
13 September 2024
The second cohort of WALII Seed Grant Awardees has been announced! Learn about the 2024 awardees here.
14 August 2024
Please join us in congratulating the 2024 WALII Travel Grant awardees, Olivia Maria Silva Carmo (Baylor College of Medicine) and Sheila Ferer (California State University Channel Islands). Read about their projects in the WALII Researcher Spotlight blogs.
5 August 2024
Congratulations to WALII Researchers Dr. Rose Marks, Jenny Schuster, and Dr. Robert VanBuren for being featured on the cover of Nature Plants! Read their paper “Convergent evolution of desiccation tolerance in grasses” and other WALII publications here.
1 June 2024
The 2024 WALII Retreat, which took place at Michigan State University from May 30 - June 1, 2024, brought together a cohort of scientists, from undergraduate students to faculty members, from across the nation to celebrate our second successful year of creative, bold, and curiosity-driven research! This retreat provided participants with a valuable opportunity to promote open communication and share cutting-edge discoveries through activities such as poster flash talks, breakout group discussions, and training sessions. Learn more about our events here.
11 May 2024
The Rhee Lab is looking to hire a Research Assistant at MSU! This job is perfect for recent college graduates with a degree in biology, biochemistry, or a related field. If this sounds like you, please apply here!
8 April 2024
Members of the Fleming, Rhee, and VanBuren labs will be hosting booths at the MSU Science Festival STEAM Expo on April 13 – 14, 2024. Join us at the STEM Teaching and Learning Facility in Room 3202 between 10 am – 4 pm to explore the fascinating world of life without water!
22 March 2024
Congratulations to WALII researchers Alejandra Arroyo (undergraduate student) and Sheila Ferer (research assistant) from the Tapia Lab at CSUCI for presenting their work at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) 2024 in Washington D.C. and being featured in a CSUCI News Release.
2 March 2024
Members of WALII’s Boothby, Sukenik, and Holehouse labs have a new pre-print out on how “Disordered proteins interact with the chemical environment to tune their protective function during drying.” Here they show that across 2 different desiccation tolerant organisms, intrinsically disordered proteins work with endogenous co-solutes to protect the organism during desiccation.
13 February 2024
WALII Director Dr. Sue Rhee and WALII member Dr. Neusa Steiner will be presenting at the CRYO2024 conference hosted by the Society for Cryobiology in Washington D.C. from July 23-25, 2024. Register here to attend.
12 February 2024
Congratulations to two graduate students from WALII labs, Kara Hunter (Sukenik Lab – UC Merced) and Jeff Lotthammer (Holehouse Lab – Washington University in St. Louis)! Both Kara and Jeff won Student Research Achievement Awards (SRAA) for their poster presentations at the 2024 Biophysical Society meeting.
7 February 2024
Glencairn Elementary Science Night
Members of the Fleming and Rhee labs will be hosting expo booths at the Glencairn Elementary Science Night from 6 – 8 pm.
7 February 2024
John Ramirez and Vindya Kumara from the Boothby lab have a second paper out on “The effect of sucrose polymer-size on glass transition temperature, glass former fragility, and water retention during drying” in Frontiers in Materials. They show that while enzyme protection, water content, glass transition temperature, and glass former fragility were affected by polymer size, only the glass transition temperature correlated with desiccation protection.
24 January 2024
Members of the Boothby lab and Theme 1 researchers, John Ramirez and Vindya Kumara, recently published an article with collaborators in BBA Advances on “Water content, transition temperature and fragility influence protection and anhydrobiotic capacity.” Their research shows that the material properties of different vitrified sugars have different enzyme-protective capacities.
19 December 2023
WALII is hosting a “How to apply for summer internships” webinar for undergraduate students on January 8, 2024, at 11 am PT (12 pm MT; 1 pm CT; 2 pm ET) – register here.
18 December 2023
WALII's Grace (Margaret) Fleming was interviewed by BBC CrowdScience presenter Caroline Steel about her work on seed longevity! Listen to the "Are Seeds Alive?" episode from BBC CrowdScience here.
15-18 November 2023
WALII will be attending ABRCMS 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona! Come find the PCA booth in the Exhibitor Hall (Booth #1528) to learn more about WALII initiatives and career opportunities.
26 - 28 October 2023
WALII members will be attending the SACNAS National Diversity in STEM (NDiSTEM) conference in Portland, Oregon! Come find the WALII booth (#807) in the Exhibit Hall Symposium to learn more about WALII initiatives, the 2024 summer internship program for undergraduates, and careers in WALII labs.
11 September 2023
The inaugural WALII Symposium was held on September 11, 2023.
4 August 2023
First WALII Seed Grant Awardees Announced! Learn about the 2023 awardees here.
5 December 2022
WALII team member Hugo Tapia explains in this news interview how his lab's research into tardigrades' stress resistance and yeast's ability to survive without water could help humanity, as it deals with climate change and having to grow food with fewer water resources.
31 October 2022
WALII will be onsite at #ABRCMS2022 November 9-12 in Anaheim, California! The Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists is one of the largest communities for underrepresented scientists in STEM. Come by booth #521 to chat with Sterling Field and Evan Saldivar about WALII's commitment to diversity, inclusion, and retention for undergrad, grad, postbac, and postdoc trainees. And check out our open positions!
24 October 2022
WALII’s Selena Rice and Elena Lazarus will be at the @SACNAS National Diversity in STEM Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico on October 27-29. If you're onsite, come by the PCA booth (#1725) to say hello, and learn about our new job postings! #2022NDiSTEM
14 September 2022
Catch WALII team members Marisa Otegui, Sue Rhee, and Thomas Boothby at 9:45 am PT with WPRs The Larry Meiller Show as they discuss the science and aims of WALII!
30 August 2022
The University of Wisconsin-Madison published a nice press release on WALII featuring team member Marisa Otegui.
23 August 2022
The WALII website launched and the new Biology Integration Institute was recognized by the Carnegie Institution for Science.
15 August 2022
The U.S. National Science Foundation announces funding award for the Water and Life Interface Institute (WALII).
