Matt McCary, assistant professor of biosciences at Rice University, has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF CAREER Award is one of the foundation’s most prestigious honors, recognizing early career faculty with the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education. The $1.26 million grant will support McCary’s research on the spread of invasive plants — aggressive non-native species that disrupt native ecosystems, threaten biodiversity and contribute to billions in economic damages each year.

A team of Tufts University researchers created Morpho, an open-source programmable environment that enables researchers and engineers to conduct shape optimization and design for soft materials. Applications can be for anything from artificial hearts to robot materials that mimic flesh and soft tissue.

Johns Hopkins University engineers have developed a pioneering prosthetic hand that can grip plush toys, water bottles, and other everyday objects like a human, carefully conforming and adjusting its grasp to avoid damaging or mishandling whatever it holds. 

Working with colleagues on four continents, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Zachary Lippman has established the pan-genome for an agriculturally crucial group of plants that includes all tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants. The pan-genome could help make genome editing more predictable and empower plant breeders across the globe to improve crop selection and resiliency.