Research & Creative Activity

Professor Francisco N. Barrera’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology is engineering peptides that can target cancer cells. Researchers from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are working on a promising strategy to make therapies targeting cancer smarter and more precise, with peptides that switch on in the acidic environment surrounding…

Fulbright scholar Ryan Awori works with the Department of Microbiology to research new methods to cure Malaria-like diseases. Visiting Fulbright scholar Ryan Awori established strong collaborative ties to the College of Arts and Sciences while working on his PhD approximately three years ago. As these ties developed, an epidemic in his home nation of Kenya…

A new study by UT anthropologists and colleagues suggests that human evolution took a different course than previously thought, challenging long-held assumptions about the evolution of the human skull. A new study published today in the journal Nature Communications suggests that two of the best-known trends in human evolution—brain growth and the reduction in the…

Marco digitizes medieval sources and welcomes new faculty in its ongoing mission to elevate the connections between—and make purposeful sense of—the past and the present. UT’s Marco Institute is an internationally acclaimed center for the study of the history and culture of the premodern world. Directed by Associate Professor of French Anne-Hélène Miller, the center…

Conveying their expertise to a general audience expands the reach of faculty members’ academic work. With a few hours of writing, faculty members from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, find they can expand their reach among academic circles and to a wider audience across the globe.  For three consecutive years UT has placed first in…

Newly published book by Nikki Luke examines Atlanta’s urban growth and increased use of electricity. Nikki Luke, assistant professor in the Department of Geography, recently published Electric Life: Utility Regulation and the Fight for Energy Democracy through MIT Press.  Luke’s book traces the interwoven history of Atlanta’s racialized, uneven urban development and its ever-increasing electricity…

UT Professor Emeritus Gordon Burghardt is part of an international team of researchers that has identified the strongest predictor of why only some primate species continue to engage in social play past their juvenile years. Although about half of primate species play as adults with other adults, a team of international researchers has just unlocked…