Dr. James Hoerter is inter­ested in find­ing out what causes the early stages of melanoma by study­ing zebrafish.

Hoerter and his Biology 103 lab recently started using zebrafish as a model to inves­ti­gate the early stages that lead to melanoma.

Hoerter, a pro­fes­sor in the Biological Sciences Department, spent a semes­ter in Ireland while on a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship trip. While on the trip, he worked with the radi­a­tion and envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence group on the cel­lu­lar and sub­cel­lu­lar responses to radi­a­tion. After encoun­ter­ing sev­eral labs in Ireland using fish for research, he was impressed with how zebrafish were being stud­ied to indi­cate the main cause of melanoma. (more…)

The Ferris State men’s bas­ket­ball team upset the Division II defend­ing National Champion Findlay Oilers 86–77 on Saturday.

Bulldog junior cen­ter Justin Keenan scored a career-high 35 points on 13 of 19 shoot­ing from the field. Keenan went 9 of 12 from the free-throw line as well. Keenan attrib­uted his career-high to his team­mates and the game plan.

“My team­mates do a great job of mov­ing and get­ting the ball inside when I’m open,” said Keenan.

Bulldog head coach Bill Sall said the defense played much bet­ter defense than on Thursday when the team allowed 96 points against Hillsdale. Sall also said the team played with more emo­tion and pas­sion than in pre­vi­ous games.

“I’m proud of how we played,” said Sall, “If we play like that the rest of the way, we have a chance to be play­ing for a long time.”

Junior guard/forward Austin Randel added 16 points and six rebounds for Ferris as the team had four play­ers in dou­ble fig­ures. The Bulldogs shot 60 per­cent from the floor and made eight of 16 three-point shot attempts.

The Oilers were ranked 19th in the lat­est National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division II Coaches Poll. After a 13-game win­ning streak, Findlay lost to Grand Valley State and Ferris in back-to-back games.

The Bulldogs are 13–8 over­all this sea­son and 11–5 in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletics Conference (GLIAC). Ferris is third in the GLIAC stand­ings with six games left in the reg­u­lar season.

The Bulldogs travel to the Upper Peninsula to bat­tle Michigan Tech on Feb. 11 and Northern Michigan on Feb. 13. Ferris defeated both teams at home ear­lier this season.