research

Kalamazoo Students Intern in Ann Arbor

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Intern Kaitlyn Greiner works in a lab
Kaitlyn Greiner ’15

Several Hornets have settled in Wolverine territory this summer, taking advantage of the resources at a large research university by interning in offices and laboratories throughout Ann Arbor. The Kalamazoo College’s Center for Career and Professional Development caught up with four of them:

Psychology major Megan Martinez ’13 is working to understand links between social, psychological, and physical causes of pain. With the guidance of her supervisor, Ross Halpern, M.D., head of Ross Halpern and Associates Psychiatric Clinic, she is reviewing and analyzing patient files for data connecting childhood abuse, grief, and chronic pain. Martinez said she began her internship thinking that “pain was purely a physical phenomenon, one that should be addressed by doctors and medicine. [However] working in Dr. Halpern’s office has helped me realize that pain, particularly chronic pain, is often influenced by social and psychological factors.” Dr. Halpern has given Martinez plenty of opportunity to take responsibility and guide decision-making on their data project, empowering her to recognize her capacity to conduct independent research and analysis.

Kaitlyn Greiner ’15 is working with Upjohn Professor of Medicine and Oncology Stephen Weiss, M.D., at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute to identify mechanisms for invasion and growth of brain tumor cells. One of only a few undergraduates accepted into the Weiss research lab, Greiner said she is “learning valuable techniques and tests that I have no doubt I will need to use in my upper-level biology classes,” and is gaining “a great deal of access to both literature regarding my research and people who are very knowledgeable about what they are researching.” Greiner reports that her time in the Weiss lab has allowed her to practice what she learned in her first-year biology classes and “clarified my desire to do medical research.” Greiner has impressed Dr. Weiss with her curiosity and interest, and has already been invited back to the lab next summer.

Chemistry major Sara Adelman ’14 enjoys talking about K with her alumna supervisor, Nichole Hein ’01, M.D., who is “paying it forward” after her own great experiences with undergraduate summer internships. Dr. Hein is hosting her second K-intern this summer while working as a post-doc in the laboratory of John Fink, M.D., a professor in the Department of Neurology and director of the Neurogenetic Disorders Program in the UM Medical School. In her gene sequencing work this summer, Adelman, who impresses Fink and Hein with her “maturity, independence, and drive,” has found and is double-checking a mutation that might be connected to age-dependent neurologic degeneration. Using her K academics in the lab this summer has helped Adelman recognize that “what I’m learning really has relevance in the real world.”

Kathryn Chamberlain ’13 exudes enthusiasm as she describes her internship in the UM Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute where she investigates stimuli-induced dopamine release levels with her supervisor, Jennifer Cummings, Ph.D. “It is a learning experience, it is great skill building, and it is opening doors for future opportunities I may have in the field of neuroscience.” Between describing her new-found prowess at building and calibrating carbon fiber electrodes and showing off dozens of graphs of individual experiments using her tiny glass creations to collect data, Chamberlain said her summer work will become part of her Senior Individualized Project at K, and is a pivotal influence in her decision to seek a research career.

Story and photo by Joan Hawxhurst, director, Kalamazoo College Center for Career and Professional Development.

Alum Keith Crandall Hired to Direct Computational Biology Institute at George Washington University

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Keith Crandall ’87 has been hired by George Washington University to direct its new Computational Biology Institute.

Computational biology combines elements of computer science and biology, and its practitioners develop tools to analyze data generated in researching genetics and genomics, including genetic mapping and DNA sequencing.

Crandall’s research interests have included crustacean biology, biodiversity, and infectious diseases. His B.A. from Kalamazoo College is in biology. At Washington University in St. Louis he earned a Ph.D.in population and evolutionary biology and a master’s degree in statistics. His work at CBI will include an investigation of the impact of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, using gene expression to identify how oil pollutants affect deep sea crustaceans.

Professor Péter Érdi Speaks at European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research

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Péter Érdi, Psychology and Complex Systems Studies, was a keynote speaker and a round table participant at the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research that took place at the University of Vienna in April.

His talk was a memorial lecture on Luigi Ricciardi, a longstanding participant in the EMCSR, against the background of the development of systems thinking in biology. The round table in which Érdi participated focused on the past, present, and future of cybernetics and systems research.

The Magnificent Five

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Five women representing Kalamazoo College
(Left to right) Regina Stevens-Truss, Lindsey Gaston, Sandrine Zilikana, Laura Lowe Furge, and Mara Livezey

Majors Sandrine Zilikana ’12 and Mara Livezey ’13 and biology major Lindsey Gaston ’12  joined chemistry department faculty members Regina Stevens-Truss and Laura Lowe Furge at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Meeting in San Diego in late April. The students presented results of their summer research experiences (part of the Senior Individualized Projects for Sandrine and Lindsey) as part of both the Annual Undergraduate Poster Competition and the regular scientific sessions of the meeting.

More than 200 students from schools across the country were part of the undergraduate poster competition.  Zilikana’s research measured differences in reducing the potential of cancer cell types to affect drug delivery. She conducted this scientific work at the University of Michigan with Professor Kyung-Dall Lee.  Gaston’s showed that a specific hormone prevented nerve cell death after brain injury. Her research, conducted with Professor Vishal Bansal at the University of California-San Diego, will be included in a manuscript just accepted to the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology. Livezey presented the results of a study she has worked on for the past two years in Furge’s lab modeling the interactions of inhibitors with human cytochrome P450 enzymes. That study was recently published in Drug Metabolism Letters. While in San Diego, Stevens-Truss directed a teaching workshop for middle school and high school science teachers in the San Diego area. Her innovation in development of the workshop has drawn increasing numbers of teachers to the workshop and provided a new platform for scientists to collaborate with and mentor the nation’s secondary school science teachers.

The workshop was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Next year’s meeting will be in Boston, and Stevens-Truss and Furge plan to attend with another group of students. Stevens-Truss will also lead another teaching workshop there.

Interference Implications

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Kalamazoo College student at a conference in San Diego
Mara Livezey discussing the work with other scientists in San Diego.

The peer-reviewed publication Drug Metabolism Letters has accepted for publication the manuscript “Molecular Analysis and Modeling of Inactivation of Human CYP2D6 by Four Mechanism Based Inactivators.”

In addition to Associate Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge, the senior and corresponding author, the manuscript has six student co-authors: Mara Livezey ’13, Leslie Nagy ’09, Laura Diffenderfer ’11,Evan Arthur ’09, David Hsi ’10, and Jeffery Holton ’13.

Their work described in this paper contributes to the understanding of how some drugs can halt the activity of an enzyme. In this case, the enzyme studied is one that is important for the body’s processing of about 20 percent of medicines, particularly treatments for arrhythmia and other heart diseases, depression, and other maladies. Such understanding is vital because many people’s health depends on daily regimens of multiple medicines. Sometimes one drug can interfere with the very enzymes responsible for the processing and clearance of other co-administered drugs. This and other unwanted side effects are the number one cause of hospitalization in America.

The paper’s contribution to the understanding of how certain classes of drugs cause this interference with key enzymes will hopefully lead to more effective prevention of the phenomenon in the future.

The K research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and by the Department of Chemistry Hutchcroft Fund. The latter was established by a gift from alumni Alan ’63 and Elaine (Goff) Hutchcroft ’63.

The final version of the study was presented at the San Diego meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Jamie Grant Co-Authors Gender Article in LGBTQ Policy Journal

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Jaime Grant, executive director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, has coauthored an op/ed in the May 15 Huffington Post that describes “A Gender Not Listed Here: Genderqueers, Gender Rebels, and OtherWise,” an article she and her coauthors recently published in the Harvard Kennedy School’s LGBTQ Policy Journal.

Grant and coauthors Jack Harrison and Jody L. Herman present new research focused specifically on genderqueer people and describes the risks and resiliencies of those who identify outside the male/female gender binary. Their Policy Journal article shows that genderqueer people have unique demographic characteristics and experiences of discrimination and violence when compared to transgender people who identify as “male” or “female.”

Science Grant Benefits Breast Cancer Research

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Professor Furchak at Dow with four chemistry majors
Professor Furchak in the Dow Science Building with Kalamazoo chemistry majors (l-r) Vinay Sharma ’12, Lydia Manger ’13, Eric Glanz ’13, and Amy Ong ’11

Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Assistant Professor of Chemistry Jennifer R. Furchak has received a 2011 Cottrell College Science Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. She will use the $35,000 award to further her work into the development of a multiplexed assay for the analysis of breast cancer metastasis.

“The potential impact of this work in detection and understanding of breast cancer metastasis lies in improvements in simplicity, accuracy, and speed over current methods, which could allow for improved patient treatment and prognoses,” she said. “Ultimately, additional sample throughput will result in better understanding of disease progression.”

According to Furchak, five student researchers at “K” have worked on this project thus far. It’s been the foundation for three completed Senior Independent Projects, and another is in progress this summer. Furchak’s grant is one of 48 Cottrell grants this year totaling $1.8 million and intended to support early career scientists at liberal arts colleges and primarily undergraduate universities.

Undergraduate students must be involved in the research in meaningful ways. Founded in 1912, Research Corporation for Science Advancement is the second-oldest foundation in the United States and the oldest foundation for science advancement.

Five “K” Students Compete in Poster Presentation for ASBMB

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Five Kalamazoo College students
Left to Right: Popli, Nagy, Diffenderfer, Parson, and McNamara

Kalamazoo College enjoyed a strong scientific presence at the Washington, D.C. meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). Associate Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge served as a judge in the 15th Annual Undergraduate Poster Competition, in which five “K” students competed against more than 200 other undergraduates from throughout the country.

Laura Diffenderfer ’11 presented a poster titled “Autodock as a method for predicting binding for substrates and inhibitors of human cytochrome P450 2D6,” based on a sliver of the research she’s conducted for the past two years in Furge’s lab. Diffenderfer plans to attend Wayne State Medical School this fall. Alyssa McNamara ’11, a four-year denizen in the lab of chemistry professor Regina Stevens-Truss, presented “Suramin discriminates between the calmodulin-binding sites of neuronal and inducible nitric oxide synthase.” She will work for the Schuler Family Foundation in Chicago before she enrolls in medical school in 2012.

Leslie Nagy ’09 and Diffenderfer presented “Mechanism-based inhibition of human cytochrome P450 2D6 by Schering 66712,” work recently accepted for publication in Drug Metabolism and Disposition. Nagy is completing a two-year appointment as a laboratory research associate in Furge’s lab.

Tanav Popli ’11 presented a poster based on his SIP work at University of California-San Francisco. His poster was titled “Tmtc4 interacts with C3G, Wntless, and Zfhx4: a yeast two-hybrid trap for proteins associated with development of the corpus callosum.” Tanov plans to work in a laboratory after graduation and then apply for an M.D./Ph.D. program.

Emily Parson ’11 presented a poster titled “Characterization of a real time PCR assay for the detection and quantification of Plasmodium malariae parasites.” She did her SIP, which was based in part on her study abroad experience in Kenya, at the Walter Reed U.S. Army Medical Research Unit in Washington, D.C. After she graduates this spring, Emily will return to Walter Reed to continue research in related areas.

“Attendance at a national meeting is a tremendous opportunity for students to hear and meet leading scientists, to see how scientists share ideas with each other, and to see how scientific research accumulates and allows for the formation of new hypotheses,” said Furge.

And it’s an opportunity that depends on philanthropy. Student travel to this meeting was supported by a grant to “K” from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Popli received a travel award from the Undergraduate Affiliation Network of Kalamazoo College headed by Stevens-Truss. Stevens-Truss organized the first annual ASBMB workshop titled: “Fostering Partnerships Between Colleges/Universities and Junior High School Teachers,” and she noted that it got off the ground despite her absence due to and airline grounding. “I was disappointed to miss the workshop when my flight was grounded in Kalamazoo,” said Stevens-Truss. “But I’m glad the idea is now a successful reality.”

The second offering of the workshop will occur next April in San Diego.

Professor Emeritus Publishes in Revue Bénédictine

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John Wickstrom, professor emeritus of history, will have an article published by Revue Bénédictine in 2013. It is titled “Claiming St. Maurus of Glanfeuil: an 11th-Century Sermon from Fossés.”

John is also the 2012 Moritz Lecturer at Kalamazoo College. His talk, “Picturing the Saints: What Medieval Illuminations Can Tell us About History,” will be delivered on Wednesday, April 4, at 7 P.M. in Dewing Hall Room 103. The event is free and open to the public.