sciences

K at EB

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Victoria Osorio '16 and Sarah Glass '17
Victoria Osorio ’16 and Sarah Glass ’17

Two Kalamazoo College chemistry majors, Victoria Osorio ’16 and Sarah Glass ’17, attended the annual Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego, Calif. Experimental Biology is a joint meeting of six different societies including the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) as well as societies for physiology, nutrition, pharmacology, pathology, and anatomy. “The meeting is a great opportunity for students to present their work and attend a variety of engaging scientific talks,” says Laura Furge, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry. “There were more than 15,000 scientists in attendance.”

Osorio and Glass presented results of their research as part of the Undergraduate Poster Competition and as part of the regular scientific session for ASBMB. Their presentations centered on recent work in the Furge lab with protein variants of an important human liver enzyme called CYP2D6. CYP2D6 helps the human body process drugs. The titles of the Osorio and Glass posters were, respectively, “Susceptibility of Four Human CYP2D6 Variants and One Active Site Mutant to Inhibition by the Mechanism-based Inactivator SCH 66712” and “Activity and Kinetic Characterization of Human CYP2D6 Polymorphisms with Bufuralol and Dextromethorphan.”

There were more than 225 undergraduate posters in the ASBMB competition from students across the country and from a variety of college and universities. One Grand Prize and four Honorable Mention awards were presented to students in each of the four research topic categories (proteins and enzymes / metabolism, bioenergetics, lipids and signal transduction / DNA, chromosomes, and gene regulation / cellular and developmental biology). Glass won an Honorable Mention for the “Proteins and Enzymes” category and was recognized the next day in front of an audience of hundreds of scientists, educators and students at the award lecture for outstanding contributions to education. Glass’s presentation was based on the culmination of nearly three years of research in the Furge lab; Glass will complete her SIP with Furge this summer and the lab hopes to publish the results later in 2016 along with co-author Osorio and other recent Furge lab research assistants.

After graduation, Osorio will enter the Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program at Case Western Reserve University. Glass will complete her degree in Fall 2016 (two terms early), and she plans to start graduate school in biochemistry or pharmacology in 2017.

Travel to ASBMB for Osorio and Glass was supported by a grant to Furge from the National Institutes of Health. Glass also received an ASBMB Travel Award of $500.

Next year’s Experimental Biology meeting will be in nearby Chicago, Illinois, says Furge, “and we hope to take a large group of students from the Departments of Chemistry and Biology.”

Four Awarded Fellowships for Research

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that four Kalamazoo College alumni have been awarded 2016 Graduate Research Fellowships. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. GRFP fellows are pursuing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

The four K alums are Amanda Mancini ’14, Jared Grimmer ’15, Patricia Garay ’11 and Monika Egerer ’13. Mancini, Grimmer and Egerer majored in biology at K, Garay majored in chemistry. For the 2016 competition, NSF received close to 17,000 applications, and made 2,000 award offers. Mancini will focus her research in biological anthropology, Grimmer and Egerer work in the area of ecology, and Garay conducts her explorations in the neurosciences. All four studied abroad at K and in different countries–Mancini in Ecuador, Grimmer in Spain, Garay in Costa Rica, and Egerer in Thailand. Congratulations, Hornet science graduate students!

National Science Foundation 2016 fellowship grants will support the graduate school research of four K alumni in ecology, neurosciences and biological anthropology.

Colloquium About Blackness to Occur at Kalamazoo College

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Colloquium About Blackness at KKalamazoo College will present the Physics of Blackness Colloquium on March 31 and April 1. March 31 features a lecture (7 p.m. in Dalton Theatre) by Michelle M. Wright, Professor of African American Studies and Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University, and author of The Physics of Blackness: Beyond the Middle Passage Epistemology. Wright’s lecture is titled “Blackness by Other Names: Beyond Linear Histories.” On the next day (April 1, 5 p.m. in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership) will follow an interactive event developed by the Beyond the Middle Passage Organizers. That group includes Justin Berry, assistant professor of political science; Nakeya Boyles ’16; Quincy Crosby ’17; Reid Gómez, the Mellon visiting assistant professor of ethnic studies; Allia Howard ’17; Bruce Mills, professor of English; and Shanna Salinas, assistant professor of English. “Wright looks at the argument of race, particularly Blackness, and the ways that argument plays out in economic, political and physically embodied ways,” says Gómez. “Her work will help us look at differences within difference and move beyond thinking in categories.”

According to Gómez, the colloquium will stress three themes, all of which relate to one another: horizontal connections instead of vertical frameworks; the inability of temporally linear progress narratives (which often structure the notion of Blackness) alone to realize the broad and complicated truth and meaningfulness of Blackness; and a “See Me-Hear Me” approach during the colloquium that will ask participants to enter each others’ lives in meaningful ways. Wright’s book uses concepts from physics to expand thinking and discussion beyond linearity that makes “it difficult to understand or accept people, places, or event that do not easily fit inside a single narrative,” explains Gómez. Toward that end Gómez has helped facilitate “The Physics of Blackness at Kalamazoo College,” a blog in the form of a mosaic that makes approaching the subject of Blackness nonlinear and dynamic.

Nonlinearity is the true nature of the physical universe, wrote Gómez in a summary of Wright’s book. Such nonlinearity doesn’t preclude all cause and effect, but instead complicates it. Gómez writes that Wright “cautions against cause and effect laws that make history solely the consequence of oppression, where Blackness only appears in terms of resistance to, or the direct result of, that oppression.” The ability to think and discuss freed from such overly narrow restrictions allows us to “reimagine choice and agency in relationship to Blackness,” says Gómez, “the choice to ’notice and wonder’ at what is left out of linear progress narratives, and to conceive of self outside those terms.”

The Beyond the Middle Passage Organizers group invites colloquium participants to help one another prepare for the event by sharing talking points, images and points of entry into Wright’s theory via Instagram _bmp._ and Twitter @_bmpo_.

An Eye to Space Grows Ears

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Jax Sanders installation work for the LIGO project
Jax Sanders’ installation work for the LIGO project (photo by Corey Gray, LIGO Hanford)

Jaclyn (Jax) Sanders ’09 is one member of a large team of scientists who today announced experimental confirmation of gravitational waves. Proof came by way of sound (sort of), making the LIGO scientific team a group of astronomers with an ear (rather than an eye) turned to space. Again, sort of.  “We didn’t literally hear the waves,” explains Jax. “Sound is only an extended analogy–we observed shifts in the relative time of flight of two laser paths, which happened at frequencies between 50-350 Hz. If you translated those frequencies to sound, that would be about the range of a tuba.” Sight or sound (“We’re very sure that this signal is good,” says Jax), the observation work was for the purpose of detecting ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by the collision of two black holes a billion light-years away. The New York Times ran an in depth article on the magnitude of the discovery and its implications.

The waves (or ripples) were predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago when he developed his general theory relativity, which recast human perception of the universe from a Newtonian fixed and static framework to a more accurate model of flux deriving from a mathematically predictable dance of matter and energy and disturbances to both. If the general theory of relativity is indeed the key to the universe’s origin, shape and (perhaps) its eventual demise, then actual observation of gravitational waves would be one more empirical confirmation. They should exist, despite being invisible to the eye. And today, after decades of effort, it was announced that the waves have indeed been observed.

Jax’s personal involvement was as part of the commissioning team at LIGO Hanford (LIGO is the acronym for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory). “I focused on the alignment and control system for the interferometer arms–solving the problem of how you keep two mirrors two and a half miles away from each other very still and pointing directly at each other, all without being able to physically touch them.”

“We’ve been watching the press conference here in the physics department,” said Professor of Physics Tom Askew.  “It all looks great, a big day for physics. It’s nice for K that Jax started her work on gravitational wave research as a Senior Individualized Project eight years ago.”  Jax explains: “I did my SIP research at LIGO Hanford, where I worked on a prototype system for synchronizing the outputs of two lasers located far away from each other using fiber optics. Although this system wasn’t necessary for use in the arm control system I worked on as a graduate student, I learned many of the basic skills I use to this day–radio frequency electronics, laser experimental skills, and signal analysis.”

Jax Sanders
Jax Sanders (photo by Amy Manley, Syracuse University

Jax earned her B.A. at K in physics and studied abroad in Budapest, Hungary. In December she received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan, and she is currently working as a postdoc at Syracuse University. “Coming from a school like K gave me the opportunity to diversify my intellectual experience,” she says, “giving me a rich background to draw from when constructing public talks and scientific analogies, and giving me the freedom to learn about new and exciting fields through independent studies.” She appreciates her undergraduate professors as well. “Dr. Askew definitely encouraged me to continue working in experimental hardware, and I appreciate all the support I received as an undergraduate.”

Long ago Einstein wrote that the driving force of interrogations of nature at the edge of understanding was “the longing to behold a pre-existing harmony.” Nice to have a liberal arts educated K alumna working at that far boundary.”I’m thrilled to be a part of this discovery,” says Jax, “and can only hope to report back on more exciting research soon!”

Research Reveals Enzyme’s Role in Shifting-Eyed Fish

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Rina Fujiwara '14 and Leslie Nagy '09
Rina Fujiwara ’14 and Leslie Nagy ’09 in the Vanderbilt University laboratory of Dr. Fred Guengerich. As Leslie was completing her rotation in the laboratory Rina was just beginning hers, so Leslie helped train Rina. Both scientists did important research on a key enzyme in fish and humans.

Sometimes science uncovers a pretty interesting “what” long before researchers learn that particular “what’s” equally interesting “how.”

Two Kalamazoo College alumnae are among the authors of a recently published paper describing HOW certain fish change their eyes to see more effectively in different water environments. Such a shift in visual acuity is a pretty cool “what” that’s been known for a while. Even some of the “how” had been elucidated–like knowing the components of a room’s light switch for example. What had been unknown–until now–was the enzyme responsible for the change, or, in other words, the finger that flips the switch.

The two co-authors who share K science ancestry, so to speak, are Rina Fujiwara ’15 and Leslie Nagy ’09. Both did the research described in the paper while working in the laboratory of Fred Guengerich at Vanderbilt University. Guengerich happens to have been the thesis advisor of Laura Furge, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry at Kalamazoo College, when Laura was earning her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt. Both Nagy and Fujiwara worked in the Furge Lab during their undergraduate years; talk about scientific ancestry! The paper–titled “Cyp27c1 Red-Shifts the Spectral Sensitivity of Photoreceptors by Converting Vitamin A1 into A2”–appeared this week in the high impact scientific journal Current Biology. The Atlantic also published an article on the research.

It was in the Furge Lab that Nagy and Fujiwara were introduced to the cytochrome P-450 family of enzymes. They are critical mediators of many human physiological processes. “Today we know there are 57 P-450s in humans,” said Furge. “Many were known and their functions elucidated, but with the sequencing of the human genome, scientists discovered 13 unknown P-450s, which were dubbed ’orphans,’” she added. “Because the family is so important to human health, we’d like to know what these orphans do.” Fish and human share kindred P-450s, including the orphan, Cyp27c1, that’s the subject of the Current Biology paper.

For a full appreciation of the paper’s findings, a very simplified “Vision 101” may help. That we see–and how we see–depends in part on chemicals called chromophores. These share a common chemical backbone: vitamin A. Chromophores differ depending on modifications of their vitamin A, modifications that change an eye’s sensitivity to certain colors. For example, the vitamin A of sea fish–known as vitamin A1–help them better perceive a different spectrum of color than do freshwater fish, whose vitamin A2 allow for clearer vision in the red-wavelength light characteristic of rivers and lakes. Some fish–like salmon, that live in both marine and freshwater environments–can change their eyes by converting their vitamin A’s, from 1 to 2, sort of like gaining night vision goggles according the article in the Atlantic.

Just how they accomplish this conversion is the discovery that resulted from the research described in the paper. A single enzyme member of the cytochrome P450 family (one of the so called orphans, it turns out) converts A1 to A2, thus changing the color tuning of the fish eyes when the fish enters different water environments. And the human analog of that eye-changing P450 orphan in fish, the Cyp27c1 of the paper’s title–has also been studied by Guengerich Lab at Vanderbilt. A second paper on that analog is expected to be published in 2016, and Nagy and Fujiwara will co-authors of that paper as well.

Furge noted the impact and importance of scientific mentoring across generations, citing the example of Guengerich, herself, and Fujiwara and Nagy, representing three generations of cytochrome P-450 research. “Another K [and Furge Lab] alumna, Thanh Phanh ’15, is currently a technician in the Guengerich lab,” said Furge. “She hasn’t contributed to eye project but I’m sure she’ll have her own project in the future.”

Professor of Chemistry Jeff Bartz is the new Kurt D. Kaufman Chair at Kalamazoo College

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Professor of Chemistry and Kurt D. Kaufman Chair Jeff Bartz with some of his students in K's Dow Science Center
Professor of Chemistry and Kurt D. Kaufman Chair Jeff Bartz with some of his students in K’s Dow Science Center…

Professor of Chemistry Jeffrey Bartz, Ph.D., is Kalamazoo College’s new Kurt D. Kaufman Chair. His appointment—made at the recommendation of Provost Mickey McDonald and confirmed by the College’s board of trustees—becomes effective July 1, 2015, and runs through June 30, 2020.

The chair was established through a gift by late Kalamazoo College Trustee Paul Todd ’42 in recognition of Kurt Kaufman’s significant leadership and wide influence as a faculty member at K. It’s awarded to a K faculty member to “recognize and honor campus leadership and excellence in teaching.” Regina Stevens-Truss (Chemistry) has held the Kaufman Chair for the past five years.

“I offer my warmest congratulations to Professor Bartz,” said K President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran. “Provost McDonald’s recommendation highlights Professor Bartz’s ongoing excellence as a teacher in the classroom, in the laboratory, and as a mentor. He is known as a teaching innovator on campus and for mentoring and supporting students of color and first-generation students.”

Professor Jeff Bartz with three students at K's laser lab
…and in the College’s Laser Lab.

Jeff Bartz joined the K chemistry department as an assistant professor in 1997 and became a full professor in 2011. He teaches courses in physical and general chemistry and works with K students in the research laboratory. His research is in the area of chemical dynamics.

He earned a B.S. degree in chemistry with a minor in mathematics from Southwest Minnesota State University in 1985 and his Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992.

Visit Professor Bartz’s webpage.

Kurt Kaufman was a professor of chemistry at K from 1956 to 1980 who was lauded by students and faculty colleagues as an accomplished researcher and gifted communicator who loved to teach. He died in 2008.

Class of 2019 Heyl Scholars

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Nine Heyl Scholars from the Class of 2019At a recent late-May dinner Kalamazoo College feted the 2015 Kalamazoo county high school graduates who earned Heyl Scholarships for Kalamazoo College (to major in science or math) or Western Michigan University (to attend the Bronson School of Nursing). The scholarship covers tuition, book costs, and room charges. Scholarship winners are (l-r): front row — McKinzie Ervin, Cydney Martell, Kayla Park; second row — Farzad Razi, Jessica Wile, Mia Orlando; back row — Pete Schultz, Maggie Smith, and Rachel Wheat. Ervin, Martell, Park, Razi, Wile, Orlando, Schultz, and Smith will attend Kalamazoo College. Wheat will attend WMU’s Bronson School of Nursing. (photo by Tony Dugal)

TEDx Comes to K

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Tanush Jagdish with a TED Talks banner
Tanush Jagdish

Good ideas will be spread across (and via) Kalamazoo College this spring when a descendant of the popular TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks series comes to campus as TEDxKalamazooCollege.

First-year student Tanush Jagdish, of Bangalore, India, is the main organizer of the inaugural event, to be held May 16, and thereafter (hopefully) to occur annually. Jagdish says he came up with the idea after being impressed with the cooperation and collaboration he saw between students and faculty at the College, in everything from research to planning campus events.

Concentrating on biology and chemistry, he is already working on high-level research in the lab of Dr. Michael Wollenberg, assistant professor of biology.

“Even as a first-year, I am already learning fantastic things,” Jagdish says. “I have been so impressed with the College. I figured, why not showcase K? Holding an event like this that is known worldwide will help to build the image of the school. A TED event is a great way to go about doing that.”

There are still some small details to be worked out, but the tentative theme for the talk is “Breaking Borders,” Jagdish says. The talk is to have nine speakers: two students, one alumnus, and six K faculty. Shannon Haupt ’16 will speak on “Fossil fuel divestment campaign as a model for a multi-issue, dynamic, and collective force for change.” The title of senior Tibin John’s talk is “Implications of computational simulation and dynamical systems theory for biomedical research.” Liberal arts polymath and ArtPrize finalist Ladislav Hanka ’75 is “can’t miss” with “Collaborating with bees to produce works of art that explore and reflect the sublime quality of nature.”

Faculty presenters include:

• Tim Kailing (Biology)—Biological Principles and philosophies of instruction and education

• Jeanne Hess (Physical Education)—Sportuality: the transcendental power of blending sport, spirit, and education

• Jan Tobochnik (Physics)—Using computational models to display and predict wealth distribution

• Carol Anderson (Religion)—Exploring the relationship between religion, gender, and sexuality

• Jim Langeland (Biology)—Constructing advanced modelling techniques for understanding aspects of genetics, including chromosomal recombination

• Bob Batsell (Psychology)—Application of learning theories in helping cancer patients undergo chemotherapy

Jagdish saw that the College encouraged the cross-pollination of ideas between diverse academic disciplines, and he wanted to highlight this unique take on learning, he says. At K, he says, ideas are allowed to swirl and be discussed openly.

“The talk will focus on breaking the boundaries between the liberal arts and sciences,” he says. Speakers will discuss the environment, sustainability, the liberal arts, and other topics.

TEDx was created in the spirit of the mission of the popular TED Talk series, which is to promulgate ideas worth spreading.” TEDx supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community. Those interested in hosting a TEDx event must wade through a rigorous application process and climb a mountain of application material.

Jagdish submitted the application in December, and heard back in January with the go-ahead. It’s very rare for an institution of higher education to receive permission from the organization to host an event, he says.

“It usually takes long time to be granted a license to host a TEDx event. But I think they liked the idea of a small liberal arts college hosting a talk. It’s a very prestigious thing to be granted a license.”

Adding to Jagdish’s enthusiasm for the TEDx event is that the push to host it has been almost entirely student led. That autonomy, he says, highlights the faith and freedom College officials place in K students and is a testament to the culture of self-led learning that the College is so well-known for.

“It’s amazing, really,” he says. “I think it shows how the College is focused on building leadership skills in its students. I have already seen leadership develop among those students involved in organizing this event. Now, hopefully, the world can see what K is all about, too.” Text by Chris Killian

Kalamazoo College, Robot Bees, and Computer Programming

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Associate Professor of Biology Binney Girdler
Associate Professor of Biology Binney Girdler at a recent K commencement ceremony

Associate Professor of Biology Binney Girdler knows about bees and Beebots. She teamed up with Woodward Elementary School first grade teacher Jenn Rice and won an “Inspired Learning Grant” through the Learning Network of Greater Kalamazoo. The grant will help pilot a new program at Woodward: little bee shaped robots called “BeeBots” that help to teach the basic skills of computer programming. The little robots will help student learn about spatial awareness, sequencing, counting and more.

Exposure to programming at this age (first graders!) will make technology seem more accessible and less magical. Eventually, the program may help students take fuller advantage of the Kalamazoo Promise (which covers college tuition for Kalamazoo Public School students). Early exposure to computer programming and related educational schools also may help students one day secure employment in high technology jobs.

Girdler certainly is looking towards the future, “If the BeeBots program at Woodward gets a lot of buzz, we would like to apply for more funding to follow a cohort of these students through their Kalamazoo Public School careers. We’d like to make available in their middle schools and high schools even more sophisticated programming tools and environments, and foster a peer-mentoring program that extends all the way to college.”

The two teachers’ winning proposal included a delightful video about the program’s potential. Click the VIEW ENTRIES button to see the video. Text by Mallory Zink. Photo by Keith Mumma.

Campus Symposium Will Focus on Ebola Epidemic

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Ebola treatment unit in Monrovia, Liberia
Dawn exchange of information during the night-to-day shift change at an Ebola treatment unit in Monrovia, Liberia. Two K alumnus physicians work at this unit: Greg Raczniak ’96 and Andrew Terranella ’99.

As is often true with epidemics of highly lethal diseases, the response to the ongoing outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa reveals much about matters human and humane. These matters include fear and courage, stigmatization, power, poverty, inequity, cross cultural acumen, individual and collective responsibility, infrastructure, response time, the role of global citizens, and blindness (willful or otherwise) to the extent of human interdependence. Several such matters will be the subject of a symposium that will occur at Kalamazoo College on Friday and Saturday, January 30 and 31. The symposium is titled “Ebola in Perspective: Our Roles as Global Citizens,” and all events are free and open to the public (RSVP to Jax Lee Gardner, 269.337.7053). The Friday night keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Alhaji Njai. It will occur at 7 p.m. in the Mandelle Hall Olmsted Room. Njai is a research scientist with the Global Product Safety and Regulatory Affairs division of Proctor and Gamble, inc., and a research fellow in pathological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He broadcasts a weekly radio program to his native Sierra Leone that discusses issues around public health, science, and development.

Topics of the Saturday symposium (which will occur in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.) will be, among others, the history of the Ebola virus, public health systems and policy implications, the biology of the virus, prediction and control models of the outbreak, and our role as global citizens. Presenters include epidemiologists, public health experts, and disease spread pattern analysts. This group includes Dr. Rachel Snow, associate professor of health behavior and health education at the University of Michigan; Dr. Peter Orris, professor and associate director of the Great Lakes Center for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health, University of Illinois School of Public Health; Dr. Adam Hume, postdoctoral fellow, Boston University School of Medicine; Dr. Marisa Eisenberg, assistant professor, department of epidemiology, University of Michigan; and Amel Omari ’09, a pre-doctoral candidate at University of Michigan’s School of Public Health.

Omari joins other Kalamazoo College-affiliated experts who will participate in the symposium, including Dr. Péter Èrdi, the Luce Professor of Complex Systems Studies; Dr. Adriana Garriga-López, the Arcus Social Justice Leadership Assistant Professor of Sociology; Kathleen West ’77, co-director of Public Health Institute’s Leadership for Women’s Health program, and Kamal Kamalaldin ’17, a sophomore at K considering majors in chemistry, biology, and computer science.

Attendance is free. For further information and to RSVP please contact Jax Lee Gardner (269.337.7053.) The event is sponsored by Kalamazoo College’s African studies program, provost office, community and global health concentration, and the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College.