sciences

K Professor and Students Publish Important Chemistry Research

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K students Rina Fujiwara, Erran Briggs and Amanda Bolles with Professor Laura Furge
Medicinal researchers and members of the Furge Lab (l-r): Rina Fujiwara, Erran Briggs, Amanda Bolles, and Laura Furge

Laura Furge, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry at Kalamazoo College, is the senior and corresponding author of an important scientific paper that includes three Kalamazoo College student co-authors: Amanda Bolles ’14, Rina Fujiwara ’15, and Erran Briggs ’14. The paper is titled “Mechanism-based Inactivation of Human Cytochrome P450 3A4 by Two Piperazine-containing Compounds” and appears in Drug Metabolism and Disposition, a highly regarded, high impact international journal published by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. The research the paper describes, which was conducted in the Furge Lab on K’s campus, contributes the understanding of how some drugs “apply the brakes to” the activity of an enzyme–in this particular case, an enzyme important to the metabolism (or processing) of about half of all medicines! What are the human implications of the work? “Many individuals take multiple medicines each day,” said Furge. “Multiple-drug regimens can lead to unwanted side effects, including drug-induced inhibition of the very enzymes responsible for the metabolism and clearance of other co-administered drugs.” In fact, side effects from drug interactions of polypharmacy therapy are the number one cause of hospitalization in the U.S. “This paper adds in understanding of how certain classes of drugs may cause this type of unfavorable medical event,” said Furge. “New insights will hopefully lead to better prevention in the future.”

The paper includes 13 figures and tables. Furge noted that Bolles, Fujiwara, and Briggs performed all the experiments that lead to those figures, and “all the work was done on the campus at Kalamazoo College. We had all the equipment here needed to complete these studies, and we have already started full swing on another set of experiments for a future publication.” The students have presented parts of the preliminary data at national meetings in the past year, and the research forms of basis of the Senior Individualized Projects for Bolles and Fujiwara.

Such research, and the extraordinary educational opportunities it provides for K students, requires the cooperation, coordination, and collaboration of many funding sources. “This is so important,” Furge stressed. The Richard Cook Fellowship and the Alan and Elaine Hutchcroft Fund (endowments created and supported by alumni gifts) paid for the summer stipends of Fujiwara and Bolles, respectively. The mass spectrometer essential to the experiments was paid for in part by the Hutchcroft Fund and a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The research also was funded by grants Furge secured from the National Institutes of Health.

“Drug Metabolism and Disposition is an international journal with a high impact factor,” added Furge. Impact factors measure how frequently manuscripts in a journal are referenced by other authors.

A “Big World” K Story

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K graduates Idah Chungu and Charles Holmes
Fellow K graduates Idah Chungu (left) and Charles Holmes, M.D., M.P.H., in Lusaka, Zambia

Conventional wisdom holds that it’s a small world, but really it’s a big world with a lot of K in it. “A young woman came by my office to introduce herself,” wrote Charles Holmes ’93, M.D., M.P.H., the director and chief executive officer of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research (CIDRZ) in Zambia (Lusaka).

Charles was writing to his old biology professor, Paul Sotherland, the former professor of biology who now serves as the College’s coordinator of educational effectiveness. CIDRZ is a non-governmental organization that improves access to quality healthcare in Zambia through capacity development and implementation of sustainable public health programs. And the young woman who stopped by Charles’s office was Idah Chungu ’13, who earned her degree at K (economics) as an international student. She matriculated to K from Zambia.

Charles told Paul the rest of the story. “In a funny coincidence, my parents were biking through Kalamazoo a few months ago and my dad was wearing the Zambian soccer jersey that I gave him. Idah noticed the jersey and ran over to them to introduce herself and find out what he was doing wearing a Zambian soccer jersey in the middle of Michigan. He recommended that she stop by our offices once she was back in Lusaka, which led to yesterday’s meeting.”

Charles majored in biology at K (hence his strong connection to Paul). He completed medical school at Wayne State University, and internal medicine and infectious disease training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Prior to his position in Lusaka, he was deeply involved in the global response against HIV disease and AIDS. He loves Zambia and its people. “I highly recommend a trip,” he wrote to Paul, ever the naturalist. “We saw African wild dogs and a pennant winged nightjar in Kafue National Park last weekend!”

Zambia is located in south eastern Africa, bordered by Angola on its west, and Zimbabwe and Mozambique on its east. Both far from and near to the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa (Sierra Leone and Liberia). “We’re integrating some Ebola sensitization into our community work,” Charles wrote. “And we’re trying to put a team together to go west to help. It’s challenging because we’re always stretched thin simply running our own projects.”

After graduating from K, Idah worked for the College’s advancement division and for the Center for International Programs. She is currently looking for a job in Lusaka. Who knows, perhaps she and Charles will one day become colleagues. It is, after all, a big world with a lot of K in it.

Vitamin K Part of Liberal Arts Power

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Collage advertising the Council of Independent CollegesThe Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) recently launched its public website, Power of Liberal Arts. It is the most recent initiative of CIC’s public information campaign, Securing America’s Future: The Power of Liberal Arts Education. It complements the @SmartColleges Twitter Feed (which has more than 2,600 followers) as well as the SmartColleges Facebook page and LiberalArtsPower YouTube channel.

The new website, which includes the list of CIC member institutions, is aimed at high school students, their parents, and high school guidance counselors. The content corrects myths and misconceptions about the liberal arts and private colleges and universities and will help high school students and those who influence them to make more informed decisions about where they should apply and ultimately decide to attend college.

And the new website as a K presence. Two distinguished K grads — Steven Yeun and Julie Mehretu — describe in their own works the power of the liberal arts experience at K.

Ebola Responders

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Greg Raczniak at the Sierra Leone Kailahun District Medical Clinic
Greg Raczniak at the Sierra Leone Kailahun District Medical Clinic

Greg Raczniak ’96 is working in Sierra Leone as part of the Ebola response team of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The U.S. Navy veteran serves as a preventive medicine resident at CDC. His work in Sierra Leone involves contact tracing (finding and monitoring people who have come in contact with persons displaying symptoms) a key tactic in controlling infectious disease epidemics. An article on Greg appeared in Task & Purpose, a news site for veterans, by veterans. Greg majored in biology at K and studied abroad in Muenster, Germany. He was a standout swimmer on the Hornet Men’s swim team. After graduation her earned his medical degree at Eastern Virginia Medical School and a doctorate in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University. He entered an internship program at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, followed by a tour at the Navy’s research station in Ghana. During his service with the Navy, Greg obtained certification in tropical disease and traveler’s health, and decided to complete training in undersea and submarine medicine. Greg is completing a master’s in public health at Tulane University as part of his medical residency in preventive medicine. Nor is he the only K graduate working in Africa to help contain the Ebola epidemic. Paloma Clohossey ’11 is in Monrovia, Liberia, part of the U.S. government’s Ebola Disaster Response Team in that country. Paloma works for the United States Agency for International Development and has lived and worked in Africa often, beginning with her study abroad experience in Nairobi, Kenya. Liberia and Sierra Leone are the two countries where the outbreak of the virus has hit the hardest.

With/Out ¿Borders? Opens Thursday

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Two social justice advocates attend Without Borders ConferenceMore than 500 social justice advocates, scholars and leaders ranging from civil rights icons and eccentric artists to young organizers and poet laureates will be on the Kalamazoo College campus, as well as locations throughout the city, this weekend, Sept. 25-28 to participate in the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership (ACSJL) “With/Out ¿Borders?” conference.

Attendees will engage in questioning–and openly attempt to complicate –the political, ideological, cultural, and social barriers that make up our world. Thought-provoking plenary sessions, participatory think tanks, and moving and entertaining artistic performances are just some of the diverse and engaging platforms that will be used to question the borders that surround so much of our world today–and develop paradigms and strategies to break them down.

Well-known performance artists and cultural workers Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Michèle Ceballos Michot, whom make up the performance troupe La Pocha Nostra, will be on stage on Friday afternoon with Adriana Garriga-López, the Arcus Social Justice Leadership Assistant Professor of Anthropology. The trio will discuss, instigate, and agitate on the meaning of border politics, performance, and the role of art in the process.

Later that day, the conference will take on a more poetic note, as two well-known poets read form their work and engage with local poet and activist Denise Miller and Lisa Brock, academic director of the ACSJL.

Nikki Finney, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry, and Keorapetse “Willie” Kgositsile, former poet laureate of South Africa, will bear witness to history and exile and set the stage alive with “truth telling” and love poems crafted out of the struggles of black people from both the southern areas of the United States and South Africa.

Civil rights icon Angela Davis will take to the stage on Saturday morning, along with distinguished African American studies expert Robin D. G. Kelley, peace activists Lynn Pollack and Leenah Odeh and academics Alex Lubin and Saree Makdisi, to discuss the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) Movement emerging globally in support of the Palestinian people, who live in walled, or “bordered” territories.

Participants in this plenary session will ask if the BDS movement is the next critical solidarity movement of our time, who it’s for, who it’s against, and why.

Cities will take center stage later Saturday, when a plenary of scholars and organizers examine resistance movements in cities today. Organizer and writer Kali Akuno, Detroit-based activist shea howell and David Stovall, professor of African-American studies, will discuss teacher protests in Chicago, water rights issues in Detroit, city planning strategies in Jackson, Miss., and minimum-wage increase advocacy efforts nationwide at this plenary moderated by Rhonda Williams, associate professor of History at Case Western University.

The future of various social justice movements will be on display in the Hicks Center Banquet Room Sunday morning, where a host of young social justice advocates and organizers will discuss their own projects, talk about the need for more youth to become involved and analyze the New Youth Movement.

Civil rights organizers Phillip Agnew and Charlene Carruthers, undocumented immigrant advocate Lulu Martinez, climate change organizer Will Lawrence, sexual assault awareness organizer Zoe Ridolfi-Starr and voting rights advocate Sean Estelle will be in on the discussion, moderated by the Mia Henry, executive director of the ACSJL.

For a full list of events, go to the conference’s schedule page.

Small School; Big Experiments

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Professor of Chemistry Jeff Bartz in the laser labThis past spring Professor of Chemistry Jeff Bartz (pictured at left with two students in his laser laboratory) received word that the National Science Foundation would provide a three-year grant to Kalamazoo College so that Bartz’ lab could conduct new experiments to evaluate how the shape of a molecule influences the mechanics of its dissociation into smaller fragments. The work began this summer and involved four students: Mara Birndorf ’16, Jeremy Lantis ’16, Braeden Rodriguez ’16, and Marlon Gonzalez ’17. And there’s nothing quite as effective as complementing classroom work with hands-on real-world experience. “My chemistry classes taught me the fundamentals, but the research is giving me an idea of what a physical chemist does,” said Birndorf. Bartz agrees: one of the great benefits of the NSF grant is its effect on students, who “move from seeing themselves as students to seeing themselves as scientists.” On a typical weekday morning these young chemists are using lasers in the type of experiments that Bartz long ago thought were unlikely to ever be performed here. After all, smaller schools do face the challenges of getting their research swallowed up by larger institutions with more resources (not to mention graduate students) to conduct a project. Despite those challenges, Bartz finds an angle for K to contribute to new scientific work. “We have to evolve if we want to continue to work at the forefront.” Like most new science, what’s going on in Bartz’ lab derives from previous work. Niclas West ’12 presented a talk, “Velocity-mapped ion imaging of methyl nitrite photodissociation,” in 2010 at the 65th International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy. Researchers from Texas A&M found the abstract online and approached the K team about the similarities between the two teams’ experimental techniques. The two groups decided to collaborate on the publication of a paper, “A method for the determination of speed-dependent semi-classical vector correlations from sliced image anisotropies,” which included K student co-authors West and Kelly Usakoski ’14. After this paper came out in The Journal of Chemical Physics, Bartz began work on the proposal the NSF funded last spring. “We are looking at information gaps in previous work that our current experimental techniques can help fill,” Bartz said, “sort of testing old experiments in new ways. It’s kind of a K niche we’ve carved out.” (text by Colin Smith ’15)

Second “Tourist” Voyage, Absent the Cannibalism

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Kalamazoo College alumnus Rob Dunn
Scientist, science writer, professor of science, and K alum Rob Dunn

Scientist and science writer Rob Dunn ’97 (also an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University) traveled to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2012, on assignment for National Geographic Magazine to write about the area’s ecosystem. He fulfilled his obligation and wrote a very fine article (great verbs!) titled “The Generous Gulf.”

Only months later did Rob learn some back story to his National Geographic story–specifically, that he wasn’t the first in his family to make a “tourist” voyage to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. His forebear, one Thomas But (or Butt or Butts), son of the doctor to King Henry VIII, set sail for the Gulf in April of 1536. The voyages of the two relatives, separated by nearly five centuries, nevertheless shared a few similarities. And, THANKFULLY, the voyages differed in other (significant) ways. For example, Rob didn’t kill and eat any of his fellow travelers.

What Rob did do is write the fascinating back story for the Blog, Your Wild Life. It’s a great read, and we recommend it to our readers.

Heyl Scholars Bound for Kalamazoo College

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Eight Kalamazoo College Heyl ScholarsAt a May dinner in the Hicks Center Kalamazoo College celebrated the 2014 Kalamazoo County high school graduates who earned Heyl Scholarships for Kalamazoo College (science and math) or Western Michigan University (nursing). The scholarship covers tuition, book costs, and room charges. The 2014 Heyl scholars include (l-r): front row—Rachel Chang, Fiona Beaton, Emily Fletcher, Amber Salome; back row—Jacob Naranjo, Peter Rossi, Jager Hartman, and Abhay Goel. Beaton will attend WMU; the other seven will begin their undergraduate studies at K in September. Not pictured is Alexandria Oswalt, who also will attend K. (Photo by Anthony Dugal Photography)

Four in More Than 15,000

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Three female students who presented at the 2014 Experimental Biology Meeting
K student researcher/presenters at the 2014 Experimental Biology Meeting included (l-r): Amanda Bolles, Rina Fujiwara, and Virginia Greenberger. Not pictured is Michael Korn.

Four Kalamazoo College students attended at the 2014 Experimental Biology Meeting: Amanda Bolles ’14, Chemistry; Rina Fujiwara ’15, Chemistry; Virginia Greenberger ’14, Chemistry; and Michael Korn ’14, Biology. Experimental Biology is a joint meeting of six different societies including the American Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) as well as societies for physiology, nutrition, pharmacology, pathology, and anatomy. The meeting provides a great opportunity for students to present their work and attend a variety of engaging scientific talks. More than 15,000 scientists attended the event in San Diego, Calif.

Bolles and Fujiwara presented their research findings during the Undergraduate Poster Competition and during the regular scientific session for ASBMB. Their research involves recent work completed in the laboratory of Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge. That work has shown that two different (but related) compounds inactivate P450 3A4, an enzyme in the liver and intestine that metabolizes (or processes) a major pharmaceutical drug. The titles of the Bolles and Fujiwara posters were, respectively, “5-Fluoro-2-[4-[(2-phenyl-1H-imidazol-5-yl)methyl]-1 piperazinyl]pyrimidine is a mechanism based inactivator of CYP3A4” and “Mechanism-based inactivation of human CYP3A4 by a piperazine-containing compound.” The ASBMB competition includes posters of some 300 students from a variety of college and universities across the country. One grand prize award was presented to a student in each of four research categories (bioenergetics/protein structure, cell biology/developmental biology, DNA/gene regulation, and immunology/microbiology/neurobiology). Bolles won the $500 grand prize in the bioenergetics/protein structure category and was recognized the next day before an audience of hundreds of scientists, educators, and students at the award lecture for outstanding contributions to education. Bolles’s presentation derived from her Senior Individualized Project (SIP), which will be published later this year along with results from co-author Fujiwara.

Greenberger conducted her SIP research in the laboratory of Professor of Chemistry Regina Stevens-Truss. The abstract she presented at the meeting was titled “Bacterial Action of Novel Cationic Peptide Sequences.” As more antibiotic resistance is observed in patients, new sources of antibiotics are being investigated, including short peptide sequences. Greenberger’s work in the Truss lab was aimed at determining the antibiotic activity (and the precise mechanisms of action that yielded the activity) of two newly studied peptide sequences.

Dr. Furge also presented a poster in the ASBMB regular scientific session based on work started last year by Parker de Waal ’13. The work began as part of a course assignment in Furge’s “Advanced Biochemistry” course and grew into an elegant computational study of structural differences between select variants of the drug-metabolizing enzyme P450 2D6. de Waal used molecular dynamics methods to show how subtle differences in the enzyme structure can help explain differences in the metabolizing abilities of the enzymes. The study is being completed by Kyle Sunden ’16. While in San Diego, Furge spent an afternoon at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy at the University of California-San Diego discussing the implications and approach of the study with other scientists in this field.

Korn attended the American Physiological Society (APS) portion of the Experimental Biology meeting. He presented the results of his SIP work (conducted in the laboratory of Dr. Christopher Mendias at the University of Michigan) in the APS Student Poster Competition. Korn’s abstract received the David Bruce Outstanding Undergraduate Abstract Award. The title of his presentation was “Simvastatin reduces myosteatosis following chronic skeletal muscle injury.”

The future is promising for all four of these outstanding student researchers. In the fall, Bolles will enter the University of Michigan Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences; Greenberger will matriculate to the chemistry department at Pennsylvania State University to begin work on her Ph.D; Korn will attend the University of Michigan Medical School; and Fujiwara will complete her SIP with Furge this summer. She plans to attend graduate school after her June 2015 graduation from K.

Professors Furge and Truss are both members of the ASBMB and attend the annual meeting each year. Truss also directs a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded workshop for area high school science teachers in connection with the annual ASBMB meeting. This year’s workshop attracted more than a dozen local teachers who learned science and teaching strategies to use in their classrooms. Attendees at the workshop are also eligible for mini-grants to support further development of their teaching after the workshop. A recent article describes the impact of this workshop (which is in its fourth year).

In other meeting news, the Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award was given jointly to President Freeman Hrabowski III and Professor Michael Summers of University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Professor Summers was the SIP mentor to Erran Briggs ’14 and has worked closely with Professor Truss on the Professional Development and Minority Affairs Committees of ASBMB. Professor Summers also visited K’s campus in 2010 as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Guest Scholar Lecturer. Given the connections, and important work of Summers and Hrabowski, Professor Truss arranged for Bolles, Fujiwara, and Greenberger to interview Summers for Kalamazoo College’s Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership’s Praxis Center. Following the interview, Summers treated the students and Truss to lunch overlooking the San Diego Harbor marina! Notes from the interview will be posted on the Praxis website.

Travel to ASBMB for Bolles, Fujiwara, and Greenberger was supported by grants from the Provost Office, the Heyl Foundation (Greenberger), and the ACSJL. Korn’s travel to the meeting was sponsored by grant funds from his SIP advisor and the University of Michigan. Furge and Truss were supported by the Hutchcroft Endowment as well as their NIH and NSF grants, respectively. Next year’s Experimental Biology Meeting will occur in Boston, Mass.

The Right Place for the Liberal Arts

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A liberal arts education is an education for life–in all its various aspects. In fact, because life is so multifaceted, it’s hard to imagine an educational model more effective than the liberal arts. It’s this fact that makes various myths about a liberal arts education–such as the notion that it’s impractical–so pernicious. S. Georgia Nugent, senior fellow at the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and former president of Kenyon College, writes a column on the value of the liberal arts education. An autumn post of hers debunks many of the pernicious myths, including elitism, prohibitive expense, debt, impracticality, and weaker employment prospects. In a more recent post about college graduates in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math), Nugent notes that America’s small, private, liberal arts colleges are more successful than large research universities graduating science majors and preparing students for doctorates in STEM fields. The results of a recent CIC report she cites suggests that liberal arts colleges provide more bang for the buck when it comes to producing STEM graduates. The Council of Independent Colleges represents more than 600 small private colleges around the country, including Kalamazoo College.