Contents
Bio 385 Class Visits University of Minnesota Neuroscience Labs
On Caulobacter and Waiting: an Interim of Researching, Patience
Summer Research Projects in Biology
News and Annoucements
Professor Emeritus James Zischke, known affectionately as “Dr. Z”, passed away in December. He is remembered fondly for his enthusiasm for biology, particularly invertebrates, his highly sought after marine biology class in Pigeon Key Research Station, Florida, and for providing many research experiences and mentoring many St. Olaf students.
Biology faculty member Lisa Lenertz ran the Zum Yah Yah marathon in January! Now that is a feat!
St. Olaf College was recently awarded a grant from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation to support students doing undergraduate research in biology and chemistry. To learn about criteria and applying, click here.
Bio 385 Class Visits University of Minnesota Neuroscience Labs |
|
By Evan Anderson ’13On the morning of January 17, while most students were bundling up to go to class, 13 students taking this interim’s Biology Seminar in Neuroscience, Bio 385, were loading into a van for a field trip to the University of Minnesota. Two weeks prior to the trip, we had been learning fundamentals of the molecular biology of the neuron. A visit to the University of Minnesota provided the opportunity to see the labs where the boundaries of modern neuroscience are pushed. For some who had had relatively little research experience it was an eye-opening day — ”it was a completely different experience actually seeing the lab in person. I was shocked at the technology they use! I’ve never seen machinery quite like I did today.”The morning started in Dr. Eric Newman’s lab, which studies the cellular regulation of blood vessels in the retina among other retinal studies. After a 30-minute crash course on the lab’s current areas of research, he showed off the high-tech instruments in his lab. One of his multiple microscopes features a specialized stage and set-up for anesthetizing, ventilating, and sticking electrodes into a live mouse retina! “It looked like the mouse was about to undergo open heart surgery, judging by the array of instruments that surrounded the microscope…..just so they can study changes in blood flow and only blood flow, so they anesthetize the rat or mouse, put it on a breathing machine, and keep its temperature constant. Oh, and the rat was hooked up to a pulse oximeter and its CO2 exhalation was measured as well.”
We next visited Dr. Mark Masino’s lab, which works to identify the neurocircuits responsible for locomotion in zebrafish. A handful of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows showed us the techniques used to approach this research at three different levels: behavioral, physiological, and molecular. Similarly, this lab was also filled with microscopes: some looked at fish motion in groups using super fancy software while others focused on fluorescence on the cellular level. It was fun to be challenged with new ideas such as learning that the “swimming of zebra fish and bipedal walking of humans” are parallel phenomena. The lab visit provided better understanding of the research techniques behind the stacks of primary literature we had been exploring this interim. We also really appreciated seeing the grad students and post docs at work. To top off the field trip, we grabbed lunch at The U’s student union before heading back to campus. |
Q & A with Tom Giarla |
|
Tom Giarla will join the biology department faculty for 2nd semester. He will be teaching Bio 126, Evolution and Diversity.How would you describe yourself? I’m an evolutionary biologist just about to finish my Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. My dissertation research focuses on the systematics and phylogeography of an unusual group of mammals from the southern half of South America: the fat-tailed mouse opossums (genus Thylamys). They get their common name from the fat deposits that develop in their tails during the wet season. These species tend to live in arid climates with limited resources, so when the dry season begins, they’ll have a storage of fat for sustenance. So far, I’ve focused on identifying new species and inferring relationships among species, but the last part of my dissertation focuses on population genetics of just a few species that live high in the Andes. I’m trying to figure out what effect the Pleistocene Ice Ages might have had on these high-elevation lineages.Where do you live? I live in downtown Minneapolis with my partner Dan. We have a bunch of fish and a gecko named Lulu.How did you get into your field? (What is your field?) What were you doing before you came to St. Olaf? I became interested in biology because I loved learning about animals as a kid. I grew up in Kansas, right on the edge of suburbia and farmland, and spent a lot of time wandering around parks and cow pastures looking for wildlife. In college, I started working with a professor on an ecology project involving tree frogs and soon decided that I wanted to try out a career in the sciences. Through my undergraduate course work, I became fascinated with evolutionary biology–particularly the broad-scale patterns of vertebrate diversity–so I decided to apply to a bunch of different grad programs that would cater to my interests. I chose the University of Minnesota because I was interested in working with my advisor, Sharon Jansa, and I loved the culture of the department when I visited. I only had one summer off between college and grad school, and I took that opportunity to work at the St. Louis Zoo as an educational instructor.Where did you go to school? I graduated with a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2007.What do you remember about being an undergraduate? I’ve only been out of undergrad for six years, so I remember a lot about college life. It was stressful but a lot of fun, too. I loved all of the random intellectual discussions I’d have with friends until the middle of the night. WashU was a really big research institution in the middle of pretty big city, so it has a very different feel from St. Olaf.What are you looking forward to about at St. Olaf? I’m looking forward to just about everything except the commute from Minneapolis! I’ve heard great things about St. Olaf students, and I’m especially looking forward to engaging with a bright and capable group of people. I think my semester teaching at St. Olaf will be a really good experience for me as I start thinking about the type of school where I would ultimately like to work.What are you plans after St. Olaf? I’m currently applying for post-doctoral research positions all over the country. I plan to work as a post-doc for about two years and then apply for tenure-track academic jobs. |
Dealing with Deer |
|
By Emma Cornwell ’13If you’ve ever been out in the St. Olaf Natural Lands around dawn or dusk, chances are you’ve come across a deer. Deer always seem so gentle and harmless, conjuring up images of Bambi and the friendly forest animals in Snow White. It’s hard to believe they are actually a major threat to forest restoration efforts on campus.White-tailed deer are native to Minnesota’s prairies and forests, but their population is much higher than these ecosystems can support, largely because their growth is unchecked by natural predators. Human interference has all but eliminated the wolves, bears and bobcats that traditionally fed on deer. In the absence of these natural predators, deer hunting is one way to manage the population, but overpopulation remains a persistent problem.
Deer overpopulation is a nuisance to people and the environment. According to the Minnesota DNR, these herbivorous animals have a wide range of food choices, including acorns, mushrooms, grasses, apples, tree leaves and buds. They’ve also expanded their diet to include agricultural corn and soybeans, which causes economic losses for farmers. Intensive grazing by large populations decimates the forest understory, negatively impacting birds and small mammals that use the understory for food and hiding places. The deer’s preferred plant foods often become locally extinct, and biodiversity in the forest as a whole declines. In St. Olaf’s Natural Lands, deer overpopulation interferes with restoration efforts. Over 90 acres of St. Olaf land, previously used for agriculture, has been planted with native trees. As these forest plots get established, the young trees are vulnerable to grazing by deer. The buds of oak trees are an especially tasty treat for them, particularly in the winter when other foods like grasses and fruits are scarce. Until the oak trees grow tall enough that the buds are out of reach of the hungry deer, we take measures to protect them. Natural lands workers coat oak buds with a non-toxic bitter-tasting liquid that tastes bad enough to deter deer from munching away. This gives the trees a fighting chance, and aids in our efforts to restore the native Big Woods forest ecosystem. |
On Caulobacter and Waiting: an Interim of Researching, Patience |
|
By Lynna Long ’13Thaw competent E. coli on ice for 30 minutes. Add 5 μl ligation to vial of competent E. coli. Incubate on ice for 30 minutes. Heat shock in water bath for 30 seconds. Incubate in 37° C shaking incubator for 1 hour.Of my many character flaws, lack of patience is pretty high ranking which is a great misfortune considering that waiting constitutes a large majority of the research I’ve been working on lately. In some cases, the waiting is a long enough period that a lunch or dinner break fills in the void. In other circumstances, time is the enemy, testing your patience at 11 p.m. because the digest you are running takes 1 hour at 37° C, and you can’t remember if you have 5 minutes left or if you are 5 minutes over. However, the tedious hours and minutes between executing various procedures does lead to laboratory insights.Why isn’t parafilm used in domestic kitchens when it’s clearly superior to saran wrap? Why do we use tupperware for ethidium bromide staining- aren’t those for sandwiches? Agarose gel looks like more science-y, less delicious jello… Aside from the various thoughts on homemaking and food that have flooded my mind in the late hours of the night while working in the biomolecular science research lab, I have actually been quite engrossed by my work in Bio 396: Bacteria Cell Cycles.Taught by recent St. Olaf hire Lisa Bowers, this directed undergraduate research (DUR) class has granted me and 7 other classmates the opportunity to individually investigate a transcription factor gene in Caulobacter crescentus. Our studies are based on Professor Bowers’ previous work where she used molecular, genetic, and biochemistry techniques to figure out the role of known proteins that regulate cell cycle and looked for new genes not previously studied that are also involved. As a class, we are expanding on the latter, each of us being responsible for producing a gene-knockout and subsequently describing the mutants’ morphology. Similar to graduate-level research, we predominantly work individually but meet frequently during the week to discuss progress and troubleshooting, and for journal club.Having only four short weeks to work on our projects, this Interim experience has been condensed into a tight ball of emotions ranging from bewildered excitement that your PCR product yielded the correct size of DNA the first round to deep disappointment when you realize that you have lost all of your viable ligation product from running an unnecessary gel. My classmate Lauren Carlson ’13 says that while in the past the end of Interim signaled for her a transition to a less monotonous schedule, she feels “that [she is] just mastering these biomolecular techniques and becoming attached to [her] own plasmid, when all of a sudden this course will be finished.”Despite having only a brief time to execute our research, the variety in daily tasks and real world research experience is what attracted students, including Kelly Hennessey ’13 who agrees that “[DUR is] so different from what goes on in weekly biology labs for class”. And in the same way that this class has taught me a lesson in waiting, Hennessey found that the class has unexpectedly showed her the merit in troubleshooting. She elaborates, “Even when you think you have a system down, out of the blue it will fail and you have to rethink the process. It keeps you on your toes.”Despite the frustrations I face trying to be unperturbed by the slow tick-tock of Caulobacter growing at a three-day incubation rate, this research experience has proved enriching to technical lab skill, analytical thought, troubleshooting, waiting, and having a good attitude at the end of it all. In the words of fellow researcher Katie Hamel ’13, “participating in a DUR is a great opportunity for any Ole who wants to see what doing scientific research is like. It’s not a typical lecture setting so you don’t learn from a textbook, you learn from experience…. you get a lot more out of this class than you ever would from a textbook.” |
Summer Research Projects in Biology | |
Diane AngellLisa Bowers |