News

St. Olaf College Professor of Biology Eric Cole and Professor of Chemistry Douglas Beussman recently received a National Science Foundation grant of $412,500 that will support their research on Tetrahymena, a single-celled organism, and provide funding to employ eight students each year to collaborate on the project.

This three-year grant brings the Beussman-Cole collaboration to its 15th year of funded research, and the Cole lab to its 25th year of continuously funded research.

In addition to providing funding for student researchers, the grant covers travel costs for them to attend professional meetings, including meetings hosted by the Midwest Protozoology Society, the Genetics Society of America, and The American Chemical Society, as well as publication costs.

The grant also supports the purchase of scientific equipment for the lab, including four SDS-Page Rigs and a barocycler for a mass spectrometer and upgrades for a confocal microscope and the computing system used to track genetic inventory.

Beussman and Cole have worked with student researchers over the past 15 years to understand how Tetrahymena function, with a focus on how the organisms exchange DNA with each other.

“The new grant allows us to apply even more sophisticated techniques to identify and visualize the molecules that Tetrahymena cells use to communicate with one another,” Cole says.

Providing opportunities for student research is important to both Cole and Beussman.

“We’re committed to developing our research goals in a way that serves as a training vehicle for young St. Olaf ‘scientists-in-training,’” Cole says. “We are always on the lookout for new students with a commitment to learning the craft.”