Ouachita students gain valuable experience in summer research projects
October 01, 2012 - Ryleigh Salmon
Exciting opportunities are unfolding in the field of natural science research at Ouachita
Baptist University. This past summer, more than 30 Ouachita students and faculty conducted
a variety of research efforts on- and off-campus.
“Our goal is to provide research experiences for our students that set them apart
from their peers,” said Dr. Tim Knight, professor of biology and dean of OBU’s J.D.
Patterson School of Natural Sciences. Research takes place year-round, but many students
choose the summer option.
Ryan James, a senior biology major from Benton, Ark., worked this summer under Dr.
Lori Hensley, associate professor of biology and holder of the J.D. Patterson Chair
of Biology. “Dr. Hensley has been using a drug known as anjulemic acid, or AJA, for
several years now,” James explained. He said Dr. Hensley’s research has shown the
drug “has the ability to kill Ewing’s Sarcoma tumor cells without any harmful side
effects.
“Ewing’s is an aggressive pediatric bone tumor with a very low survival rate – about
20 percent,” he added. “The only treatment options available currently are surgery,
chemotherapy, radiation or a combination of the three. AJA provides a very safe and
specific treatment option for this type of cancer and has the potential to cure a
lot of individuals.”
Dr. Hensley’s research “fascinated me to know that somebody was curing cancer at Ouachita,
in the science building, where I take classes every day,” James said. “I knew I had
to have a part in this and wanted to learn more.
“I went into it thinking we were going to make some monumental breakthrough in the
research, but I realized that’s not how it works,” James added. “Sometimes you have
to discover the little things and rule out certain possibilities in order to pave
the way for the next person down the road.”
Skylar Hearron, a senior biology major from Monticello, Ark., also conducted research
on campus this summer. She worked under Dr. Ruth Plymale, assistant professor of biology.
They researched “the ability of cranberry juice and mouthwash to both inhibit biofilm
formation and remove existing biofilms,” Hearron said. They tested several different
juices and Listerine products.
Biofilms are “communities of bacteria that grow within a slime matrix and attach to
a surface,” noted Dr. Plymale. “Plaque on your teeth is an example of a biofilm –
it’s why your teeth can feel fuzzy if you haven’t brushed in a while. The biofilms
are formed when a bacterium attaches to moist surface. It then begins to divide and
produce the slime matrix. Once the biofilm is formed, it is more resistant to chemicals,
including antibiotics, than free-floating bacteria.”
“The study of biofilms has increased drastically in recent years due to awareness
of the impact of biofilms on natural and industrial systems, as well as human health,”
said Hearron.
“We found out that the cranberry juice can inhibit bacteria from attaching to surfaces
and can decrease biofilm formation,” Plymale said. These results, based on previous
research, were expected. “We found that most of the Listerine types that we tried
were able to both inhibit bacterial attachment and remove existing biofilms. The whitening
Listerine consistently decreased biofilms the most – we think this is because the
whitening Listerine contains hydrogen peroxide, which damages the bacterial cells.”
“Working with Dr. Plymale was an amazing experience,” Hearron said. “She is so passionate
about the work she does and that is what made my research experience so great. She
encouraged me to think on my own, which helped me to develop many critical thinking
skills.”
“The students in OBU sciences are fantastic,” Plymale said. “Most of them know where
they want their careers to go and, for the most part, are committed to doing what
needs to be done to get them there. Science isn’t the right path for everyone, but
the students that remain in science are hard-working, curious, responsible and really
want to succeed.
“All our science research has a long-range application, a purpose that it can be used
for or a question that it can help solve in the future,” Plymale added. “But I think
that the most important component of the research we do is that it trains our students
to be scientists. Students who go through research tackle a problem, figure it out
and communicate their work to others.”
Other students who researched on campus this summer included Amelia Lindsey, a junior
biology major from Camden, Ark., and Cara Cox, a junior biology major from Bentonville,
Ark.
Lindsey conducted botany research under Dr. Jim Taylor, professor of biology, “to
see how plants will grow in space, under microgravity and a different atmosphere,
so that long-term space travel will be possible and there will be a sustainable food
source.”
Cox worked under Dr. Sara Hubbard, assistant professor of chemistry, to research the
“effects of BPA, a chemical that leaches out of food packaging and plastic bottles.”
They worked to determine how much BPA, Bis-phenol A, is “harmful to marine life, pregnant
women and small children,” Cox said.
Ouachita students also completed research at other institutions. Valerie Nickel, a
senior chemistry and biology double major from Richardson, Texas, worked in the biochemistry
program at Texas A&M. “I worked with a protein that was designed to deliver macromolecules
to cells,” Nickel said. “The protein is a combination of different peptides, which
are parts of different proteins stuck together for a specific purpose. Part of the
protein is from the influenza virus, part is from HIV and another part is just a fluorescent
protein, like for a marker.
“There were only 14 students in the program I was in,” Nickel said. “There were other
programs like aerospace and engineering, though. They put everyone who was doing research
in our building, which was cool because it created a community for us to live in.”
On a typical morning, Nickel would review experiments and talk with her mentor about
what they were doing that day so he could walk her through procedures before she did
them on her own. “Most of what my day consisted of was doing experiments or data analysis
of results,” she said.
“I learned so much that I would have never learned from just taking classes,” Nickel
said. “I got to work with people who were doing the science that you learn about in
textbooks.”
Hollyn McCarty, a senior chemistry and biology double major from Fouke, Ark., also
took part in off-campus research at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Institute in
Little Rock.
“My research focused primarily on the QTc interval in non-syndromic supravalvar aortic
stenosis (NSVAS) patients,” said McCarty. The QTc interval “has to do with the electrical
signals that travel through the heart. It causes the ventricles to contract and relax.
The timing of atrial and ventricular depolarization and repolarization are staggered,
creating the pumping movement of the heart. It’s a really cool concept that everything
has to be timed so well for the heart to pump and that it does so day in and day out
until we die.
“NSVAS patients often exhibit a cardiac phenotype, the way their heart looks physically,
similar to that found in Williams syndrome, which is a congenital disease that often
results in mental retardation and cardiac anomalies,” McCarty said. “We were examining
the length of the QTc interval in NSVAS patients and its correlation, or lack thereof,
to the amount of supravalvar aortic stenosis present in the patient population in
order to better understand the differences in the risk level for sudden cardiac death
in the Williams syndrome and NSVAS patients.”
McCarty was “working primarily with clinical data that had been collected by physicians
over many, many years. I entered the data that we were interested in into a large
database. There were some days that I was given the opportunity to shadow in the various
medical specialties and see different medical procedures.
“While I’ve always been aware that I am getting a wonderful education at OBU, the
knowledge instilled in me by the chemistry and biology departments truly became apparent
during the summer,” McCarty noted. “You never realize how much you’ve learned until
you’re in a situation where you are forced to apply it in everything you do.”
For more information about Ouachita’s Patterson School of Natural Sciences, contact
Dr. Tim Knight at [email protected] or (870) 245-5528.
By Ryleigh Salmon
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