Vespa January_2007 - Randolph-Macon College

RANDOLPH-MACON BIOLOGY JANUARY, 2007
The Vespa
R-MC research gets focused.
Major Research Instrumentation grant !om the National Science
Foundation a#ows purchase of state of the art microscope.
The confocal microscope was used to locate three different proteins simultaneously in each
of these developing !uit fly embryos. Each protein was labeled with a different colored
dye (red, green, or blue), and places where two or more proteins overlap are indicated by
colors such as purple and ye#ow.
Researchers at R-MC are now
able to obtain high resolution 3-D
images of living cells thanks to the
installation of a new Olympus
FluoView FV1000 confocal
microscope earlier this month.
This highly specialized microscope
was purchased with a $260,000
grant from the National Science
Foundation. The grant was c0-
authored by a team from the R-
MC Biology Department and
Kelly Lambert from Psychology.
Confocal technology is one of
the most powerful advances ever
For water fleas it’s
boom or bust!
Students in Integrative Biology
learn about population dynamics
by studying tiny invertebrates.
Daphnia, also known as
water fleas, are not actually fleas
(an insect) at all but rather tiny
aquatic crustaceans like crabs or
lobsters. There are over 150 species
of Daphnia in North America
alone, with many more world
wide. All live in freshwater where
they play a key role in aquatic
food webs, acting as a food
sources for larger animals. Besides
being interesting in
their own right,
Daphnia are a
good organism
for population
studies because
of their
interesting
method of
reproduction
called parthenogenesis.
When there
is plenty
of food
available,
all the Daphnia in the
popula- tion are females
which produce eggs that hatch
without being fertilized, each an
identical clone of the mother.
This aspect of their natural history,
along with their short generation
time, simplifies studies of the
factors that influence birth and
death rates. Once students grasp
the basics of population growth in
Daphnia, they gain a new prospective
on human populations including
such topics as the Earth’s carrying
capacity.
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RANDOLPH-MACON BIOLOGY JANUARY, 2007
developed in microscopy because
it permits scientists to clearly
visualize specific molecules within
a cell and follow their movement
over time. One of the amazing
benefits of the instrument is its
ability to take a series of optical
sections through living cells, which
can then be stacked together to
produce a 3-D image. Together,
these cutting-edge technologies
give researchers a better
understanding of how proteins
actually function within a living
cell.
The new microscope will significantly
boost research capabilities
at R-MC. Among the researchers
taking advantage of the equipment
will be cell biologist Jim Foster
who plans to use the microscope
to learn more about the specific
proteins required for fertilization.
Students will also benefit from
this technology; in fact, R-MC Biology
student Sara Tittermary, a
junior, already has plans to use the
confocal microscope in her independent
study to examine how
mutant proteins are linked to leukemia.
Access to equipment like the
confocal microscope is extremely
rare for undergraduate students at
institutions of any size. According
to David Coppola, department
chair and principal investigator for
this NSF grant, “Confocal microscopes
are usually associated with
major research universities; the
grant from the National Science
Foundation allowing us to obtain
one for Randolph-Macon is a
stunning affirmation by science
policy makers of our efforts to involve
undergraduates in independent
research.”
Traci Stevens
Assistant Professor of Biology
WHAT SHOULD
PREMEDICAL STUDENTS
MAJOR IN
The answer is simple: major in
anything you want! Medical
schools evince no preference for
the undergraduate major of their
applicants, though there are
required undergraduate courses in
biology, physics, chemistry, math
and English. But, does one major
or another give you a better
chance at getting into med school
One might conclude that ‘major
matters’ based on the most recent
data from the American Association
of Medical Schools, an organization
that represents the 125 accredited
MD granting US med schools.
Perhaps surprisingly, the
percentage of humanities
applicants accepted to med school
exceeded other disciplines in
2006. Does this mean you should
major in English or Philosophy if
you want to get in med school
Not really. It is clear that the
relationship between
undergraduate major and the
slight differences in acceptance
rate suggest a correlation not
causation. In 2006 only 4% of
those accepted to med school
majored in humanities disciplines
as undergraduates! And what was
the most popular undergraduate
major for future ‘saw bones’ You
guessed it: biology. In 2006, 54%
of those attending med school
were biology majors with no other
single discipline exceeding 20%.
Nor does double majoring provide
any advantage according to Vault
Guide to Medical School Admissions
2006. Thus, the best advice
remains ‘follow your heart’ when it
comes to your undergraduate
major...and chill out!
PI IN THE EYE
Research team finds a mathematical
constant in organization
of visual brain. Biological systems
tend to be too complicated to
be described by deterministic
mathematical models. Imagine an
equation that describes the intricacies
of the branching pattern of
your average oak tree, for example.
However, recently Dr. Coppola
and his collaborators at Duke
University and the Max Plank
Institute, Gottingen, have demonstrated
a set of universal quantitative
laws that constrain the layout
of a part of the mammalian brain
that processes visual information.
The clearest signature of these
quantitative laws is that the density
of certain characteristic features
of the functional units in
‘primary visual cortex’ are constrained
to a spatial density of the
mathematical constant pi for each
unit. Amazingly this constraint
was found in three different
mammal species that diverged
>50 million years ago. The study
leader Matthias Kaschube, now at
Princeton, points out that the brain
is sufficiently complicated that it
would take more than 10 12 instructions
to specify it, yet the
human genome, for example, has
fewer than 10 5 genes. One solution
to this conundrum is that
complex biological systems, like
the brain, are ‘self-organizing.’
The ‘Pi principal’ that Kaschube,
Coppola and their colleagues have
discovered provides compelling
evidence for this self organization.
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RANDOLPH-MACON BIOLOGY JANUARY, 2007
DREAMS OF PARADISE...PARADISE
BIRDS THAT IS!
Dr. Russ Shea’s research reminds us of Langston
Hughs’ poignant admonition “Hold fast to dreams
for when dreams die life is a bird that cannot fly.”
However, Russ’ dreams, of late, involve birds that
cannot fly...because they’re stuffed, like the Bird of
Pardadise he is holding in the above photograph.
Midway through his graduate training in
oceanography, Russ found himself spending his off
time on oceanographic cruises watching seabirds.
He wondered how they managed to find the same
patches of food in an otherwise biological desert –
the tropical Pacific Ocean. These observations led
him in an entirely different direction pursuing his
Ph.D. “I was all set to go to the University of Hawaii
to work on a Ph.D. in biological oceanography when
I decided I didn’t like all the time I was spending
away from home on ships – I wanted a land-based
job working on seabirds.” Ultimately he matriculated
to the University of Pennsylvania to work under the
renowned ecologist, Bob Ricklefs. His research
involved problems of growth in tropical seabirds for
which he spent several years working with his wife
and students on Midway Island in the Pacific. In
general, regardless of taxonomic affinity, seabirds
grow very slowly, have one-egg clutches, live a long
time, and mature at a very late age. The evolution of
these life history traits in general, and especially the
evolution of slow growth, has dominated Dr. Shea’s
research interests for the past 30 years, work
supported over the years by the National Science
Foundation and published in premier scientific
journals.
Recently, Russ has been involved in a four-year,
multi-million dollar NSF grant (involving six institutions)
investigating the intersection of physiology
and life history theory in tropical and temperate passerine
birds. According to Shea, “Species differ
widely in rates of reproduction, age at maturity, and
longevity. This variation partly reflects differences in
the environment, but adaptive physiological responses
also influence life history traits.” A fundamental
principle of life history studies is that responses
of individuals and populations to their surroundings
are constrained. Says Shea, “Time, resources,
and body tissues, are limited and must be
allocated optimally among different functions. The
form and functioning of mature individuals reflect
developmental limitations on constructing complex
nervous systems, accumulating experience, and
building immune system defenses.” In this grant,
Shea and his colleagues compare passerines in contrasting
environments (Panama and Michigan) to
address physiological mechanisms associated with
variation in adult survival and related life history
variables. Shea points out that, “In general, birds live
longer in the tropics than at temperate latitudes. Life
history theory suggests that high adult survival rates
and longer
breeding seasons
typical of
tropical environments
select
for a slower
pace of life and
delayed senescence,
to ensure
that the
individual can
realize its potential
longevity. Accordingly, they predict that such
‘slow’ species will exhibit reduced metabolic intensity,
highly developed immune responses, strong responses
against reactive forms of oxygen, year-round
low levels of steroid hormones, and high sensitivity
to environmental stress. Together these traits make
up a syndrome of low reproductive investment and
high self-maintenance, contrasting with opposite
traits of ‘fast’ species at the other end of the life his-
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RANDOLPH-MACON BIOLOGY JANUARY, 2007
tory spectrum (passerines in the temperate zone).”
So far, approximately 50 papers have resulted from
this project which began in 2002. The research team
is currently in the last year of the grant and starting
to write the most important synthetic papers showing
how physiology and behavior constrain life histories.
Results from work estimating the proportion of
young birds in museum colonies (thus the picture
above), that support the grand hypothesis, will be
published this summer in the prestigious journal
Ecology. Indeed dreams are alive for Russ Shea...and
they have taken flight!
• Dr. David Coppola, Chris Waggener and Nicole Phillips
(RMC ‘06) presented a paper in November at the Society
for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta entitled: “Naris occlusion
alters the magnitude and polarity of the EOG in
mice”. Dr. Coppola and his collaborators from Duke University
and the Max Plank Institute presented another paper
at the conference entitled: “A Mathematical Constant in the
Design of the Visual Cortex.”
• Dr. Chas. Gowan had a paper accepted in American Entomologist
entitled: “Stream monitoring methods suitable
for citizen volunteers working in the coastal plain and
lower piedmont regions of Virginia;" this paper was coauthored
with three RMC students, Mindy Ruby, Ryan
Knisley, and Lauren Grimmer. Dr. Gowan also has a
paper appearing in the Proceedings of the 60th Annual
Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish and
Wildlife Agencies entitled: “"Hybridization of two darter
species native to Central Virginia" which was co-authored
with R-MC students, Carrie Peirce and Matt Convery.
• Dr. Barry Knisley, Ryan Woodcock (RMC ‘05) and Dr.
Jim Foster have a paper coming out in the journal Conservation
Genetics entitled: “Molecular genetics of Cicindela
(Cylindera) terricola and elevation of C. lunalonga to species
level, with notes on its conservation status.” Dr. Knisley
has another paper entitled: “Description and conservation
of a new species of Cicindela tranquebarica from the
San Joaquin Valley of southern California” due out in the
journal Entomological News.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
Dr. Coppola (left) and Chris Wa+ener present their poster at the
Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta.
• Dr. Grace Lim-Fong had a new issue published on August
9th, 2006, entitled: “Joshua Jue-an Fong” (see above).
Grace notes with pride that Joshua was born on Singapore's
National Day (Independence Day).
• Dr. Russ Shea recently had two papers accepted for publication
entitled: “Growth rate, protein accumulation, and
catabolic enzyme activity of skeletal muscles of galliform
birds” to appear in Physiological Biochemistry & Zoology
and “Estimating annual adult survival in sexually dimorphic
species from proportions of first-year birds in museum
collections” to appear in Ecology (see below).
Vespa is latin for wasp. The RMC mascot is a ye#ow jacket actua#y a
member of the wasp family. The Vespa is published twice per year.
Contacts:
Biology Dept., dcoppola@rmc.edu
Dept. Webpage, www.rmc.edu/directory/academics/biology
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