#IAmScience #MizzouResearch

#IAmScience Jessica Milano-Foster

April 24, 2020 By Becca Wolf in #IAmScience Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch

By Becca Wolf | Bond LSC

The placenta is a crucial organ that develops in a woman’s body during pregnancy that provides oxygen and nutrients to the fetus. After her experience doing research on this organ while getting her master’s degree at the University of Kansas Medical Center, current MU Ph.D. student Jessica Milano-Foster has become passionate about studying it. To continue her education, she has teamed up with Laura Schulz’s lab in the MU School of Medicine and Michael Roberts’ lab at Bond LSC to look at the role of mitochondria in the placenta during early onset preeclampsia.

Milano-Foster did not begin her educational career studying the placenta or any sort of biology. In fact, she got her bachelor’s degree from Truman State University in chemistry.

“The initial goal was to be a forensic chemist,” she said, “But then, I was really bored in my forensic science class. So, I wanted to try research because I thought that might be interesting.”

The rest is history.

While doing research, she was introduced to epigenetics — the study of changes in organisms that are caused by modification of gene expression. This piqued her interest and led her to Dr. Souman Paul’s lab at the University of Kansas, which solidified her decision to not pursue forensic chemistry anymore.

“The thing that I really like about research is that you learn something new almost every day,” something she was not getting previously.

After her bachelor’s degree, Milano-Foster continued in Dr. Paul’s lab as a Master’s student and was first introduced to the placenta.

“His lab focuses on reproductive biology and I just kind of fell in love with the placenta along the way,” she explained. “I think it’s so cool because it’s something that we have to build in our bodies in order to create life. And then it goes away. And then it can come back again if you decide to be pregnant again. No other organ does that.”

The more she studied the placenta, the more she became fascinated by it. After finishing her Master’s degree at KU, Milano-Foster got an offer to stay in Dr. Paul’s lab for her Ph.D., but she declined because she was moving to Missouri with her husband who was starting medical school.

She began working as a lab technician for Tom Spencer, a MU professor of animal sciences studying neonatal uterine development in mice. While it was still in the realm of reproductive research, it was not focused on the placenta.

“It was interesting, but I wasn’t really motivated the way that I was in my Master’s to learn more and more and more about the placenta and epigenetics,” Milano-Foster said. “I wasn’t that excited about the uterus but, you know, I thought that as I learned more about it I’d get more excited, and I didn’t. It was just a matter of being honest with myself and honest with my advisor, and it worked out.”

After discussing this with Dr. Spencer, he agreed his lab would not be the right fit for her. There were no hard feelings and he helped look for opportunities at MU to conduct more research on the placenta. Turns out Dr. Laura Schulz had a spot open in her lab. Dr. Schulz’s lab focuses on how hormones and nutrition during pregnancy affect the function of the placenta and the health of the fetus, which was right up Milano-Foster’s alley. She has been with Dr. Schulz’s lab since last fall and now collaborates with the Roberts’ lab to continue her research.

“Because of the nature of my work, I have to be in the Roberts’ lab to do it,” she said, and she thinks it has been a good match so far. Roberts’ lab focuses on reproductive biology and stem cell research, allowing Milano-Foster to research early onset preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure that can have fatal consequences for the mother and the fetus. Her research focuses on mitochondrial dysfunction in the condition.

Despite only being here for a few months, Milano-Foster has already made progress conducting experiments on the mitochondria where she tests stem cells.

“They’re very picky,” she said, “You have to tend to them every single day. They have preferred growing matrices and everything.”

Milano-Foster not only learned how to control the cells, but also had to find a way to get them into small wells in order to conduct mitochondrial stress tests. It took some time, but she did so just as she had to go on maternity leave, putting the experiment on pause.

Her daughter is now a month old and Milano-Foster has about eight weeks of maternity leave left. She is eager to start working on her research again.

“I’m excited to jump back into that and get my replicates going. That way I can get some answers because right now my project is very much like we don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said.

Being out of the lab doesn’t excuse her from being a student as she still has to write and study for her Ph.D. She studies while her daughter naps, but has yet to get on a steady routine. Milano-Foster is also squeezing in time for her hobbies, “I work out every day and I’m hoping that while I’m on leave, I’ll have some more time to play the piano.”

Milano-Foster hopes to finish her Ph.D. here at MU within the next three years, four if necessary.

“A lot of that depends on how the project goes,” she said. After her Ph.D., she wants to continue doing her own research in a translational or clinical setting where she would be a senior scientist.

Between maternity leave and being forced to shelter-in-place due to COVID-19, Milano-Foster is taking things day by day for now. She is itching to get back to the lab and continue her passion and hopefully that day will come soon.

#IAmScience Henry Wan

August 22, 2019 By Mariah Cox in #IAmScience, Research Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch

By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC

Every year we all tend to pay a visit to the doctor to get ahead of cold and flu season. Nothing could be worse than being in the midst of a hectic time at work or school and being out of commission.

Many don’t think twice about the annual flu shot, it just becomes a part of their autumnal routine. But for Henry Wan, a new primary investigator in the Bond Life Sciences Center, a significant portion of his life revolves around understanding how flu viruses get transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa as well as tracking down more effective influenza vaccination strains.

Flu viruses caused more than 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths during the 2017-2018 flu season in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And influenza A virus (IAV), also known as the avian flu, has caused pandemics that resulted in millions of deaths in poultry, and fear of widespread transmission to humans and other mammals.

Wan’s interest in influenza started in 1996 after an outbreak of avian influenza (H5N1 virus) in South China. In 1997, this same virus caused another outbreak in Hong Kong that killed 40 percent of geese infected and crossed over to infect 18 humans, causing six of them to die.

While extremely noteworthy because the strain seemed to jump from poultry to humans, researchers weren’t able to pinpoint how these viruses were circulating in wild birds and predict which avian flu could transmit from wild birds to human and from human to human.

“Over the past decade, we’ve been trying to study how influenza emerged in the animal-human interface,” said Wan. “Influenza transmission among humans and different wild and domestic animals have been well documented for decades, however, the detailed mechanism is far from being understood. We still cannot predict emerging risks and provide precise alerts for influenza emergence for domestic animals and humans.”

Wan grew up in a small town in central China on the Yangtze River. After earning an undergraduate degree at Jiangxi Agricultural University in Nanchang, China, Wan decided to pursue an advanced degree in Avian Medicine at South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou, China. Afterward, he moved to the United States to obtain his Ph.D. in veterinary medicine and a master’s in computer science at Mississippi State University where he studied mycoplasmas in poultry rather than influenza.

While mycoplasmas weren’t the peak of his research interest, he still enjoyed studying them.

“I was a poor student from China and didn’t have the opportunities that are available now. The student assistantship at Mississippi State University provided by mycoplasmas study was a good opportunity,” he said. “While at MSU I also had an opportunity to study computer science while finishing my Ph.D. and that really helped me build a foundation in systems biology.”

Wan spent a short period at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee before finishing his post-doc at the University of Missouri in the lab of Dong Xu.

From there, he started his teaching and research career at Miami University of Ohio, however, he didn’t get back to studying influenza until he moved to Atlanta to work at the Centers for Disease Control as a senior scientist fellow in 2007. Wan dived back into academics as a veterinary medicine professor to graduate students at Mississippi State University in 2009 and remained there until coming to MU this fall.

His focus on influenza will be helped by a recent $2.8 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to develop and implement high-throughput technology to study and characterize influenza viruses’ antigenic properties and understand antigenic evolution of influenza A viruses. This technical-sounding purpose truly means his lab will work to advance the technology behind vaccine strain selection, especially for children, elderly and pregnant women, to provide a more universal flu vaccine strain for the general population.

Additionally, the project will explore the mechanisms that cause variation in influenza virus quasi-species and establish a history of prior human exposure to influenza viruses in an effort to improve strain selection.

“The mechanisms that cause variation in quasi-species will help us understand how influenza variants emerge in humans and help develop a better-targeted surveillance and prevention strategy through vaccination,” Wan said.

While Wan has only been at Mizzou since this summer, he’s jumped feet first into research collaborations here. He’s also involved in a cross-campus project funded by a University of Missouri System Tier-2 grant to build more research capacity for data-driven discoveries and a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop a broadly protective E. coli vaccine, among others.

When not in the lab, Wan enjoys spending time outdoors, running and biking along the Katy trail, as well as playing Ping-Pong with his friends. He believes in exercise as an outlet for brainstorming new ideas, rather than just sitting in a lab or his office.

“I think that’s critical, especially in science and research. A lot of the time I get a sparkling idea from exercise, not from sitting in this office. It’s from when you do something else another idea comes,” Wan said.

This research is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. Wan is a Bond LSC primary investigator and joint professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology in the School of Medicine, the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

#IAmScience Lucas Woods

March 22, 2019 By Mariah Cox in #IAmScience, Research Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch

By Mariah Cox | Bond LSC

Ten years ago, Lucas Woods stepped into Gary Weisman’s lab with a fresh perspective on P2 cell receptors. Now, as an experienced lab manager, Woods dives deeper into the role of these receptors in a myriad of diseases.

Woods came to the Bond Life Sciences Center after graduating from Missouri State University in Springfield with a degree in cell and molecular biology. He studied P2 receptors as a part of his undergraduate research with Dr. Richard Garrad, who completed his post-doctoral research in Weisman’s lab. Garrad recognized Woods’s interest in the area of study and recommended he continue his research with Weisman at MU.

“The initial plan was to work in Dr. Weisman’s lab for a year or two then enroll in graduate school, but after I started here, one thing led to another and here I am, 10 years later, still doing the same research I have been doing for the past 12 years,” Woods said.

Although Weisman’s lab researches the function of P2 receptors in diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune diseases and oral cancers, they are currently investigating the manipulation of P2 receptors in Sjögren’s syndrome.

Sjögren’s syndrome is an autoimmune disease primarily affecting women at later stages in life where the immune system attacks and damages the salivary and lacrimal glands, reducing the ability to produce saliva and tears. This can lead to dental caries, periodontitis, yeast and bacterial infections, digestive disorders, loss of taste and difficulty swallowing, all of which reduce the quality of life for patients. The progression of Sjögren’s syndrome can also lead to the development of lymphoma.

“Usually people don’t show up to the doctor until they notice they have dry mouth and dry eye,” Woods said. “There’s no real solution for them. There are current treatments that try to alleviate the symptoms, such as artificial saliva and tears, rather than treat the cause of the disease. The idea of this research is to make better treatments.”

Currently, Weisman’s lab is focusing on two drugs that target P2 receptors to systemically reduce the inflammation in the salivary gland and improve saliva flow. The lab uses mouse models of human Sjögren’s syndrome to test the effectiveness of these two drugs in blocking the response of P2 receptors to extracellular ATP, which can exacerbate inflammation if left unchecked.

Lucas Woods cultures human T cell line Jurkat cells. The lab uses the Jurkat cells to investigate the role of P2 receptors in T cell function. | photo by Mariah Cox, Bond LSC

“We were joking the other day that when people ask us what we do for a living and we say we collect mouse saliva, they don’t believe us,” Woods said.

Rather than trying to generate a specific drug for clinical use, the lab aims to establish the idea that if a safe drug is found that can block these receptors and improve the Sjögren’s-like symptoms in mice, then it may translate as a therapeutic strategy in humans.

After working with Weisman for 10 years, it’s safe to say Woods has learned a lot. But the main lesson that he has taken from his experience is that effective communication of science is key.

“Success in science is as much dependent on your ability to communicate science as your ability to do science,” Woods said. “That communication is often in the form of writing papers for publication or writing grants, but the ability to effectively communicate the work that you did and the work you are going to do is absolutely essential.”

In conjunction with his research, Woods is also taking classes toward completing a graduate degree.

“I’m in a unique position right now where I am both a research staff member in the biochemistry department and I’m a student in the department as well,” Woods said.

Woods’s interest in science sparked when he realized that it could lead to limitless discovery. The idea that he could be the first to discover something that the entire world doesn’t know about yet drives him in his research.

When not in the lab, Woods enjoys running and playing with his two kids, Audrey and Edison.

Eventually, Woods hopes to run his own lab. When asked whether he would continue his research with P2 receptors, Woods said it would be in his best interest because of his long history in the field of study.

“P2 receptors are so ubiquitous in the body, there’s no shortage of questions to ask that need answering,” Woods said.

#IAmScience Shawn Abrahams

December 7, 2018 By Erica Overfelt in #IAmScience Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch, Shawn Abrahams

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC

“Eccentric” is generally a word you do not want to use for a future boss.

But that’s what led Shawn Abrahams to the Chris Pires’ lab at Bond LSC. Abrahams first met Pires at the Botany 2013 conference in New Orleans.

“If you have ever met Chris before you know he is full of advice. At the time Chris told me about his expectations for grad students, how many papers you should have to be successful and that you should always be considering your 10-year plan,” Abrahams said. “I appreciated it as an undergrad who knew very little about what it took to become a research professor, but I thought to myself, ‘I could never have him as an advisor,’ a bit taken aback by his intensity.

Pires stuck out in Abrahams’ mind from countless other researchers who they had met at the conference.

“When it came to time to think about my future, I considered all the researchers I’d met and thought about who stood out the most?” Abrahams said. “Well, Chris stood out the most.”

Abrahams has been in the lab since the summer of 2015. The lab’s overarching theme is plant evolutionary biology.

“I work in the Brassica part of the lab, and I focus on a tribe of plants in the mustard family that includes about 227 species,” Abrahams said. “My big thing is trying to figure out how they have evolved certain traits within their group, particularly how gene duplication has contributed to some of these novel traits. Understanding their evolution is important for society and agriculture, but it also lets how know how we might expect plants to evolve in the future.”

Glucosinolates, or mustard oils, are an example of one of these unique traits. While most people know these compounds for the taste they give to wasabi, horseradish, or the yellow mustard we put on hot dogs, these compounds are used by plants to defend themselves and can have other effects. Some act as anticarcinogens in humans while others found in wild species are linked to upset stomachs and negative effects.

These evolved defenses are not always exclusive to a family of plants. This convergent evolution happens when organisms developing similar traits to another unrelated organism, and is of particular interest to Abrahams said.

“Some obvious places of convergent evolution are bats and birds who both have wings and fly but they have evolved those abilities separately,” Abrahams said. “In the tribe I work on, you have diverse mustard oils in groups that have been separated for millions of years of evolution, and you see this with some other traits as well. Did you know there are varieties of cauliflower that have been shown to have nicotine in them? But how did it evolve and what is it doing for the plant? Those are the questions I’m after.”

In the beginning, they found them self in a loop thinking constantly about where their research would take them next.

“I would say when I started in the lab I was very focused on how I get to the next step,” Abrahams said. “But if you just focus on the big picture you miss a lot of the details, and I have tried to enjoy the process just as much as the end product. If you are trying to build this as a career, you need to think about what motivates you. Why do I want to run a lab or would I be happier in industry? It is important to understand that for yourself.”

Before coming to MU to pursue their Ph.D. they went to University of Florida for undergrad, where they were involved in three labs. Afterwards, Abrahams experienced life outside of the lab.

“After graduating I did a one-year internship working in the everglades,” Abrahams said. “We looked at how sea level rising was affecting plant communities. Especially as a born Floridian I got to know the environment like very few do. You really get to physically interact with the local environment and understand nature.”

Their internship was physically testing, but the experience is something they carry with them in their daily life.

“I found working in the field was super rewarding but also very back breaking,” Abrahams said. “With 12 hour days working in the hot sun and gator filled marshland, you could potentially die from dehydration. When I entered my Ph.D. I took part of that experience with me. Techniques I used in that research to design mesosums, or artificial environments, came in handy when I wanted to test some ecological interactions.”

Experiences, conferences and people have all aided in Abrahams’ pursuit of their path in science. While Abrahams current life goal is to become an academic, they will be leaving MU in February to continue research in the Netherlands at Wageningen University. This opportunity stemmed from connections made at conferences and through a grant opportunity from the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. They are hoping this experience will inspire new directions for their research and exciting discoveries.

“Science is a global human enterprise,” Abrahams said. “Getting the chance to really engage in that feels like I’m reaching a new level. It’s great.”

Story Note: Abrahams uses gender neutral pronouns them/they/their, which have been used in this article.

#IAmScience Trupti Joshi

November 30, 2018 By Erica Overfelt in #IAmScience Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch, Trupti Joshi

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC

Juggling research, teaching, collaborative meetings, grant writing, and training postdocs and students is no problem for Trupti Joshi.

That array of responsibilities is just part of the job for a Bond LSC researcher focused on bioinformatics, an area that connects so many types of science by collecting and analyzing genetic data.

“Bioinformatics is a very interdisciplinary science that marries the wet and the dry labs,” Joshi said. “It applies software tools and computational techniques from computer science, engineering, mathematics and statistics towards efficient ways to analyze, integrate and mine large-scale genomics and multiomics datasets from biological, plant and biomedical sciences. This research aids in the use of genomics in all areas of life and science from food and crop production decisions based on climates to healthy lifestyle and drug development for treatments.”

Dealing with genetic data might seem dry, but Joshi said the tools it uses answers questions that touch many areas of our world.

“Every aspect in everyone’s life touches genomics,” Joshi said. “What we do in genomic studies is important because it can be really important for the common man. Where did the roses get their fragrance or their beautiful petals? How did this emerge? Or at the same time why does the fruit taste bitter or sour? It comes down to that genomic blueprint.”

While you can often catch Joshi doing research at one of her labs in Bond LSC and School of Medicine, her area is applicable to almost every corner of campus. That’s reflected in her many positions and titles across MU. She’s director of translational bioinformatics and assistant professor in the Department of Health Management and Informatics, has appointments as core faculty with the Informatics Institute, the Interdisciplinary Plant Group, the Department of Computer Science and a primary investigator at Bond LSC.

Though Joshi trained as a clinical doctor prior to her doctoral degree, she believes she was destined to become involved with bioinformatics. While she loves to draw and thought about architecture, her family’s trajectory always influenced her toward science. With her father being an engineer, her mother a mathematician, one sister a doctor and the other a computer science engineer, bioinformatics field gave a chance to marry all of these fields into one and be able to do a bit of everything.

“My sisters and my parents motivated me, instilled the liking for science and overall higher education have been the pillar of what our parents have stressed in our family,” Joshi said. “It comes to your thinking and carving your career path. My sisters’ careers provided me an opportunity to see both clinical and engineering fields really closely, and that inspired me to pick the unconventional path because I could see a bit of both in me.”

Joshi hopes she influences others in their career paths.

“What I feel is important for my graduate students and post docs is encouraging them to define their skills,” Joshi said. “Some may be teaching or being a faculty or setting up their own industry. I think that really ends up being the force behind you and makes your life and career interesting.”

And the constant interaction with collaborator has kept her eager to get to the lab each morning and making discoveries for 18 years.

“What I feel is important in a career is that you are really interested and passionate about your work,” Joshi said. “It is the driving force to starting your day. If the questions you are working on are uninteresting it affects your life. I like to be ambitious and set the bar high, so one can break one’s own records.”

#IAmScience Sarah Unruh

November 15, 2018 By Erica Overfelt in #IAmScience Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch, Sarah Unruh

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC

Orchids are just weird. No, like really weird, even bizarre.

But sixth-year biological sciences Ph.D. student Sarah Unruh likes bizarre things.

“Name me a plant rule and I can tell you how orchids have broken them,” Unruh said. “Not all of them have leaves, a lot grow on top of trees and some grow underground not requiring photosynthesis, but one of weirdest characteristics is that their seeds are very small and they don’t have a lot of the nutrition to get the plant started.”

That last property has led Unruh to spend years exploring a delicate interaction between orchids and fungi that give the plant what it needs.

I study the genomes of fungi that allow orchid seeds to germinate,” Unruh said. “Most plant seeds don’t really require extra stuff except for soil and water, but these fungi give the orchids carbon and sugars, which isn’t a thing fungi usually do.”

Understanding how orchids are out of the ordinary led Unruh down her scientific path. Before coming to MU, Unruh volunteered at the St. Louis Zoo in the education department in high school. She wanted to study something similar to ecology and conservation, but ended up doing a double major in biology and education. And then her path took a turn.

“If you had told me I would be studying orchid-fungal interactions that would not have registered,” Unruh said. “In the pursuit of being a K-12 educator, I just so happened to need to take a class on plant systematics taught by Chris Pires. It was toward the end of my junior year and I was starting to need to make decisions on what I would do after I graduated. One path was to student teach — what I originally thought what I going to do. The other path was to start working in a lab. I always wanted to do research but never quite found the right question to ask or group.”

Unruh found that question after joining Chris Pires lab in Bond LSC. The lab focuses on evolutionary biology in plant species.

“I started in the lab not really knowing which plants to study,” Unruh said. “Chris asked me what I wanted to study. I said orchids just because there are so many evolutionary questions we don’t know.”

After working on them for a while she realized there were a few difficulties orchids posed in the lab.

“They grow a long time, but are not easily maintained. The fungi seemed more interesting to me since I knew less about them and this is an area no one else is studying.”

And that lack of research made her really look at exactly what this interaction, or friendship, means.

“It’s really not clear what on the molecular level is happening,” Unruh said. “We can assume this exchange of nutrients is happening, but we’re not sure what else is going on. If we can figure out that pathway, we can gain some insight into biological procedures and maybe use them instead of pesticides for agriculture, for example.”

This research has led Unruh all over the world including science conferences in Hong Kong and Costa Rica. Throughout her travels and collaborations, she has gained another tool for her research, Twitter.

“Twitter is a great tool to interact with others on a global scale,” Unruh said. “Not even specifically interacting but seeing the conversation. The people I meet at conferences I sometimes follow on twitter, or sometimes I follow people on Twitter then meet them in person.”

Unruh said the connection between science and her everyday life makes her think differently.

“Science is essential because even if you’re not in a lab,” Unruh said. “It’s about being able to approach the world how a scientist sees thing, if someone sees an argument what evidence is there. It’s thinking about the world more carefully.”

Seeing the world differently has opened new perspectives and motivations in her everyday research.

“I’m doing my part to create knowledge and further our knowledge on why it works,” Unruh said. “While working toward this answer, it’s really motivating trying to figure out this mystery.”

#IAmScience Nikita Gudekar

November 12, 2018 By Erica Overfelt in #IAmScience Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch, Michael Petris, Nikita Gudekar

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC

You’ve probably seen TV in shows like Law & Order or CSI and not viewed them as career inspiration. But for graduate student Nikita Gudekar, all she could think about was the science behind their techniques.

As a child, Gudekar thought she could use the scientific techniques to catch the criminals, and as she grew up that initial goal evolved into working in the lab of Michael Petris in Bond LSC.

Gudekar, originally from Mumbai, India, received her undergraduate study in Mumbai before furthering her education at Mizzou. Gudekar is now a biological sciences graduate student and uses a bit different techniques to understand the effect of copper on the body and its role in diseases. The lab’s main focus is understanding the micronutrient copper and how changes in its utilization and distribution could result in a disease.

“I am currently working on discovering novel genes involved in copper metabolism,” Gudekar said. “We have created a unique cell line that lacks important genes related to copper homeostasis. These cells are very sensitive to even low levels of copper. Using a genome-wide CRISPR deletion, we have identified a novel gene that allows the sensitive cells to now live in copper. It is very exciting that we have made this discovery. Now I am dedicated to understanding the molecular mechanism of how this gene regulates copper homeostasis”

During her years in the Petris lab she has discovered breakthroughs in the world of copper-related research that could have wide applications in understanding important diseases.

“Considering my project, it is kind of a great when you delete or express something in the cell that makes them survive,” Gudekar said. “Survival is the best outcome you can get when you are trying to discover novel genes in a particular system. With this system in place, we are poised to identify many more genes involved in copper homeostasis.”

Copper isn’t an vitamin or mineral that comes to mind when like the zinc, vitamin D or calcium you see in supplements in the grocery store, but it’s essential for life and plays a role in many processes within cells.

“Copper is a trace metal, and if copper dependent enzymes in your cells do not get enough of it, there are a handful of diseases that occur,” Gudekar said. “A mutation in ATP7A gene results in Menkes disease in which there is a defect in transporting dietary copper to different organs in the body.”

Menkes disease is a genetic disorder that results in poor uptake and distribution of copper to cells. The incidence of this disease is estimated to be one in 100,000 newborns, according to U.S. National Library of Medicine. Infants with Menkes disease typically begin to develop symptoms during infancy and rarely live past the first few years of life. Abnormally high accumulation of copper in kidneys and low-level accumulation in the liver and brain, cause visible symptoms like sparse hair, loose skin and failure to grow.

After four years researching every day, Gudekar feels like her career is on the path toward what she dreamed about watching her childhood crime shows.

“This research is like hunting in the dark, it’s the unknown,” Gudekar said. “Yet whatever we get we always ask how is it related to copper.”

Hunting in the dark is opposite of boring for Gudekar.

“I like to unravel the things that are unknown,” Gudekar said. “For me, discovering something new is really exciting.”

#IAmScience Monir Shababi

November 2, 2018 By Erica Overfelt in #IAmScience Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch, Monir Shababi

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC

Research Assistant Professor Monir Shababi and mothers of SMARD children started out as friends on Facebook. Now, they’re friends for a lifetime.

It was an unexpected turn for someone who spends most of her professional life in a lab.

SMARD1 is an acronym for the rare genetic neuromuscular disease spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress, which has been the focus of Shababi’s research for the past five years. While it shares part of its name with the better known spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), the disease-causing gene is not the same. Both diseases target the lumbar motor neurons and cause muscle atrophy, diaphragmatic paralysis and respiratory complications are the first and most devastating symptom of SMARD.

“When my first paper about gene therapy for SMARD1 disease was published, a mother of the SMARD child contacted me and she informed other moms about my research,” Shababi said. “I never thought it would happen this way, you never imagine there would be a personal impact with your publications.”

Shababi ran into the obstacle of funding. Her once Facebook friends were there to help Shababi face this drawback.

“Within the second year of my National Institute of Health funding for SMARD1 gene therapy, I discussed the research with the mothers of SMARD kids, Jill Sims and Lisa Porter,” Shababi said. “I told them about the limited funding options in the future. Sims and Porter family were extremely supportive and generous. Dr. Sims and his wife (Jill’s in-laws) donated a large sum of money to Mizzou Give Direct, MU’s crowdfunding website exclusively for my SMARD research, establishing a webpage for donations with the goal of curing SMARD. Their gift changed the course of many lives in the most meaningful way.”

Shababi met the Sims daughter Catherine a few weeks ago. Catherine is five years old and lives with the disease.

“It had the most amazing personal impact on my work, which I was looking all along in my professional life,” Shababi said. “This is not just a job, it is not just research, it is not about publishing papers; it is affecting real lives.”

Shababi — who works with Dr. Chris Lorson at Bond LSC — began her life career in science at the University of Tabriz in Iran studying plant pathology. She moved to America with her husband, who accepted a research job in MU. She then got her masters and Ph.D. through the university, finishing her Ph.D. in Dr. James Schoelz lab studying gene regulation in a plant virus. She then had two postdoctoral positions working on gene regulation in yeast and bacteria.

“My postdoc research on yeast and bacteria was not satisfying enough; I wasn’t feeling the impact on the society that I was looking for,” Shababi said. “I even thought about changing careers until I contacted Dr. Lorson. His research involved hereditary genetic disease in humans and using virus as viral vectors to deliver the missing gene. I thought this research will surely have an impact on human lives. In Lorson’s lab, I found the enthusiasm and passion which led to four funded grants, 18 publications, a book chapter and most importantly, a financial gift to MU.”

Even if Shababi doesn’t get the expected results, every day in the lab is a new victory for her. She has developed a new mouse model for SMARD1 and injects them with the therapeutic virus at different times with different dosages to determine the therapeutic window and proper dosing for the vector. Shababi previously tested only black mice but now tests new white mice born with SMARD.

“As opposed to black mice, these white SMARD mice do not have the genetic modifiers to survive for a long period of time,” Shababi said. “They usually die by day 20, so we administer the gene replacement therapy at different days post birth or different dose and analyze the survival and overall health. Even a few days elongated survival is a huge improvement and you can tell if that time point or dose was still efficient or not.”

To move the research further toward clinical trials, the lab aims to use a more advanced model such as a human primate.

“We are hoping to advance from the mice research to an animal closer to humans,” Shababi said.

With hopeful new advancements in the future, there is only a positive outlook for the future of treatment.

“The pain and suffering of SMARD children and their parents are real and heartbreaking,” Shababi said. “This research builds a foundation for the future clinical trials creating optimism and hope for the SMARD community.”

#IAmScience Will Costigan

October 26, 2018 By Erica Overfelt in #IAmScience Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch, Will Costigan

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC

When Will Costigan came to MU he knew he wanted to do research, but wasn’t sure what exactly.

Costigan joined Freshman Research in Plant Sciences (FRIPS) the first moment he could his freshman year to explore his research options.

“When I started, I didn’t think I was interested in plants very much,” Costigan said. “But after getting some experience working in the lab, I found that plants are more important and complex than I could’ve imagined.”

So, he started working in Scott Peck’s lab a year ago, earlier than many of his peers.

“A benefit to joining a lab early is that I can apply what I have learned in the lab to things I’m doing in the classroom,” Costigan said. “I have been very fortunate that there is so much carry over from the lab to the classroom, so I better understand certain concepts and techniques.”

Costigan started off like most people who are new to a lab. He cleaned the dishes, cared for the plants and learned the knowledge needed to research. The Peck lab studies how plants adapt to changes in their environment and infections.

“My research focuses on the regulation of pattern triggered immunity” Costigan said. “Pattern triggered immunity is a plant’s first line of defense against bacterial pathogens. It allows a plant to recognize an infection and initiate physiological changes that stop the infection from spreading.”

This research has implication for both crop resistance and food security.

“Crop production is very important to sustaining civilization,” Costigan said. “As the population continues to grow, equipping our crops with tools to fight disease will be necessary to maintain food security.”

Costigan understands he may not be directly helping someone, but the impact is there.

“Helping people face-to-face is very important but research enables you to develop something, whether it’s a new technique or principle, that can help people on a larger scale.” said Costigan. “The possibilities are endless. I would definitely say that helping people on a broad scale is something I am very passionate about. Science is a great way to help others.”

Costigan may only be a sophomore but he plans on getting a Ph. D.

“Science definitely takes critical thinking skills, but it’s also something you have to be passionate about,” Costigan said. “I have used my passion to better understand terms and techniques. It is kind of its own language in its self, learning how to talk about it and live it.”

#IAmScience Amanda Blythe

October 19, 2018 By Erica Overfelt in #IAmScience Tags: #IAmScience #MizzouResearch, Amanda Blythe

By Erica Overfelt | Bond LSC

You could credit a high school career fair to Amanda Blythe’s early success or simply luck.

Either way, Blythe was younger than most when her research was first published.

“I found a program at Washington University over the summer before my senior year of high school,” Blythe said. “They gave me a research project at the med school focusing on a rare genetic bone disorder. I did a lot of genetic sequencing looking for mutations, which led me to discovering a novel mutation, and we ended up publishing the data. It was a rare, lucky find.”

This find launched Blythe’s beginnings in the world of science.

“At first I didn’t realize how big it was. They included me on the entire review process, most of which I didn’t understand,” Blythe said. “When I told my mom, she seemed to indicate that it was a big deal, but I still did not completely understand the hype. The more people I told, the more I began to realize how great an honor it was. I felt really humbled. I was a summer student and I was only in high school. There were so many people helping me get on this path, it was surreal.”

Blythe’s path continued, leading her to Paula McSteen’s lab at Bond LSC.

“I showed her my resume, and she just kind of looked at it and asked, ‘How did this happen?’” Blythe said. “She was surprised, I told her how it was about being at the right place at the right time, and she was very impressed. It meant a lot coming from someone with that stature in science.”

Blythe is going on her fourth year in the lab. Currently, she works with specific corn mutants to better understand how to increase crop yield.

“Our lab is really focused on corn development — how it develops and what genes are behind that development,” Blythe said. “In order to do that we look at specific corn mutants. Each mutant will have a specific defect, and by understanding these defects we can better understand the function of important genes for proper development.”

Blythe has narrowed in on a mutant called Suppressor of Sessile Spikelet 3 (Sos3), which produces single instead of the normal paired spikelets. When you look at an Sos3 ear, you can see the gaps between the rows of kernels. Blythe is trying to identify the gene that produces paired spikelets in corn, which could lead to higher yield in other grasses such as rice and wheat.

Blythe sees the importance in creating high yield, but she doesn’t see herself doing plant research for the rest of her life. Blythe pictures herself in pharmaceutical research.

“I love my corn research, but I discovered the long-term end goal wasn’t my passion,” Blythe said. “I found that while writing certain project proposals that I was trying to link my project to public health. My PI even noticed and said I should link the two. So I tried it and discovered disease prevention was my true passion.”

Blythe’s fire for research won’t be burning out anytime soon, and her next published article could be in corn or pharmaceutical research, or even both.

“You know how some people get so excited for their goals? Research has become such a passion and goal for me,” Blythe said. “I have found something I get enjoyment from. From the tight-knit scientific community that I have to the experiences to getting new results, all of it continues to drive me every day.”

1 2