A new project by MSU's Robert Abramovitch uses a biosensor that glows green when the TB bug senses low oxygen. The sensor could lead to new treatments.

For his work on developing new treatments for tuberculosis, a Michigan State University researcher has been named a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Robert Abramovitch of MSU’s Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics is using a synthetic biosensor that glows green in response to conditions that mimic human tuberculosis infection. He will screen for compounds that target chronic TB infection and may help shorten therapy or treat multidrug-resistant TB, which does not respond well to existing antibiotics.

Grand Challenges Explorations funds individuals worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in solving persistent global health and development challenges. Abramovitch’s project is one of more than 100 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 8 grants announced today by the Gates Foundation.

“Grand Challenges Explorations encourages individuals worldwide to expand the pipeline of ideas where creative, unorthodox thinking is most urgently needed,” said Chris Wilson, director of Global Health Discovery and Translational Sciences at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We’re excited to provide additional funding for select grantees so that they can continue to advance their ideas toward global impact.”

To receive funding, Abramovitch and other Grand Challenges Explorations Round 8 winners demonstrated a bold idea in one of five critical global heath and development topic areas that included agriculture development, immunization and nutrition.

“Combating the ongoing tuberculosis epidemic represents one of the major challenges in global health,” said Abramovitch, who has appointments with MSU’s colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Human Medicine, and AgBioResearch. “The required multidrug, six- to nine-month treatment regimen has fueled the emergence of drug-resistant TB, and new treatments are needed to treat this dangerous disease and reduce the overall length of drug therapy.”

To accomplish that, Abramovitch is focusing on an oxygen sensing system naturally occurring in bacteria that the TB bug uses to establish a chronic infection. His project uses a biosensor that glows green when the TB bacterium senses low environmental oxygen, a cue for the bug to infect its host.

By screening more than 250,000 compounds for molecules that prevent TB from “seeing” that cue – essentially blinding the bug – he will find compounds that hinder the disease’s ability to maintain a persistent state and allow drugs to treat the disease quicker.

“Once we identify some of those compounds, we can focus on developing new treatments,” he said.

Launched in 2008, Grand Challenges Explorations is a $100 million initiative funded by the Gates Foundation. More than 600 people in 45 countries have received grants. The program, open to any discipline and organization, uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page online applications and no preliminary data required.

Initial grants of $100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-up grant of up to $1 million.

The award will be formally made to him at the Joint Statistical Meetings, July 28 – August 2, 2012, in San Diego, CA.

This award follows Maiti’s recent naming as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in April 2012.

Maiti is graduate director for MSU’s Department of Statistics and Probability, and came to MSU in 2008.  Maiti earned his degrees from Kalyani University, India, and served as a research fellow at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in India. Prior to joining the MSU faculty, Maiti held faculty positions at Iowa State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

SpartaNature provides incoming freshmen with hands-on experience in the field and in the lab so they can be best prepared for college-level science when they arrive in the fall.

For some freshmen students, their first experience in an MSU lab or classroom will occur a month before they arriving on campus in East Lansing in Fall 2012.

SpartaNature is an intensive 4-day summer program hosted by the College of Natural Science. The program is designed to give freshmen a jump start on fall semester with a small group residential living and learning opportunity. Students earn 2 credits while making friends and experiencing college-level science before the start of Fall semester, and will have a social support group during their first semester in college.

The program is held at MSU’s Kellogg Biological Station and students participate in three intensive science modules during the four days at KBS. Each module is led by an MSU faculty member and provides hands-on experience with authentic scientific inquiry.

During the four days, students gain familiarity with campus life while learning expectations and MSU traditions. Students learn first-hand what to expect in classes and campus living.

The second portion of SpartaNature is completed during the fall semester on campus in East Lansing. Students complete short essays, participate in discussions, and engage in activities that focus on academic and career-planning success. Classes meet on Friday afternoons.

“SpartaNature gives students the tools for a smooth transition to college and success in their science major,” says R. James Kirkpatrick, Dean of the College of Natural Science.

This summer, CNS will host two sessions of the program: July 15-18, 2012, and July 19-22, 2012. During each session, students work in small groups on various laboratory and field projects. In the evenings, all students, faculty, and peer mentors will convene for additional seminars and activities that increase preparation for academic life.

Applications for SpartaNature are being accepted until May 1, 2012. Contact Amy Lark at (517) 884-0385 or visit spartanature.msu.edu for more details.

Students collect bees along the shores of Gull Lake as part of a lab project taught by Assistant Professor Tammy Long.

For more details, visit spartanature.msu.edu.

Michael Gottfried, MSU associate professor of geological sciences, says both branches of the Great Rift Valley are roughly the same age.

The huge changes in the Earth’s crust that influenced human evolution are being redefined, according to research published today in Nature Geoscience.

The Great Rift Valley of East Africa — the birthplace of the human species — may have taken much longer to develop than previously believed.

“We now believe that the western portion of the rift formed about 25 million years ago, and is approximately as old as the eastern part, instead of much younger as other studies have maintained,” said Michael Gottfried, associate professor of geological sciences. “The significance is that the Rift Valley is the setting for the most crucial steps in primate and ultimately human evolution, and our study has major implications for the environmental and landscape changes that form the backdrop for that evolutionary story.”

Gottfried worked with an international team led by Eric Roberts at Australia’s James Cook University who added that the findings have important implications for understanding climate change models, animal evolution and the development of Africa’s unique landscape.

The Rukwa Rift (a segment of the western branch) is an example of a divergent plate boundary, where the Earth’s tectonic forces are pulling plates apart and creating new continental crust. The East African Rift system is composed of two main segments: the eastern branch that passes through Ethiopia and Kenya, and a western branch that forms a giant arc from Uganda to Malawi, interconnecting the famous rift lakes of eastern Africa.

Traditionally, the eastern branch is considered much older, having developed 15 to 25 million years earlier than the western branch.

This study provides new evidence that the two rift segments developed at about the same time, nearly doubling the initiation age of the western branch and the timing of uplift in this region of East Africa.

“A key piece of evidence in this study is the discovery of approximately 25 million-year-old lake and river deposits in the Rukwa Rift that preserve abundant volcanic ash and vertebrate fossils,” Roberts said.

These deposits include some of the earliest anthropoid primates yet found in the rift, added Nancy Stevens of Ohio University.

The findings imply that around 25 to 30 million years ago, the broad uplift of East Africa occurred and re-arranged the flow of large rivers such as the Congo and the Nile to create the distinct landscapes and climates that mark Africa today.

Students in BS110 collect data as part of the Campus Trees Phenology Project developed by Assistant Professor Tammy Long. Photo by Thomas Harpstead.

The journal Science has awarded a biology lab developed for BS110 the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction.

The “Campus Trees Phenology Project”  was developed by Tammy Long, an assistant professor of plant biology, and Sara Wyse, now an assistant professor of biological sciences at Bethel University, as part of the coursework in the class Biological Sciences 110: Organisms and Populations. The Campus Trees module is part of a restructured introductory biology curriculum that involves BS110 students in the process of science rather than a series of preplanned steps.

“Instructors worry so much about having an experiment that’s going to work, but it’s important for students to come up with questions and methods of their own—and to live through some mistakes,” said Long. “That’s really where the richness of the learning comes in.”

The Campus Trees biology lab module inspires students to develop their own research methods. Long, Wyse, and five teaching assistants developed Campus Trees, which became a semester-long study of phenology, or the patterns of recurrent natural events. Phenologic trends can be indicators of environmental change, including climate change. The module uses the citizen science project known as the National Phenology Network as a model and trees on the campus of Michigan State as the living laboratory.

Long says the Campus Trees lab module is as much intended to train students to be science-literate, to understand how science works, as it is a training tool for students who will actually become scientists.  The module is meant to provide usable data and keeps with the philosophy that the research be real.

Long adds that the system of learning in Campus Trees is highly transferable and adaptable to other contexts and types of science research.

The Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction was developed by the journal Science to showcase outstanding materials, usable in a wide range of schools and settings, for teaching introductory science courses at the college level. A corresponding essay by Long and Wyse was published in the February 24, 2012 issue of Science to draw attention to the idea behind Campus Trees.

Organized as one free-standing module, the Campus Trees lab offers real understanding of the nature of science, as well as providing an experience in generating and evaluating scientific evidence. The module encourages students’ natural curiosity about how the world works, rather than to deliver facts and principles about what scientists have already discovered.

More information:

• NEWS RELEASE – Science Magazine Honors Biology Lab that Helps Students Design Research
• ESSAY – A Season for Inquiry: Investigating Phenology in Local Campus Trees
• Details on the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction

Robert Root-Bernstein, physiology professor. Photo by G.L. Kohuth.

Robert Root-Bernstein, professor of physiology, is studying the origin of life at its building blocks and gaining a unique perspective on evolution.

Paleontologists study ancient life and reason that each species is a modification of the previous generation. Geneticists embrace this theory and trace the lineage of genes. Root-Bernstein wondered if there could be another level of paleontology embedded in the molecules that reflect evolution from the earliest stages of life and found in prebiotic chemistry, the study of chemical reactions that may have sparked the beginnings of life.

“By studying modules built from very simple chemicals, I’m hoping that it will lead to an understanding of a molecular paleontology in modern systems,” he said. “Whether it’s a human or a bacterium, we’re all made from the same basic modules that have more than likely been around since the beginning of time.”

For example, one aspect of Root-Bernstein’s research is studying the small glucose binding sequences that occur in all protein and peptides like insulin. Focusing on these basic building blocks could provide new insights into diseases such as diabetes.

Having the characteristic of taking a nontraditional view has helped further Root-Bernstein’s research.

“Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the physiologist who discovered vitamin C, once defined discovery as seeing what everyone else sees and thinking what no one else thinks,” he said. “I often find that phenomena that are obvious to other people are not obvious to me.”

Root-Bernstein’s ability to seek the common chemical building blocks between bacteria and humans formally known as molecular complementarity, is a distinctive view. This shared set of modules could be the basis for the evolution of the chemicals systems on which life is based, he added. It could, in fact, be the essential agent controlling evolution at every level.

“I study molecular complementarity mainly because I’m a pattern seeker, even when I was an undergraduate,” Root-Bernstein said. “I hope to help answer how life evolved to take advantage of molecular complementarity so that the two concepts are virtually synonymous.”

Root-Bernstein presented his research and answered the question of why a physiologist studies the origin of life at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Feb. 16-20, 2012, in Vancouver, British Columbia. For more details about AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society, visit www.aaas.org.

More Information: 

• Read the original news release by Layne Cameron. 

Ainsley and Evan Cummings take part in the “Make a Neuron” booth at the 2012 Neuroscience Fair.

The Neuroscience Program held its second annual Neuroscience Fair and Brain Bee at MSU on Saturday, February 11, 2012. The two events combined for a day of science and exploration on campus in East Lansing.

Brain Bee at MSU

Thirty-six students from high schools around the state participated in the 2012 Brain Bee at MSU, a competition testing neuroscience knowledge.

The high school students prepared by attending workshops hosted by the MSU Neuroscience Program and studying from Brain Facts – a free publication available through the Society for Neuroscience. Competitors were able to dissect sheep brains, make SpikerBoxes to see and hear nerve impulses, learn about diseases from an MSU Osteopathic Medical School student, and participate in a mock bee. The competition consisted of a multiple choice written exam, followed by two verbal question and answer rounds.

Brain Bee at MSU 2012 Winners (left to right): Kenji Golimlim (second place), Sidharth Chand (first place), Katherine Young (third place).

The 2012 Brain Bee at MSU winner was Sidharth Chand, a junior from Detroit Country Day High School. Chand won an all-expenses-paid trip to Baltimore, where he will represent MSU at the National Brain Bee. He also won a summer research internship in a neuroscience lab at MSU and a copy of Purves’ Neuroscience, a medical school textbook.

“Throughout middle school and high school, I participated in a variety of competitions, including local fairs and Olympiads of various sorts, in order to cultivate my passion for all subjects scientific,” Chand said.

The second place winner was Kenji Golimlim, a junior from Summit Academy North High School. The third place winner was Katherine Young, a sophomore from Detroit Country Day.

Neuroscience Fair

Nearly 400 guests participated in the Neuroscience Fair in the atrium of the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building. They stopped to touch brains, make neurons, examine the effects of caffeine on neuronal activity, and most importantly, experience the fun and excitement of neuroscience.

Children and adults took part in the numerous booths that were manned by MSU Neuroscience Program student volunteers. They tricked their taste buds by eating a “Miracle Berry” pill, which causes sour items to activate sweet taste receptors, and learned about the importance of head protection by making helmets for eggs.

Participants for the 2012 Brain Bee competition.

Associate Professor Anne Dorrance brought her daughters Sarah, 5, and Megan, 3, to the fair. “Megan had a neuron drawn on her face,” said Dorrance. “We went to the store after the fair, and at the checkout the workers asked what was on her face. I was so proud when she announced loud and clear it was a neuron.”

Brighton resident and MSU alumna Jennifer Cummings attended the Neuroscience Fair for the first time along with her husband and two children. “The kids had a great time at all the demonstrations, and especially loved making their own neurons,” Cummings said. “I’m so glad they offer something like this for the public and recommend it to families with kids of all ages!”

The Neuroscience Fair also included an Art Competition. Middle and high school students had to choose a neuroscience-related news article and use the content to inspire their creations. Alexandria Dziuban from Valley Lutheran High School in Saginaw won the high school division and Madison Tarnowski from Northeast Middle School in Midland won the middle school division.

Mark Your Calendar for the 2013 Brain Bee at MSU and Neuroscience Fair

The 2013 Brain Bee at MSU competition and Neuroscience Fair will be held on Saturday, January 12. For more information on the Brain Bee at MSU and Neuroscience Fair, visit www.brainbeemsu.com or follow Brain Bee at MSU on Facebook and Twitter.

The MSU Neuroscience Program faculty and graduate students take great pride in their outreach efforts. In addition to the annual Brain Bee at MSU and Neuroscience Fair, the program also visits local schools each March during Brain Awareness Week and volunteers for local science fairs, the annual Girl’s Math and Science Conference, and the Prime Time Seniors Program. For more info on the Neuroscience Program, visit www.neuroscience.msu.edu.

Written by Casey L. Henley, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate

2012 highlights:

•  2012 Photo Album
• Lansing State Journal, February 12, 2012: Kids explore brain’s mysteries at MSU
• The State News, February 12, 2012: Neuroscience fair adds fun to education

Thomas Hamann

Tom Hamann, assistant professor of chemistry, has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship. The two-year fellowships are awarded yearly by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to 118 early-career scientists in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.

His research interests in inorganic materials and electrochemistry of energy conversion and storage revolve around the theme of developing and characterizing nano-structured materials, coupled with detailed investigations of interfacial electron-transfer processes for solar energy conversion applications.

Hamann joined the MSU faculty in 2008 and is also the recipient of a 2011 US Department of Energy Early Career Research Award.

Hamann is also investigating controlling material composition and architecture at the nanometer length scale, understanding the surface/interface properties and tuning heterogeneous electron-transfer reaction kinetics to allow for rapid advances of the capture, conversion and storage of solar energy.

Sloan Research Fellowships were established in 1955 to provide support and recognition to scientists, often in their first appointments to university faculties, who were endeavoring to set up laboratories and establish their independent research projects with little or no outside support. Selection procedures for the Sloan Research Fellowships are designed to identify those who show the most outstanding promise of making fundamental contributions to new knowledge.

Anthony Kendall, a post doctoral researcher in the hydrogeology lab, presented the findings of the sedimentation study to the Friends of the Jordan Watershed in November. Photo by Michael Steger.

For alumnus Anthony Kendall, what started out as a career leaning toward physics and mechanical engineering has evolved into several years of environmental research spanning everything from water resources in the High Plains to Brook trout in Northern Michigan’s Jordan River.

As an undergraduate honors student at Michigan State, Kendall was majoring in mechanical engineering and astrophysics when he became involved in geology as a Professorial Assistant for David Hyndman. The Kalamazoo native was quickly immersed in the research in the Hydrogeology Lab and was soon hooked.

“I found myself doing a lot of the same things in geology that I was doing in astrophysics and engineering,” says Kendall. “It is all fundamental physical behavior, application and analysis.”

After graduating with a dual major bachelors degree, Kendall stayed in East Lansing where he earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Geosciences in 2009. He is continuing his post-doctoral work in the hydrogeology lab where, in the twelve years Kendall and Hyndman have worked together, Kendall has seen the research grow as the team works on several different grants.

In addition to the High Plains aquifer research started in 2010, the group is also working on grants from NASA, NOAA and the EPA.

Northern Michigan’s Jordan River Watershed

The group recently completed a 5-year study of Northern Michigan’s Jordan River Watershed to determine why the river was choked with sand and how this was affecting the Brook trout and other species. Kendall presented their findings in November during a public presentation to the Friends of the Jordan River Watershed.

The research found three primary factors influenced the sand load in the Jordan River. The findings showed that when the water level of the Great Lakes goes down, more sand flows into the harbor. An unmanaged beaver population in the state forest also plays a role as fallen trees disrupt the sand movement down river. Another factor is persisting long-term effects of logging in the region.

“The region continues to feel the echoes of logging done by past generations,” says Kendall. “The logging disturbed the armored bed in the river, which simply takes a long time to heal.”

Some of the methods used in the Jordan River research are also being applied in a NASA grant involving the hydrogeology lab as well as researchers at the University of Michigan and Michigan Tech. Together, they are examining how watersheds influence coastal wetlands in the Lower Peninsula. The research shows how nitrogen and phosphorus help spread invasive species. The findings will provide a model of how the nutrients move across the landscape.

Building A Model of Water Flow

As part of the 4-year grant, Kendall and postdoctoral researcher Sherry Martin have been leading a group of students across Michigan to sample stream flow, collect samples and install monitors.

“We are sampling more than 80% of the water flowing out of the Lower Peninsula as well as parts of Northern Ohio and Indiana,” says Kendall.

The team of post-docs and students conducted synoptic sampling – collecting data from many sites over a short period of time – on three different occasions last year. They spent nine days in the field during a base flow period in the fall, during the snow melt period in Spring and during the early growing season in the Summer.

Along with MSU collaborators in geography and zoology, they are working to develop a complete model of water flow to help determine policy and decisions to control the nutrient levels.
Kendall finds the work exciting, yet is even more excited by the trajectory of growth seen in the hydrogeology lab and the department.

“The research continues to build and each semester we have more capacity for students. The lab has grown and we are continuing to recruit more people to help with this important research” says Kendall.

More Information:

• The MSU Hydrogeology Lab
• High Plains aquifer research
• Anthony Kendall’s presentation to the Friends of the Jordan Watershed on November 7, 2011 at the East Jordan Library is in a 4-part video series on the Friends of the Jordan Watershed website.

Written by Michael Steger. This story was originally published in the Department of Geological Sciences Alumni Newsletter, February 2012.

Covance has a strong track record of hiring MSU graduates and they are especially interested in meeting students majoring in:

• biochemistry,
• biomedical laboratory diagnostics,
• chemistry,
• microbiology,
• food science,
• nutritional science, and
• other related science majors.

The presentations are open to all students (not just seniors) who are considering a career or internship with Covance. Pizza, prizes and other treats will be provided.

Presentations for All Science Students

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012
11:00am
1400 Biomedical & Physical Sciences Building

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012
10:30am
1310 Anthony Hall

Presentations for BLD Students

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012
4:00pm
1310 Anthony Hall

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012
9:00am
1310 Anthony Hall

Visit the website http://careers.covance.com/meetus to vote on which presenter you would most like to hear and sign up for other special perks.

About Covance

Covance is one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive drug development services companies with more than 11,000 employees in 60 countries. Through its nonclinical, clinical and commercialization services, Covance has helped pharmaceutical and biotech companies develop one-third of all prescription medicines in the market today.