All posts by: Sarah Hansen, M.S. '15

UMBC Meyerhoff Scholars replications at Penn State, UNC show notable success in first four years

UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program has been lauded as a national model for supporting diverse students in STEM fields. Other institutions across the United States have begun to ask if UMBC’s approach could work for them. A new paper published in Science answers that question with a resounding “yes.”

Since its inception in 1989, UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program has graduated 739 students with undergraduate degrees in science and engineering, with 76 percent continuing on to graduate or professional programs in STEM. Meyerhoff alumni have earned 300 Ph.D. degrees, 130 M.D. degrees, 54 M.D.-Ph.D. degrees, and 253 master’s degrees to date, and hundreds more are currently pursuing graduate degrees.

Culture shift

While these high achieving, research-focused students are more likely than the average student to go on to a graduate degree, research has shown that their UMBC experience has had a major impact on their trajectories. Highly qualified students who were offered admission to the program but opted to attend other universities were half as likely to graduate with a STEM undergraduate degree and about five times less likely to pursue a graduate degree in STEM than those who accepted the offer to join the Meyerhoff Scholars Program.

The program has also resulted in a culture shift that supports the success of underrepresented students in STEM who are not Meyerhoff Scholars, and has informed the creation of similar scholars programs at UMBC focused on other fields.

With all these positive results, the major question became: Is the Meyerhoff Scholars Program inherently unique to UMBC, with its charismatic African American president, status as a historically diverse institution that has welcomed students of all races from its founding, and location in a region rich in diversity? Or could similar programs be implemented at very different institutions with similar success?

A man and woman wearing lab coats and goggles work in a lab, inspecting samples.

Shared commitment

The new paper in Science, led by Mariano R. Sto. Domingo, associate director of research and evaluation with the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, reveals findings from the first four years of a five-year initiative to adapt the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at Pennsylvania State University at University Park and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

While strikingly different in some ways, these three institutions now share a commitment to all components of Meyerhoff-style programs. These include intensive advising, immersive transition activities the summer before the students’ first semester of college, institutional leadership that makes the program a priority, training for faculty and staff, and other components.

Findings from Penn State’s Millennium Scholars program and UNC’s Chancellor’s Science Scholars program show exciting success at an accelerated pace, with students achieving the project’s goals at a level on par with the success of recent Meyerhoff cohorts. For example, retention in STEM among the Penn State and UNC cohorts was similar to that of current Meyerhoff Scholars. Additionally, the average GPAs and four-year graduation rates of the first Penn State and UNC cohorts exceeded that of the first four Meyerhoff cohorts, in the early 1990s. These findings are especially encouraging, because the locations, historical leadership, and student bodies at these institutions look very different than they do at UMBC.

Findings also suggest benefits for students of all backgrounds—including, but not limited to, the 65 to 80 percent of program participants who are from underrepresented groups in STEM. At all three institutions, students in the program had higher GPAs and were more likely to stay in STEM majors than classmates who did not participate in the program, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or gender.

Naomi Mburu '18 works in the lab with faculty mentor.

Laying the groundwork

“These findings confirm that Meyerhoff-like programs and student outcomes can be achieved elsewhere, even at institutions very different from UMBC,” says Michael Summers, Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in Research and Mentoring and Distinguished University Professor at UMBC.

Based on the promise of this adaptation, other universities have begun exploring Meyerhoff-like programs, with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative recently announcing a massive replication effort in University of California system. “It is my hope that this initial effort has laid the groundwork for partnership expansion with an even broader range of institutions,” Summers says.  

With the impressive results just published in Science, Summers notes, “The high level of success achieved at UNC Chapel Hill and Penn State should now show all institutions that inclusive excellence is an achievable priority, regardless of the institution’s size, location, and history. Success was dependent on the willingness of institutions to partner together and learn from each other.”

Learn more about the Meyerhoff Scholars Program.

Banner image: Eudorah Vital ’18, a Meyerhoff Scholar and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholar and the 2018 UMBC valedictorian, hugs President Hrabowski after giving her remarks at commencement. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC labs share four essentials for undergraduate research success

Undergraduate research at UMBC is booming. As Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) approaches, students across campus are preparing talks and posters on their projects with the support of faculty and graduate student mentors. Some have presented before at national and international conferences. For others, URCAD (on April 24, 2019) will be their debut on the scientific stage.

So, what creates a culture where undergraduate research thrives? Here, students and mentors across different UMBC labs share four factors they think shape the student research experience.

#1 Encourage independence to build identity as a researcher

In collaboration with their mentors, UMBC students design and implement creative and challenging research projects that directly contribute to the research mission of the lab. That independence, and the trust their mentors and labmates place in their work, contributes to the students’ development of an identity as scientific researchers.

Building confidence

Caroline Larkin ’18, M26, bioinformatics, has been working with Daniel Lobo, assistant professor of biological sciences, since April 2016. When they first met, they discussed their research interests and created a project for her that merged them together. Since then, she’s been using machine learning to define how different kinds of cells in cancerous tumors interact, because some of those interactions can lead to tumor collapse.

Left to right: Joy Roy ’19, bioinformatics and mathematics, Daniel Lobo, Caroline Larkin, and Eric Cheung. They’re looking at images of planaria. Lobo lab members use machine learning to study its gene expression patterns and regeneration ability.

At first, Larkin found herself darting across the hall to ask Lobo questions frequently, but he eventually advised her to sit with her challenges for a bit first. While Lobo is still available for the tough questions, “Now I believe in myself more,” Larkin says. “I know I’m capable of fixing something in my code, for example. I give it time before I ask for help.”

“It’s my philosophy to give the undergrads an independent project that they can own,” says Lobo, with the eventual goal being that they each become first authors on a scientific paper.

Larkin is a Meyerhoff and MARC Scholar, and those programs “have really shaped my identity as a scientist, and Dr. Lobo has fueled the validation of that feeling,” she says. “I’ve always been told I was going to become a scientist, but actually doing research with Dr. Lobo has really made me feel like one.”

This fall, Larkin will continue her scientific career as a Ph.D. student in the joint computational biology program at Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh University.

Tackling impostor syndrome

Ruben Delgado, assistant research scientist in the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology at UMBC, instills the same kind of independence in his students. Meredith Sperling ’19, mechanical engineering and mathematics, says, “Every undergraduate has a project that they can define when they first start and then fine tune it as they move along. Graduate students and Ruben are great at providing guidance, pointing out possible pitfalls, etc., but at the end of the day it’s really our research and where we want to take it.”

Members of the Delgado research group discuss a data set. Left to right: Jenna Westfall, Wambugu Kironji, Ruben Delgado, Meredith Sperling.

Sperling’s labmate Julianna Posey ’19, mechanical engineering, says she has dealt with impostor syndrome as a female engineer, but in the Delgado lab, “both your peers and your professors take you seriously,” Posey says. “And that’s pretty uplifting.”

Jenna Westfall ’20, computer science, has enjoyed the opportunity to apply her coding skills to environmental science questions. “Looking at a problem in the real world and having to come up with my own way to tackle it has helped me professionally,” she says, “and I’m grateful to be able to work on something that benefits the lab directly.”

“This really is my project”

Kevin Chen ’19, M27, biological sciences, and Jeffrey Inen ’18, biological sciences, have become experts on their projects in Chuck Bieberich’s lab. After being mentored by Ph.D. student Apurv Rege, Chen is now the resident authority on some of the mouse lines the lab needs for its cancer research.

“When people started asking me about what’s going on with a mouse line, instead of asking the graduate student, it made me think, ‘Wow, this really is my project, and people are asking me for knowledge about it because I’m the primary source for that knowledge,” Chen shares. “I think the independence we’re given in the laboratory gives you that ownership and that feeling of being a researcher.”

Jeffrey Inen works in the lab with mentor Michelle Starz-Gaiano.

This fall, Chen will take that expertise to Emory University. He’s committed to their Ph.D. program in cancer biology, where he’ll expand upon his work with Bieberich.

“He gives us a lot of independence, and I think that’s where I’ve been able to learn the most,” Inen adds. “When Dr. Bieberich starts to come to us for the answers on projects and what he needs to know for his next presentation, it makes me feel like I really belong in the lab.”

For Bieberich, investing time in his undergraduate researchers is a win-win. “As our research program has grown, it’s opened up opportunities to bring undergrads into key roles,” he says. “Having undergraduates in the lab has extended our capability to ask more complex questions than we would otherwise take on.”

#2 Support from every angle enables students to shine

Mentors who are available when you need them, understand the rigorous demands of an undergraduate science career, and can be flexible and supportive when life happens are invaluable for students deciding whether they want to start or continue in research. At UMBC, mentors proactively extend a hand to ensure their students’ success.

Jeff Inen (center) with Chuck Bieberich and Michelle Starz-Gaiano.

Investing time and care

“What I really like about Dr. Lobo is that he’s invested a lot of time into me and my project,” Larkin shares. “I know I can have an honest conversation with him when I’m struggling with something.” For Larkin, that’s included an unexpected diagnosis that left her bedridden for months. Uncertain when she would be able to return to research, Lobo was understanding and welcomed her back when she was ready.

Chen and Inen have had similar experiences with Bieberich. During a serious rough patch, “Dr. B. sat down with me and asked, ‘How can I help you?’ and we worked out a plan for him to help me through that tough time,” Chen shares. And when Inen was in the hospital for almost a week, “Dr. B. came to visit me every day,” Inen remembers. “He definitely goes above and beyond.”

On a more regular basis, “Whenever I need anything, I can just go to Dr. Bieberich and ask,” Inen says. “He’s very open to [students] coming up to him at any time, whether it’s about something in the lab or outside of the lab.” Chen agrees, sharing, “Dr. B is very supportive of everything in my personal life and in the laboratory.”

Exposure to new possibilities

Support can also come in the form of encouraging students to pursue interests beyond what they would normally consider. “The thing that I’ve always appreciated about this lab is that it’s an outlet for me to explore things outside of my engineering program,” Posey, in the Delgado lab, shares. “I’ve always been interested in meteorology and the atmosphere, and I feel like I’ve developed more of a passion for protecting the Earth.”

Meredith Sperling (left) and Jenna Westfall (center) work together in the Delgado lab.

Delgado sees expanding students’ horizons as a major part of his role. “It’s about making them aware that they have the capacity to go beyond their own expectations and imagination,” he says. “From my own personal experience, I’m where I am because during my undergrad others provided me opportunities to conduct research. Now I’m paying it forward.”

And while he pushes them toward their potential, Westfall, Posey, and Sperling all agree that Delgado understands the demands of undergraduate life. If they need to take a short break due to a spate of exams or a family situation, there’s understanding in the lab. Between being there for emergencies and supporting students through the routine challenges of being an undergrad, UMBC mentors like Lobo, Delgado, and Bieberich create an environment where expectations are high, but flexibility exists as well.

#3 It’s all about communication

As mentors help students prepare to share their work in venues like URCAD, they also help them understand why the ability to explain research is essential for a successful career in science.

Keeping your eye on the goal

In Delgado’s lab, the message has gotten through to Julianna Posey. “The communication part of research is one of the most important parts,” she says. “You should be able to explain your research to somebody as if they’re your younger sibling. And if you can’t do that, then why are you doing it?”

With Delgado’s guidance, Posey has presented at the American Meteorological Society’s annual conference, the National Ambient Air Monitoring Conference sponsored by the EPA, and URCAD. Next year she’ll continue her atmospheric research in UMBC’s master’s program in mechanical engineering.

Meredith Sperling agrees on the benefits of communicating one’s research. “When you work on a project every day, it’s easy to get lost in the numbers,” she says. “But to be able to take a step back and succinctly present your project on a poster within ten minutes, that really keeps you on the path to achieving something that’s ultimately worthwhile, because it forces you to keep your eye on the end goal.” In particular, she says, “URCAD is important because we get to show our work to the community here at UMBC and show how we fit in.”

Julianna Posey and Wambugu Kironji ’19, computer science, work with an instrument that measures concentrations of particles in liquids and gases in the Delgado lab.

Getting past the fear factor

As valuable as it is, making a first presentation can be intimidating. That’s why Lobo has his students practice at weekly lab meetings. An opportunity to get feedback from trusted colleagues in a supportive setting builds confidence. So, “By the time URCAD arrives,” Lobo says, “they have presented their research ten times already, and they are not so afraid of presenting.”

It’s worked for Eric Cheung ’19, biochemistry and molecular biology, who works with Lobo. “Presenting is not really a foreign thing to me now,” he says. Plus, Lobo requires all lab members to ask at least one question following presentations. “That drove my research,” Cheung says, “to always ask one more question.”

Caroline Larkin, working in Lobo’s lab, has also benefited from gaining experience sharing her work. She and Jamshaid Shahir ‘18, mathematics and statistics, were the only two undergraduates to present at the international Winter Q-Bio conference in 2018.

#4 Diversity makes lab groups more effective

By welcoming students from all backgrounds and encouraging open communication among lab members, mentors set the stage for a research environment that is open to questions from all perspectives. That diversity in the lab benefits both students’ individual development and the research progress a lab can make.

Same questions, different tools

Lobo’s lab group includes computer scientists, biologists, and mathematicians, among other majors. That diversity benefits the work. “It’s not like the computer scientist is doing computer science, and the mathematician is doing math. Everybody is trying to answer a biological question, with different tools.”

Members of the Lobo research group connect in the lab. From left to right: Eric Cheung, Joy Roy, Daniel Lobo, and Caroline Larkin.

Also, one of Lobo’s goals as a mentor is “to help students understand how science is made.” By working in an interdisciplinary team, they get a flavor for research as teamwork and the importance of approaching scientific questions from different perspectives. As a result, Lobo says, “They are going to be people who know how science works, and that can only benefit science.”

Valuing diversity

Chen and Inen both shared how much they value the diversity among the students in Bieberich’s lab, across gender, race and ethnicity, religion, language, and hometown (or country). For example, Inen is Catholic, and has valued a friendship and conversations he’s had with a female Muslim student in the lab, even attending her mosque for services. Chen identifies as atheist and feels equally comfortable in the lab.

“I look for undergraduates who are eager, bright, dedicated, and willing to put their heart and soul into a project,” Bieberich says. The makeup of the lab “just shows that those characteristics come from everywhere.”

“People from diverse backgrounds are drawn to this lab, because everyone knows Dr. B. is so friendly and kind,” says Chen. “It’s created this environment in the lab where we all learn from each other.” Inen agrees, saying, “We can talk about our differences, and it brings us all together.”

“If everyone recognizes that they’re all doing an essential part of a project that’s addressing a much larger problem, then it’s easy to step up to help each other out,” Bieberich says. “The only way we will succeed is as a team.”

For information about when these students, their labmates, and students from across all departments at UMBC are presenting at URCAD, see the full URCAD schedule.

Banner image: Undergraduate members of the Delgado research group at work. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC researchers invent creative approach to remove dangerous pollutant from waterways

UMBC professors Kevin Sowers and Upal Ghosh have advanced a new technique to eliminate PCBs—one of the most persistent, pervasive, and dangerous chemical pollutants found in waterway sediments. Their innovative, environmentally-friendly approach, published in Environmental Science and Technology, resulted in reducing PCBs by over 50 percent in treated areas.

Sowers, a professor of marine biotechnology, and Ghosh, a professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering, had been working on PCB removal separately for years. Only recently did they realize their separate efforts could be combined to create a new, more-effective way to get rid of dangerous PCBs, even in ecologically sensitive or hard-to-reach areas, such as around piers and in fragile wetlands. Sowers and Ghosh have now formed a company, Rembac Environmental, to help bring their process to more areas that need PCB remediation.

From required to “remove it!”

PCBs were used extensively as fire retardants—and even required in some products—until they were banned in the U.S. in 1979 because of findings suggesting they might be neurotoxic, disrupt animals’ endocrine systems, and possibly cause cancer. Despite the fact that the ban has been in place for decades, PCBs still persist in sediments around the country, including in Chesapeake Bay. In the Mid-Atlantic, PCBs are the second most common reason for public advisories against consuming fish, just behind mercury.

“If they were to be left alone, PCBs would be in the sediments for decades, and depending on the level it could be a century,” says Sowers. “They’re very stable,” he adds. “That was their selling point.”

The best techniques to deal with PCBs are dredging, which physically removes the PCBs from the area (along with loads of sediment), and capping, which involves piling gravel on top of the sediment to keep the PCBs from interacting with aquatic life above. While each method has its place in the fight against PCB contamination, both are extremely costly, cannot be deployed in ecologically sensitive areas, and are not always effective.

People have tried for decades to develop and sell methods to remove PCBs from sediments biologically. Microorganisms that can break down PCBs occur naturally in sediment, and most efforts have focused on encouraging their populations to grow by adding cocktails of nutrients. None of those prior efforts worked especially well, and Sowers remembers hearing repeatedly that biological removal of PCBs was impossible, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up on the idea.

Never give up

“The technology itself started in the 1980s,” Sowers says, when officials were trying to show that naturally-occurring microbes alone could take care of PCBs in the Hudson River. The effort was not successful, because scientists couldn’t identify the specific microbes doing the work. In the mid-1990s, Sowers and another collaborator, Hal May at the Medical University of South Carolina, identified the species, and soon after that, they developed a method for growing them in the lab without sediment.

“Once we could isolate them, we could study them. We learned enough about them to scale them up and inject them back into sediment,” he says. And finally, about nine years ago, “We found that if we added them in high numbers, we could get rid of the PCBs.” Bingo.

Well, almost. Sowers was still delivering the PCB-eating microbes to sediment set up in the lab. How could he inject the microbes over huge bodies of water in the real world?

Sowers’s microbes need to enter the sediment and settle there, not float around in the water. He needed a delivery method that was safe for sensitive areas, relatively quick, and ideally much less expensive than dredging or capping.

Collaboration opens doors

In parallel with Sowers’s work, Ghosh had also been working for years on PCB remediation, but he’d taken a different approach. He had developed pellets made of activated carbon. When the pellets enter the sediment, they bond tightly to PCBs.

“It doesn’t eliminate the PCBs, but it reduces the risk of PCBs getting into the food chain,” he explains. This, in turn, reduces the danger to aquatic life, and the need for fish consumption advisories.

Because carbon is one of the key building blocks of all life, it also wasn’t a significant environmental threat. Ghosh founded a company called Sediment Solutions to produce the pellets, known as SediMite. But it wasn’t until Ghosh and Sowers met that they realized their projects could complement each other.

“Working together allowed us to see the bottlenecks,” Ghosh says.

One breakthrough for the new team was figuring out why the naturally occurring PCB-eaters weren’t enough to have a substantial impact in bodies of water. As an environmental engineer, Ghosh dived into examining the energy balance in the sediment environment, and found it just wouldn’t facilitate growth of those populations in large enough numbers. “You need the microbes in higher levels to see PCB degradation happen in months, and not decades or centuries,” he explains.

With that realization, they began to see the tremendous potential of their partnership. Sowers could produce the microbes that could eliminate PCBs, and Ghosh had pellets that would settle into the sediment—a novel delivery mechanism for the microbes. “When we started working and talking together, we realized, ‘I can solve your problem and you can solve my problem,’” Ghosh says.

Scaling up

Their new publication is the result of the first field trial of the new combined technology. Sowers and Ghosh found a way to bind the microbes to the pellets, and sprayed them into a polluted body of water on the Quantico Marine Corps Base, which drains into the Potomac River. The Department of Defense funded the trial as part of its commitment to clean up PCB contamination at military bases.

The experiment was a success, showing not only that the method is effective at removing PCBs, but also that it didn’t negatively impact the local environment in any detectable way. Ghosh and Sowers also found that the plot treated with the combined microbes and pellets showed a greater reduction in PCBs than a plot treated with the carbon pellets alone. This is the first concrete evidence that a biological approach to removing PCBs can work if delivered in the right way.

Ghosh and Sowers hope the technique will become popular for use in sensitive and hard-to-reach areas. For now, their company is working with another biotech firm to produce the microbes at large scale, but as they take on more remediation projects, they hope to expand their company and start growing the organisms themselves, Sowers says.

It’s taken a long time to get to this point, partly because environmental work of this sort is scrutinized so heavily, “for good reasons,” Ghosh says. But now, Sowers adds, “The most exciting thing is seeing it out there in the field.”

Banner image: Kevin Sowers (left) and Upal Ghosh in Sowers’s lab at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars model heads to UC Berkeley and UCSD through a $6.9M investment from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

“The key to accelerating discoveries in science or the next tech breakthrough will be dependent on our ability to bring fresh perspectives to STEM fields,” says Priscilla Chan, co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). Now, CZI has turned to UMBC for a model of how to make that happen.

CZI announced today that it has awarded $6.9 million to support a unique partnership to replicate UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley.

“California’s openness to new ways of thinking is what has made this state an innovation engine for the world,” says Chan. “With these new grants, we hope to help bring even more diversity of perspective and experience to our state—and to Silicon Valley.”

The UMBC Meyerhoff program, founded in 1989, is recognized as one of the most effective models in the nation to help engage and retain underrepresented students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in STEM fields. Program participants have already earned 300 Ph.D. degrees, 130 M.D. degrees, 54 M.D.-Ph.D. degrees, and 253 master’s degrees. Hundreds more are currently pursuing graduate degrees.

A man and woman wearing lab coats and goggles work in a lab, inspecting samples.

These achievements are particularly striking in a national context. UMBC graduates more African American students who go on to earn dual M.D.-Ph.D. degrees than any other college in the U.S.—a credit to the Meyerhoff program model. UMBC is also second in the nation when it comes to graduating African American students who go on to earn a Ph.D. in any STEM field.

A thrilling combination

“It is truly thrilling to think about the national and global impact the Meyerhoff Scholars Program will have through partnerships like this,” says Michael Summers, Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in Research and Mentoring and Distinguished University Professor at UMBC. “By working together we can help shape the future of our national Ph.D. pipeline, with inclusive excellence as a core shared value of our work.”

The University of California system is the largest undergraduate and graduate educator of underrepresented and low-income students in the country within the Association of American Universities, and UC Berkeley and UC San Diego are major sources of top talent for Silicon Valley and STEM fields more broadly.

The CZI support announced today will enable UC San Diego and UC Berkeley to apply many of the strategies successfully used at UMBC. These include outreach to high achieving underrepresented high school students, robust research experiences, team learning, peer counseling, intensive advising, preparation in the summer before matriculation, and engagement with students’ families.

Informed by UMBC’s own approach to measuring the impact of student support initiatives, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley will provide rigorous data to measure the effects of their new programs over the five-year grant period. In this way, they hope to determine what approaches work best to create a welcoming and supportive environment for underrepresented groups, and ultimately to improve education for all in STEM fields.

As UMBC recognizes, these findings can also help a university support students beyond STEM, in any field, as they work to discover and fulfill their potential.

Extending community

UMBC Meyerhoff alumni pursuing graduate degrees at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego are particularly excited to see this new partnership grow.

University president hugs undergraduate commencement speaker in congratulations following her remarks, while colleagues clap, all in graduation attire.

“Seeing a version of the program come to Berkeley is exciting because it means there is another initiative to increase the support for students of color. It means building and extending the community that wants to see us in academic spaces,” says Robyn Jasper ‘17, M25, biological sciences, who is currently a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley in plant and microbial biology.

“Being a Meyerhoff Scholar has connected me and continues to connect me with advocates for my personal growth and institutional change,” she shares.

Rockford “Rocky” Sison ‘13, M21, mathematics, a current Ph.D. candidate in applied mathematics at Berkeley, feels similarly. “As an alum of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, I’m so excited to see other programs spring up across the country,” they share. “It means a lot to me that more students will receive the type of financial, professional, and emotional support I received as an undergraduate. Ideally, every student would get this level of support.”

For Sison, “being a Meyerhoff Scholar meant that I hit the ground running in college.” The Summer Bridge program before their first year and subsequent programming meant “I knew what internships were, office hours weren’t as scary because I knew a couple faculty members, and I was friends with a bunch of people that would also be in my classes.”

Sison carries on that legacy of support, sharing, “When I graduated from UMBC, being a Meyerhoff Scholar meant that I was dedicated to paying it forward, and I had a sprawling network of people with the same commitment.”

Now, UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program model will reach more people than ever before, reshaping the future of STEM in California and the nation, and unlocking new opportunities for students.

Featured image: Naomi Mburu ’18, chemical engineering, a Meyerhoff Scholar and UMBC’s first Rhodes Scholar. She is now studying nuclear engineering at Oxford. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Biology graduate students from UMBC earn national honors for unique aquatic research

Colorful mantis shrimps and freshwater darter fish took the spotlight at the recent annual meeting of the Society for Integrative Biology (SICB) in Tampa, Florida. UMBC biological sciences Ph.D. candidates Ricky Patel, Alice Chou, and Natalie Roberts, who study these intriguing creatures, earned four of the top student prizes awarded at the meeting, bringing well-earned attention to their own research and UMBC’s strong graduate programs.

Patel received the best student paper award for the Division of Neurobiology, Neuroethology, and Sensory Biology, and the best student oral presentation award from The Crustacean Society. Roberts was a finalist for the best student paper award for the Division of Animal Behavior. Chou received an honorable mention for the best student oral presentation from The Crustacean Society.

Quirky critters

Chou and Patel are studying mantis shrimp—small, colorful crustaceans that are “usually famous for two reasons: their very complex visual system and their very ballistic strike,” says Chou.

Patel is figuring out how mantis shrimp navigate to and from holes they call home. His inventive project has shown that at any point in time, a mantis shrimp can measure the most direct path back to its starting location—a skill humans can’t claim.

Ricky Patel with his outdoor experimental setup.

Chou is learning more about a region of the mantis shrimp brain called the central complex, which combines sensory information to help the animal decide what to do next. While much of the mantis shrimp changes drastically as it develops “from a weird little scrunchy larva to a big punching adult,” Chou recently discovered that one part of the central complex doesn’t change much at all. Now she’s asking why.

Roberts studies freshwater fish called darters. It’s common for multiple darter species to live in the same area, leading evolutionary biologists like Tamra Mendelson, professor of biological sciences, to wonder how they prevent interbreeding. Scientists had long assumed that female choice was the dominant driver, but Roberts and other students in Mendelson’s lab have shown that males are “probably much more important than we anticipated” in preventing interbreeding, Roberts says.

Independent thought

Chou and Patel both work closely with Tom Cronin, professor of biological sciences, and greatly value his approach to mentorship—encouraging them to take ownership over their work and pursue the questions that drive their passion for research. “My main philosophy is if graduate students are going to be successful career scientists, then they need to be able to work without a lot of direction,” Cronin says.

That attitude “fosters incredible independence,” says Patel. “I think we’re pretty strong at this point,” he adds, “because we had to work hard to establish exactly what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it.”

Giving his students the freedom to explore their interests and choose a thesis project independently sometimes means they choose topics outside Cronin’s own wheelhouse, as in Chou’s case. Even so, she says, “He’s been trying as hard as he can to get me the resources I need to answer the questions I want to ask.”

Mendelson, too, works to ensure her graduate students leave her lab as confident and experienced independent researchers. “That’s my biggest goal,” she says.

Roberts can vouch for that. “Tamra was really open to me trying techniques that she wasn’t as familiar with herself,” she says. And when Roberts has a gut feeling about which direction to take her work, Mendelson trusts her to run with it. “Her confidence in my skills and my intuition for what I’m doing has been really helpful,” Roberts reflects.

Grateful for guidance

Paired with that freedom is a level of support that helps Cronin and Mendelson’s students build compelling research projects and enhance their communication skills, which can lead to awards from big events like SICB.

Natalie Roberts and Sam Hulse, grad students in biology, doing fieldwork.

“I feel like one of the reasons that we do well in the student competitions is that we have mentors who are giving us constructive feedback,” says Roberts. All three Ph.D. students expressed gratitude for the support they’ve received in preparing for presentations, from their first research talk to today.

Plus, Roberts adds, Mendelson and Cronin “help us design research questions that don’t overlap with what’s already being done. They’re cutting edge.”

“I’m happy to sit down with them constantly,” says Cronin, whether it’s to talk about their research progress or help them sort out more personal challenges. Mendelson, too, is there for her students, in the classroom and in the field. When Roberts was struggling to collect fish for her experiments, “She and I together went out into the stream,” Roberts remembers.

Community of support

Beyond the individual relationships Patel, Chou, and Roberts enjoy with Cronin and Mendelson, they also support each other. “The grad student community here, especially in our cohort, is very close,” says Chou, “and whenever we go to conferences we feel well-represented and supported in the audience of our talks.”

In preparation for SICB, Cronin shares that the students “all supported each other and each one of them made the other ones better.”

While his mentorship style focuses on independent thought, Cronin also thinks of science as a team sport. “My lab is very much a culture of people who work together,” he says. “We all want to rise together so all the boats are floating. That’s the kind of science I believe in.”

Ricky Patel, Natalie Roberts, and Alice Chou on a hike in a cypress swamp.

That collegiality benefits scientific progress. “We get a lot more done together than any one person could, and it’s non-linear,” Mendelson says. “The more people you have in the lab, you exponentially grow in productivity, and thinking, and directions you could go.”

Every person in the lab brings something unique to the mix. “From each of my students,” Mendelson shares, “I have found at least one unique characteristic that I admire and try to incorporate into my own work ethic.”

At SICB, says Chou, “You often see graduate students presenting their work right alongside high-flying lead investigators.” With the support they’ve received to pursue innovative research, and the recognition they’ve earned, Chou and her fellow Ph.D. candidates are already seeing themselves as that next generation of leaders.

Banner image: A peacock mantis shrimp. Photo by Bernard Dupont, used under creative commons BY-SA 2.0 license.

UMBC’s Bradley Arnold develops laser-based technology to safely and quickly detect IEDs and other hazards in combat zones

You’re a U.S. soldier, motoring across the desert at 60 miles an hour in an Army truck, heading back to base. Suddenly, a red light flashes on your dashboard—an instrument has detected traces of explosive material on the road surface ahead. You divert around the hazard and continue safely toward your destination.

“There is currently nothing available to do this at this speed,” says Bradley Arnold, professor of chemistry and biochemistry. But that could soon change.

Today, in order to detect hazards, service members must pause and send a robot to check an area of concern. This procedure slows progress, which can increase risk for military personnel trying to move through an area quickly. However, technology to make high-speed, near-comprehensive detection possible is close to coming to the U.S. Armed Forces, thanks to Arnold’s work.

Arnold’s research group recently received $480,000 for two years from the U.S. Army to develop a prototype of their detection device, which has been in development for three years. The Army will test it on military vehicles early next year, and if it passes field tests, it may be deployed soon after.

Molecular fingerprinting

Bradley Arnold, professor of chemistry at UMBC.

So how does it work? The device sends out 10 laser pulses per second as the truck drives along, and each laser pulse contacts about one square inch of the ground. At 60 miles per hour, one pulse hits the ground every eight feet. Arnold’s team is working to develop lasers that can pulse more rapidly. Then, the beams could overlap—even at high speeds—providing complete coverage.

The system collects the light that scatters off molecules on the ground in a specialized detector. Depending on the structure of their chemical bonds, different compounds generate unique scattering patterns. By analyzing those patterns, the detector “can identify a molecule’s characteristic fingerprint,” Arnold says.

The new system can identify “just about anything,” Arnold says, from compounds used in military or improvised explosives, to nerve agents, to biological threats. “Being able to detect these things on the fly is of critical importance,” he adds. The new device would make this possible for the first time.

The detector also stores all the data it collects, which provides additional benefits. “You could search the data for specific things afterward, and you could compare day to day what you see in specific areas,” Arnold says. “And both of these things would be a tremendous advantage.”

Outside the box

The basic technique the device employs is related to standard Raman spectroscopy, used in chemistry labs all over the world, but with one very notable difference.

In standard systems, a lens focuses the laser beam on a single point. But too much power focused at one point can destroy the thing you want to detect. To make the traditional method work in this case, Arnold’s team would need to reduce the power of the laser so much that they’d lose the benefit of having a high-powered laser to begin with. Their solution: remove the focusing lens, even though “99.9 percent of the universe insists the lens is required,” Arnold says.

Without the focusing lens, the laser beam is about three-fourths of an inch across when it strikes the ground. “We can turn the power up on the laser several orders of magnitude, and we don’t have to focus it on a single spot—that entire area is imaged onto our detector,” Arnold explains. In this setup, the detector is less efficient at collecting the scattered light, but the high power of the laser compensates for the inefficiency.

The technique is so novel that Arnold has met skepticism in the scientific community, despite publishing details of the technology in the Canadian Journal of Chemistry. “Nobody believes that it works,” he says, “but it’s actually much easier than the traditional method.” Coming up with the idea, he says, “was just a matter of recognizing the problem and thinking a bit outside the box.”

Always thinking ahead

As a future step, Arnold would like to work toward a lighter version of the device that could fly on a drone ahead of military convoys. He has submitted a Small Business Innovation Research grant to support efforts to that end.

In addition to military uses, Arnold is also thinking ahead to potential civilian applications. For example, a similar system at airport security could remove the need to swab suspect bags to detect trace materials on their surface. Instead, every bag’s surface would be automatically analyzed using this new system. It could even be used for security at stadiums or other large venues.

In the event that the military adopts the technology, and especially if civilian applications come into play, a way to produce the systems at scale will become necessary. With that in mind, Arnold has founded NuMoon Spectroscopy with support from a TEDCO Maryland Innovation Initiative grant.

Arnold loves the idea of seeing the technology do good in the world, which is why he has shepherded this project to the startup company stage. “This could be not just cool, but important,” he says.

His dream is to connect NuMoon with a more-established company to pursue larger-scale production. At that point, the potentially life-saving technology would be able to truly make a significant, positive difference, Arnold explains, and “that’s the goal that I’ve had more than anything else.”

Banner image: Brad Arnold (center) works in the lab with Sara Tahir ’21, biochemistry, and Eric Bowman (right), Ph.D. student in chemistry. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

New GEARS symposium offers professional development opportunities to grad students across disciplines

On March 27, 2019, UMBC graduate students will gather in the University Center Ballroom to improve their communication skills, share their work, and get to know their UMBC colleagues. The new Graduate Experiences, Achievement, and Research Symposium (GEARS) aims to provide rich professional development opportunities—from showcasing art pieces to mingling with alumni—for students in all fields, right here on campus.

“We want to provide an avenue for people to learn skills that they’re not going to get in the classroom or the lab,” says Alex Rittle, Ph.D. student in geography and environmental systems and chair of the GEARS planning committee.

The opportunities at GEARS include an interviewing workshop led by Susan Hindle, assistant director for internships and employment; an art showcase by students in UMBC’s Intermedia and Digital Art program; an exhibition by emergency health services graduate students; short “Gritty Talks,” modeled after the annual GRIT-X talks at UMBC Homecoming, and traditional poster presentations.

GSA VP Adam Harvey discusses science communication with a colleague.

“Preparing a good poster can be more difficult than preparing a talk, but it can provide more bang for your buck,” says Roy Prouty ’16, M.S., atmospheric physics, current M.S. student in computer science, and Graduate Student Association president. Choosing what data to include and laying it out in a way that is easy to follow can be challenging. To help, the GSA organized a workshop prior to GEARS run by Tim Ford, manager of Research Graphics in the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, and Joe School, director of the Cartographic Services Laboratory in geography and environmental systems. Both have decades of experience printing posters, and know what makes a good one.

GEARS will also feature a Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, the winner of which will compete at the Southern States Regional 3MT contest. The Graduate School supported training from renowned communications coach Scott Morgan for all students who signed up in advance to participate in 3MT.

“Regardless of whether you’re going into industry, the public sector, or academia, you need the skills to be able to tell people what you’re working on,” says Rittle.

Prouty acknowledges that a three minute explanation of one’s dissertation is not the typical talk a researcher would give at a department seminar or academic conference. However, he says, it’s also important to learn “to communicate what you’re doing and what you care about in more informal ways that will make sense to the broader community.”

Mustafa Al-Adhami, Ph.D. ’19, mechanical engineering, and a researcher at UMBC’s Center for Advanced Sensor Technology, won last year’s 3MT and found the experience transformative. After winning at UMBC, he came in second place the Southern States Regional, earning him the right to compete at the national 3MT competition this coming December.

“In real life, I feel like you don’t get more than three minutes,” Al-Adhami says. “So practicing how to do it is valuable.” Al-Adhami is also an entrepreneur, and less than a week after the 3MT regional, he won the elevator pitch contest at the Baylor New Venture Competition in Waco, Texas. “What I learned from 3MT transferred into a totally different enterprise,” he says. Al-Adhami will present his talk after the competitors at this year’s 3MT contest.

GEARS isn’t all serious professional development, though. A social hour where current graduate students can mingle with Graduate School alumni will close out the day. One of the highlights? An activity known as Powerpoint roulette, where participants are given a random Powerpoint slide from an academic presentation and must try to explain it on the spot. There will be prizes in different categories, like most realistic and most creative.

The GSA executive board and GEARS planning committee members are hoping for a strong start for this new offering, and also that it will grow into a popular event for graduate students from all disciplines. “This is something we’re creating that’s new,” says Adam Harvey, Ph.D. student in physics and GSA vice president, “and we’re trying to build on it.”

Banner image: Alex Sestok, Ph.D. student in chemistry, explains her research to a guest. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC’s Chris Swan contributes to landmark global stream ecology study

A single leaf dropping into a stream has just a tiny impact, but, together, the billions of leaves that drop into waterways every year help keep global ecosystems going. How this works and why it’s so important are two questions addressed in a massive, new study in Science Advances co-authored by UMBC’s Chris Swan and over 150 researchers across all seven continents.

Leaves are mostly made of carbon, a primary building block for all living things. As leaves fall, organisms that live in or near rivers and streams are “supported by this pulse of carbon,” either directly or indirectly, says Swan, professor of geography and environmental systems.

“At any one point in time there’s not a lot of carbon there,” Swan explains, “but rivers serve as the plumbing system of the planet when it comes to how much carbon flows through.” So what factors drive how all that carbon is processed?

The new landmark study reveals how environmental factors drive the flow of carbon through the world’s waterways. “The study looked across the globe to learn what drives the rate of carbon decay in rivers and streams,” Swan says. “How is it transformed into energy as it travels up through the food web or transported downstream?”

Shifting patterns

The researchers first determined the overall carbon flow in waterways “across all continents and across a serious range of latitudes,” Swan says. They found that temperature was the biggest driver of carbon flow.

“That’s important because of climate change,” Swan says. “This study suggests that if temperature goes up, the rate at which carbon degrades will also go up.” This means that temperature change could reshape how carbon flows “either up the food chain or downstream.”

For example, bacteria, fungi, and aquatic invertebrates (like crayfish) are all responsible for breaking down some of the carbon in rivers. With climate change, “Bacteria and fungi that consume carbon are probably going to be more responsible for degrading it than invertebrates, because invertebrates aren’t able to evolve as fast” to adapt to the changing temperature, Swan explains. As some species succeed and others struggle, that could eventually lead to shifts in the makeup of aquatic ecosystems.

Development and dead zones

Increasing human development near waterways may also play an important role in carbon flow. Development “snips off” the smallest streams, but it’s at those abundant small streams where there’s an “intimate connection between streams and the forest,” Swan says. Those small streams are “part of the water purification process,” he explains.

Without as many small streams to break down the carbon, it ends up on pavement and runs off into larger streams and rivers. That creates higher than normal carbon concentrations, which can lead to low-oxygen “dead zones” in those larger waterways that are dangerous, even lethal, to aquatic life.

The value of partnership

The results of this study provide an important baseline for research on carbon flow in waterways moving forward. The experimental design at each site was simple, “but to manage and deploy it across the globe to all seven continents was a Herculean task that could only be done with a network of colleagues,” says Swan. “The key here is true partnerships and global coverage.”

To come to their conclusions, the scientists all used the same protocol: They each placed identical cotton squares provided by the lead author, Scott Tiegs at Oakland University, in a nearby stream. Then they carefully measured variables like the temperature, chemical makeup, flow rate, and width of the stream, plus the percentage canopy cover (how shaded the stream is). Everyone sent their cotton squares back to Tiegs, and he measured the cotton’s integrity at the end of the experiment.

Leaf chemistry can play a significant role in how quickly leaves decay—oak leaves are very slow, and ash leaves are fast, for example. But by using the cotton squares instead of real leaves, “we held all of that leaf chemistry constant and just looked at the environmental drivers,” Swan says.

“What I’m most proud about is being part of a group that was able to document the patterns on such a large scale using a consistent approach,” Swan says. Because of its extensive scope and scale, Swan expects the paper to be used in classrooms for a long time to come. As a benchmark study, it could teach generations of ecology students the fundamentals of carbon processing in waterways.

“The study is a lesson in stream ecology,” Swan says, “but the bigger lesson is that if you have partnerships you can do big things, and come up with big patterns.”

Image: Chris Swan. Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Letitia Dzirasa to serve as Baltimore City health commissioner

Letitia Dzirasa ’03, M11, biological sciences, has been appointed by Mayor Catherine Pugh to serve as Baltimore’s next health commissioner. She will be the city’s first African American woman in the role, and preside over the health department’s annual budget of $150 million and about 800 employees.

Dzirasa always knew she wanted to have a career serving others. Her new position, which she will assume March 11, will enable her to support the health and well-being of city residents on a large scale.

“We are so proud of Letitia’s new appointment,” shares Keith Harmon, director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program. As an undergraduate Meyerhoff Scholar at UMBC, Dzirasa conducted public health research at Johns Hopkins University. “Even then, she was interested in work that shed light on and positively impacted the health outcomes of certain populations,” Harmon says.

Commitment to populations in need

Dzirasa’s past roles speak to her commitment to improving health through innovative solutions. She most recently served as health innovation officer at Fearless Solutions, a software company she co-founded with her husband, Delali Dzirasa ’04, computer engineering. Fearless develops software solutions in the healthcare and government sectors that have a positive social impact. In 2016, the company created tools for Baltimore City to track health trends, discover risk factors, and overall help the health department more effectively allocate resources to work toward better health for all Baltimoreans.

Previously, Dzirasa worked as a pediatrician in Odenton, Maryland at a practice that primarily serves military families. She also served as the medical director of school-based health for the Baltimore Medical System, a non-profit that serves uninsured and underinsured patients.

Support leads to strength

Although it has been a lifetime calling, “UMBC was where I began to understand just how important it was to serve others,” Dzirasa shares. She says the late LaMont Toliver, former director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, played a significant role in strengthening her passion for this work and supported her on her journey through UMBC and beyond.

Dzirasa reflects, “To have someone who believed in me so much…was huge in pushing me to excel.”

“As I’ve grown in my career, I’ve begun to understand just how blessed I was to be afforded the opportunity to attend college and pursue my dreams,” Dzirasa says. “As I was fortunate, it is my responsibility to reach back and help others, especially those most under-resourced.”

Taking on tough challenges

As health commissioner, Dzirasa plans to focus her efforts on preventing violence (especially among youth), addressing obesity and food deserts, and tackling the opioid epidemic. She also understands that social factors play a large role in one’s health, and addressing the root causes of health challenges is critical to reducing health disparities in Baltimore.

“Her experiences have given her keen insights into the needs of individuals—including those with the least resources and the greatest needs,” says President Freeman Hrabowski. “I have known Dr. Dzirasa for almost 20 years. She is an individual of strong character, and she is deeply motivated to ensure all Baltimore residents have equitable access to care. I am delighted that she will be the city’s next health commissioner.”

Banner image: Letitia Dzirasa; photo courtesy Letitia Dzirasa.

UMBC chosen to host AAAS science and faith dialogue project

UMBC is one of six universities nationwide selected to host the “Engaging Scientists in the Science and Religion Dialogue” project, administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). UMBC’s “Engaging Scientists” events will be held March 25 – 26, 2019, and will be open to the entire UMBC community.

The centerpiece will be a science engagement and communication workshop, run by staff of the AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) program. The interactive, three-hour workshop will focus on how STEM graduate students, established scientists, and science educators can engage with diverse (and especially with religious) communities about science in both formal and informal settings.

“An individual’s cultural background and worldview (which, for most Americans, includes faith) informs their perceptions of the role of science in society, and their opinions about a range of science and technology issues,” says Robert O’Malley, project director at DoSER. The DoSER program “offers scientists, educators, and communicators a range of evidence-based strategies, toolkits, and resources for engagement” with people of diverse religious backgrounds, he explains.

Springboard for conversation

Talking about faith and science is not always easy, nor does it come naturally to all scientists, even if they are people of faith themselves. “Some people see science and faith in harmony, but for others the two are discordant,” says Bill LaCourse, dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, the program’s on-campus sponsor. He notes that this can set the stage for conflict, silence, and misunderstanding, which can only be resolved through dialogue.

To promote this dialogue, the organizers are developing a range of events for the UMBC community. On March 25, in addition to the workshop there will be a public panel featuring scientists and science communicators from a range of faith traditions, and an open-house style event where anyone can leave a written or video message recording their thoughts on the topic.

Partners from all three UMBC colleges are joining in the project. They will organize companion events for people to explore their thoughts on this topic more deeply within their on-campus communities.

A final component of the event is a Public Engagement Contest. Graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff who attend the workshop are eligible to enter the contest with a community partner outside of UMBC. DoSER will award $1,000 to up to four ongoing or proposed projects that demonstrate commitment to engaging with religious publics about science and technology. Entries are due April 15, giving participants time to be inspired by and reflect on the Engaging Scientists events. In addition to UMBC, other participating universities include Stanford University, Vanderbilt University, Texas State University, Indiana University, and Howard University.

More than one way to truth

Dean LaCourse and the UMBC co-organizers hope the March events will serve as a springboard to launch further discussion around science and faith and make the topic a more explicit part of UMBC’s mission to foster inclusive excellence.

Some scientists of faith may be reluctant to discuss their religious lives in an academic setting, LaCourse says. Yet some of the world’s greatest scientists have practiced some manner of religious faith without finding it in conflict with their work.

“20th century scholarship converged on the idea that no one approach to finding truth is sufficient or superior,” says Steve Freeland, director of UMBC’s Individualized Study Program and a Christian astrobiologist who has spoken internationally on the topic of science and faith.

“This gives all of us reasons for humility as we seek truth in our different ways,” Freeland says. “UMBC is blessed with such diversity in every imaginable dimension that it is an exciting place to experience a scholarly exploration of the interface between science and faith.”

That rich diversity creates many opportunities for UMBC community members to interact with people whose views differ from their own. “The path to acceptance of differing views starts with dialogue, which may be difficult without the proper words,” LaCourse says. “This program is a unique opportunity to help our campus begin the conversation.”

See more details about all UMBC Engaging Scientists events and register for the workshop and panel here.

Image: Faculty attending an interdisciplinary UMBC research forum on aging in May 2017. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC scientists tackle persistent hurdles in the aquaculture industry with new NOAA grant

As consumer demand for fish continues to grow worldwide, scientists are working to address some of aquaculture’s most persistent challenges. “There are a few bottlenecks and hurdles that the industry needs to address,” says Yonathan Zohar, professor and chair of marine biotechnology at UMBC. He and Ten-Tsao Wong, assistant professor of marine biotechnology, are working to address two of those hurdles: fish escaping from net pens and dying of disease.

Wong and Zohar recently received $670,000 of a $740,000, three-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to support their research. The remaining $70,000 will support the Maryland Sea Grant’s outreach and education efforts related to improving aquaculture.

Identifying the hurdles

UMBC faculty at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, a multi-institution facility on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, are perhaps best known for their groundbreaking work raising marine fish on land. Their current NOAA-supported research has a different focus—tackling challenges in offshore aquaculture, where fish are grown in net pens in the open ocean.

Farmed fish are bred for traits that benefit farmers and consumers, so they end up having a different and much less diverse genetic makeup than their wild cousins. If farmed fish escape from the pens and mate with wild fish, “It changes the gene pool and the nature of the wild stocks,” Zohar explains, “and it can lead to the displacement or disappearance of the wild stocks.”

In addition, some of the most popular commercial fish, such as salmon, reach reproductive maturity before they reach market size. Once reproductively mature, a fish’s growth rate slows because some of its energy is diverted toward developing reproductive organs, and therefore away from growing muscle. On top of that, reproductively mature fish tend to produce lower-quality meat, making them less valuable on the market. They also have weakened immune systems, so they’re more susceptible to disease. This is a major issue when fish are raised at high-density in pens exposed to potential pathogens in the ocean.

In response to these problems, Zohar and Wong have invented a technique to grow  fish that cannot reproduce. This would solve the escape problem, because if sterile fish escape a net pen, they won’t be able to mate with wild fish, so they can’t alter the wild population’s gene pool. And sterile fish address the reduced performance of reproductively mature fish, too, because without their energy going toward developing reproductive organs, they don’t suffer from a slower growth rate, muscle deterioration and disease the way fertile fish do.

Solutions, a step at a time

Some methods do currently exist to produce sterile fish, but they aren’t very practical for the rapidly expanding aquaculture industry. For example, scientists can produce triploid fish—fish with three, instead of two, copies of every chromosome. These fish only grow well in absolutely perfect conditions. Also, modifying the number of fish chromosomes may present regulatory hurdles and can repel potential consumers.

“Everybody has been looking for another way to develop reproductively sterile fish,” Zohar says.

Rather than altering a fish’s genetic code, Wong and Zohar created a new method that prevents a fish embryo from producing a particular protein necessary to develop reproductive organs. The process temporarily silences the gene that codes for this protein, called deadend, during a critical one-to-two week window of development. The gene’s sequence remains unaltered, however, so the fish isn’t a GMO.

Previously, this new method was found to be effective, but required every fish to be injected individually with the silencing compound. “If you consider the industrial scale, injection is way too much work to do,” Wong says. With this in mind, Wong and Zohar set off to improve their approach.

The future of aquaculture

In Wong and Zohar’s new method, fish embryos are bathed in a solution containing the silencing compound at the critical time during development. They have found the solution to be much faster, cheaper, and simpler than the injection method. Because the solution is applied well before producers place fish in net pens, it also doesn’t risk exposing wild populations to the silencing compound.

Previous testing showed that the technique works in zebrafish, a small freshwater fish commonly used in research. Now it has also been implemented in the commercially important Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout. The main goal of the current work is to optimize the process. In previous experiments, 84 percent of rainbow trout that received the treatment grew up to be sterile. Wong and Zohar would like to see that number climb.

They are also partnering with the USDA to conduct a performance study of sterile fish, testing whether or not they grow faster than fertile ones. “It will help us to prove the case that these fish are going to be more cost-effective,” Wong explains.

“We have done so much already,” Wong says, “and in three years’ time, we hope it’s going to be an optimized commercial protocol.” That would be a win for the aquaculture industry, oceans, and fish consumers worldwide.

Image: Ten-Tsao Wong (left) and Yonathan Zohar at the Aquaculture Research Center. Trays for incubating salmon eggs are on the left. Photo by Gary Jones.

UMBC’s Ivan Erill finds resistance to modern drug in ancient bacteria

“The drug you design ten years from now may already be obsolete,” Ivan Erill says. In a new study in Frontiers in Microbiology, Erill and colleagues describe how bacteria that existed hundreds of millions of years ago were already resistant to an antibacterial drug not invented until the 1930s. Once farmers began using the new class of drugs in agriculture, resistance spread quickly. As the bacteria were exposed to the drugs on a large scale in soils and waterways, antibiotic-resistant strains began appearing in hospitals within a decade.

How is this all possible? Antibiotic resistance has much deeper roots than most people realize, Erill explains. Many antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections today are based on molecules bacteria naturally produce to out-compete their neighbors. “Your competitors are not just going to stand by,” says Erill, professor of biological sciences, “so over millions of years they are going to develop resistance. That’s a given.”

But the drugs featured in this research are not natural antibiotics. They are synthetic compounds produced by humans. “With synthetic drugs, that’s a different picture altogether,” Erill says. “It’s not a given that you would find resistance.” That’s why the research team was surprised when they did—hundreds of millions of years before the drugs were invented.

Tracking down the source

The synthetic antibacterial drugs in question, called sulfonamides, target an enzyme involved in a pathway necessary for DNA synthesis. If an organism can’t replicate its DNA, it can’t reproduce, so its population quickly dwindles to nothing. The bacteria that are resistant to sulfonamides have modified genes for the target enzyme, called sul genes (for sulfonamide resistance). These genes allow the bacteria to continue reproducing in the presence of the drug, which means the antibiotic won’t work on them.

Most sulfonamide-resistant bacteria have sul genes in what are called mobile elements—small segments of DNA that can easily jump from one individual or species to another. Erill and colleagues used computational tools to figure out which bacteria species had sulfonamide-resistance genes in their chromosomes instead of in mobile elements, indicating that they were the original sources of the resistance. They showed that two groups of bacteria harbor chromosomal sul-like genes.  

“You can use algorithms to reconstruct the most likely evolutionary history that explains the development of sulfonamide resistance,” Erill says. Those algorithms allowed the researchers to confirm that the resistance existed 500 to 600 million years ago. To further verify their results, the researchers inserted copies of the chromosomal sul-like genes into bacterial cells in the lab. When exposed to sulfonamides, the cells grew just fine, confirming that the genes confer resistance.

Pure chance

The question remains, though: “How can you explain that bacteria 500 million years ago were resistant to a substance that didn’t yet exist?” asks Erill. While there is an small chance some organism was producing a sulfonamide-like compound hundreds of millions of years ago and resistance evolved in response to that pressure, Erill and his team put forth a different argument.

“There is an enormous amount of bacterial genetic diversity,” Erill says. Miquel Sanchez, a Ph.D. student at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the first author on the paper, adds, “Resistant variants of the antibacterial target could be present in the global genetic pool even before microbes are exposed to them.”

So, the reason these two bacterial groups were resistant to a compound that had never existed? Erill says, “We argue that this is just pure chance.”

Rogue bacteria

This research has big implications for the development and use of future antibiotics. If scientists develop a new antibiotic, “it is well possible that there might be one bacterium in the world that is already resistant,” Erill says. With conservative use of the antibiotic in human patients, though, it’s unlikely that particular bacterium would ever be exposed to the antibiotic and spread its resistance.

But, “if you overuse the drug, especially in an agricultural setting, where the drug slowly permeates into the soil, waterways, and underground water reservoirs,” you’re exposing “this huge population of bacteria that otherwise would never be bothered by antibiotics or synthetic drugs,” Erill says. And, based on the team’s analysis, if the one bacterium that is already resistant is exposed to the drug, “this variant that is resistant will jump to other species in a matter of years.”

“For me, it’s especially a warning against using antibiotics in farm settings,” Erill says. New drugs are typically tested using disease-causing bacterial species, “but maybe that’s not enough,” he says. “Maybe you should do broader testing, especially on the non-usual suspects, like soil bacteria.”

Erill also says the new finding points toward using combination therapies more often. A bacterium in nature might harbor a chance resistance to one compound it’s never encountered, but it’s unlikely to be resistant to two. If doctors use two drugs at once, it is likely that one of the drugs will kill the bacteria, preventing it from spreading its resistance to the other drug.

These new research findings could affect how well superbugs are kept at bay and the effectiveness of new antibiotic treatments. Whether the agricultural industry and drug developers heed the team’s advice remains to be seen.

Image: From left to right, the authors of the paper: Ivan Erill, Pilar Cortés, Jordi Barbé, and Miquel Sánchez-Osuna. Photo by Ángela Martínez Mateos.

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