Category Archives: Lab Group

EPE Research: Keep Climbing!

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“You can’t fool me. There is no top of the hill!”

A participant attempted to relay this to the researchers through his mask while running at a percent grade on the treadmill during his VO2max test. Of course, his words could not be understood during the test, so we had to wait until the conclusion of the test to know that Dr. McCole failed to fool him.

This not only served as the comedic relief for the week, but verbalized our realization that there is always more to do in the research field. As the six student-researchers become more familiar and deeply engrossed in the study, each of us has moments where we think of all the possibilities for data collection and analysis in just a single study. Some of us even Endurance runspend our free time pondering new studies to explore different components related to ours.

Last week wrapped up the pre-training portion of the study where we obtained participants’ body composition and physical fitness level via underwater weighing, a VO2max test, and an endurance run on the treadmill. Dr. McKenzie, Dr. Laird, and Matt ventured to Orlando for the national ACSM conference last week, so Dr. McCole and the five gals held down the fort.

While they were gone we…

  • Conducted a majority of the endurance runs. This test consists of a three minute warm up period before setting the treadmill at the speed determined to elicit their VO2max and having the participant run for as long as possible without any sort of time cues. This involved creating an individualized regression equation from the participant’s VO2max test. Let us tell you from experience, running without a grasp on time is difficult.
  • Made a snack drawer! Filled with anything from fruit snacks to crackers or nuts, this drawer has become our/mostly Kerrin’s saving grace when blood sugar runs low over the course of our days. In research, it can be the little things that keep you motivated.
  • Started a new secondary study! For those individuals who felt so inclined as to run more than one VO2max test, we are now going to have data for a reliability study on the equipment used during our research.
  • Continued our research by reading articles related to our chosen topics and have begun to prepare for our senior capstone projects. As rising seniors, it’s exciting to be starting our work and getting a jump start on the school year, but incredibly terrifying all at the same time.
  • Learned how to be quick on our feet. Conducting research on human subjects is tough work! Our schedule is determined by each individual’s schedule and changes from day to day. As researchers, we must be flexible and think creatively in order to meet the subjects’, researchers’, and study’s needs.
  • Don’t worry, even after two weeks we all still love each other! Glad to have the full team back in action, increasing physical fitness one day at a time 🙂

This week marks the beginning of the three-week training programs! Participants have been randomized into either the high-intensity interval or the standard training groups, both running 31-minute training sessions four days per week. The excitement of training is just so high that you’ll have to tune in next time for the scoop!

Thanks for reading! HIIT Team signing off!

World Beyond the Plastic- Letter 1

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Dear world beyond the plastic,

I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but it feels like I’ve been here forever. Now, some of the other Manduca sexta have gotten it into their heads that this isn’t so bad- they have tomato for dinner every night. I, on the other hand, have been fed nothing but stinky yellow goop that the oddly-shaped beings call artificial diet. I’d like to see them eat the stuff. Needless to say, I only eat when I have to.

It’s odd though, you see, because some of the others are poked and lifted away at times and then returned home to find their meals have changed. But never me. I’m just a little guy, still in my second instar and only larger than the new guys that just arrived… so I guess you could say I’m easily overlooked. Not the big guys though, they get different meals practically all the time (OK, not all the time, but like twice…) and me? Well, I’m just sitting here on my throne of artificial until the day they notice me. I digress though…

Oh yeah! I wanted to talk about the oddly-shaped beings…Well, let me tell you they’re huge and not too friendly. Odd hours, they pick us up and move us from one place to another and then back to the start. WEIRD, RIGHT?! Now, they’re getting faster though. We’re handled less, and for shorter times, but we fear for the worst. Some of our friends and neighbors have gone missing, only to be replaced by younger ones. It started with a few, but then there were many, causing whispers of a world beyond the plastic to emerge. Mmmm, but who can say for certain where they’ve gone? Maybe the oddly-shaped ones know, but they only speak to us in shrieks and high voices…morons. Anyway, the box is growing dark now so I must go. I know you can’t hear me, world beyond the plastic, but I will speak to you again.

Dreaming of you.
M. sexta in A2

 

 

 

-Amanda Horst
Eaton 207
Subject of Dr. Jacobs

 

Just “dropping a line” from the Staab Lab!

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Hello, world!  This is Sophia Fricke reporting in from the Staab Lab.  So far, summer research is off to a great start.  Now, by the end of our second week, we are in full swing and are easily falling in to the rhythm of our days.  By the same token, every day is a new adventure and we can never quite predict what it will bring.  This, I feel, is the nature of discovery, and it keeps us on our toes.

Paola (left) and Sophia (right) cleaning the lab

Paola (left) and Sophia (right) cleaning the lab

Our lab group has developed a great sense of camaraderie and collaboration, and we’re learning to work as a team, while each of us is specifically pursuing different and unique research questions.  Maybe I’m biased, but I think the project that I’m working on is one of the coolest that I’ve encountered!  Right now, I’m working on identifying and classifying new types of cartilage and connective tissue in fish, with the long term goal of applying our findings to human medicine (i.e., treatments for arthritis) in the future.  To do this, I will use a technique called immunohistochemical analysis to detect different proteins and fibers that make up different areas of tissue.  Basically, this means that I will use antibodies that bind to different proteins, such as collagen type II, to stain samples different colors that I can use to distinguish the molecular makeup of tissue.

Since many bones develop from cartilage precursors, and develop in response to external forces, I’m also curious about how ossification might change in response to different forces. My first specific experiment will be to look at the mechanisms of cartilaginous ossification/mineralization in zebrafish, using tanks with varying levels of viscosity.  My hypothesis is that I’ll see increased amounts of ossification in the fish living in more viscous water.  I will use a fluorescent Calcein stain to determine the amount of calcium ions in matrix at multiple points of time during the development of the fish.

Zebrafish – from http://vetmed.duhs.duke.edu/GeneralProgramInfo.html

This experiment will function as a baseline for my knowledge of cartilaginous ossification, and will provide a springboard for future work.  Once I know which types of cartilage are more likely to ossify, and how, I will be able to move forward with testing different methods of molecular inhibition of excess ossification.  While this would be done preliminarily in vitro, the goal would be to later test it in zebrafish, before finally bringing forward a new type of treatment to the medical world for osteoarthritis.  This technique would not only be minimally invasive, moreover, it would also prove to be a significant step forward in the field of advanced tissue engineering.

I know I’m only two weeks in to my summer research at McDaniel, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself.  However, I firmly believe that vision is necessary for any achievements or advances in science.  So for now, I’m going to stick with “reeling myself in” to address one step of my first experiment at a time, and look forward to welcoming some new baby zebrafish to our lab!

And finally… a joke so terrible that you might even laugh!

EPE Research: Keep Breathing!

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“Keep breathing!”

Dr. McCole rolls his eyes, convinced that telling someone to breathe won’t help them run any further. Emma defends her statement, arguing that it encourages deeper breathing and increased oxygen supply. Kerrin wavers between stances, seeing the redundancy of an obvious statement but unable to disprove Emma’s theory. Matt starts using scientific terms that no one is prepared to comprehend at this early hour. Kaitlyn and Allison continue to encourage the participant. Alicia laughs…. And Dr. McKenzie and Dr. Laird ignore us all, discussing the training protocol we will start on June 2nd.

Sydney Flores -VO2This is what EPE summer research has revolved around this first week. Six students and three professors collaborating to explore the differences between high-intensity interval training and traditional aerobic training over a three-week training program.

These first two weeks make up our pre-testing phase of research in which we recruit participants and create a performance baseline comprised of a questionnaire/health history, underwater weighing for body composition, VO2max testing on a treadmill, and an endurance run at the established VO2max.

This week has taught us a few key things:

  • We love working as a team! It didn’t take long to discover that this self-proclaimed “HIIT team” has great cohesiveness, camaraderie, and chemistry. This wouldn’t be nearly as fun without each other.
  • On the first day, “crash course” is a real thing. You feel as if you just learned an entire semester’s worth of information. From compiling literature reviews to learning each test procedure, our brains were thoroughly saturated at the end of the first day.
  • Our learning curves are huge! We’ve gotten very good at things we do not usually do very quickly, including: taking blood pressure at rest and directly following exercise, taking small blood samples for lactate measures, running various programs on the computers for the different tests, and speaking professionally to participants in the study.
  • Dr. McKenzie loves running multiple VO2max tests… Just kidding!

Breathing is an essential part of HIIT Team’s first week of research. Whether it’s making sure enough air is blown out in underwater weighing, getting your maximal oxygen intake in each of the two run tests, or the research team taking a deep breath over the course of our long days, we just keep breathing!

We’re looking forward to next week, where we will continue pre-testing and begin placing participants into the different training programs! Tune in next week to read about the end of the pre-testing phase!

Thanks for reading! HIIT Team signing off!

The Funnel Mystery

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Episode Title: The Funnel Mystery 

Episode number: Season one, episode three

Air Date: July 2, 2013

The third and final episode for season one of The League of the Green Hornet “The Funnel Mystery” has been in production for several weeks and has had many set-backs. It is currently under its third re-shooting under the supervision of Dr. Molly Jacobs and Dr. Brett McMillan. The plot is to explore if soil compaction acts as a barrier for soil invertebrates in a lab setting and to see if different organisms come out of the soil at different times.

The setting of this episode is the Ecology lab where gathered soil from the field was put into different funnels containing varying levels of soil compaction. Each funnel had wire mesh at the bottom to hold the soil inside and the funnels were placed on containers with ethanol. They were left under lights for 5 days to force the organisms to crawl away from the heat and disappearing moisture into the ethanol for preservation and later microscope identification by the patient Detectives. Every jar was collected at intervals to track the movement of the invertebrates through the soil layer.

 In the first attempted 4” PVP pipes were filled with a 1 inch layer of top soil and then compacted or left non-compacted. Then the freshly gathered soil from the field was added and the set up placed under lights.  Very few organisms were found so a new setup had to be found. Detective Xi suggested using metal funnels since the PVP did not seem to get as hot as the metal.

In the second attempt metal funnels were used and this time the experiment was expanded. The different conditions were 1 inch compacted and non-compacted (4 each) and 2 inch compacted and non-compacted (3 each) for a total of 14 samples. Many hours of waiting and looking through empty jars showed once again very few organisms and no clear pattern of invertebrate densities (Detective Mary was looking for more organisms in the control and few if any in the experimental).

P1000249

The current set up suggested by Supervisor Molly is still partially experimental. First the layers have been reduced to ½ inch for both the compacted and non-compacted layer. As a second modification the layers are made up with either sterile, rehydrated soil from the previous 2 attempts or soil from the freshly gathered soil that will be used as a sample. These modifications are based on the hypothesis that the topsoil is too different for the organisms to want to go through and that even a 1 inch layer may be too tick for the them. Hopefully this set up will meet the standards of the target audience. The audience includes cute fellows like the cute springtails

.Fun Fact: Spring tails can “jump” up to 15 cm which for humans would be like jumping over a skyscraper!

collembola

Photo from the North Carolina State University http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent525/soil/soilpix/index.html