BEGIN WITH VISION
Story by Dr.
Karen Murch-Shafer
Assistant Professor of Biology
What We are Doing
Students and faculty in the Dana College Biology Department
are investigating scientific questions that may lead to a better
understanding of how the liver functions, and more specifically
what types of agents (alcohol, viral infections, bacterial infections…)
cause liver cells to be damaged. The motto of this endeavor is “Great
Discoveries Begin With Vision” and refers not only to the
“vision” needed to ask appropriate scientific questions,
but also the method that is being used to try to answer these questions.
One of my professors in graduate school, who taught
me how to do electron and confocal microscopy, often used the old
adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words” to refer
to how much we can learn about science by just looking and observing
what nature is telling us about a particular situation. So, we are
looking — looking to see what changes can be detected at the
cellular level when liver cells are subjected to a variety of different
treatments. Most people know alcohol can be very damaging to the
liver. Not nearly as well recognized is that certain types of viral
and bacterial infections can also cause liver damage. If we look
at liver cells taken from healthy mice and compare them to liver
cells taken from mice that have, for instance, been fed a diet with
alcohol, we may be able to more fully understand why alcohol (or
specific microbial infections) causes the damage it does.
Collaborations
This project is a collaboration with Dr. Thomas Jerrels
of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Jerrels graciously
supplies us with prepared slides, which we then use to look for
cellular changes. Presently, we are not fully equipped to prepare
our own microscope slides, so we are thankful and appreciative to
have these connections. We hope as this research project grows at
Dana, we will be able to expand the aspects we do onsite.
What We’ve Learned So
Far
In the few months we have been working on this project
we have been successful at getting some good cellular images and
are in the process of analyzing them. What is really exciting is
now that we are understanding more about the nature of liver tissue
and our imaging capabilities, we are realizing many more questions
we can investigate. When you jump into a project such as this you
often end up with more questions. It’s one of the great things
about doing research. The more you learn, the more interesting and
important questions you want to explore. Once we become skilled
at making microscope slides from animal tissues, and proficient
at using a digital camera on a microscope (which has some added
complexities), we can ask a huge variety of questions from basic
research to very applied problem solving.
Grant
This research endeavor was made possible through a
grant that I received from the National Science Foundation as part
of the EPSCoR Small Grant Program for Nebraska Women in Science.
The funds received from this competitive grant were used to purchase
a high resolution digital camera we mounted onto a microscope and
allowed for a stipend for two student researchers.
Student Researchers
Ashley Sorensen ’05 and Amanda Reddish ’05,
both sophomore biology majors, have had the opportunity to work
on this challenging research project this semester. Ashley and Amanda
were offered summer research positions working at the University
of Nebraska Medical Center in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Jerrels.
This kind of research opportunity provides students with such a
great learning experience. We hope to find a way to continue funding
for next year.
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