Marshall senior wins big for research with Tylenol

This article appeared in the Oct. 31, 2007, edition of the Charleston Daily Mail.


By Kelly L. Holleran
Daily Mail staff

HUNTINGTON -- Marshall University student Megan Neal smiles frequently and talks with a humble confidence about winning a $1,200 award for being considered the best undergraduate researcher in West Virginia.

She refuses to accept all the credit for the award, which she won for her part in a project that studies the correlations between acetaminophen and heart disease.

The award was bestowed in September at a Morgantown symposium sponsored by the West Virginia Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.

Eight graduate students have spent countless hours with Megan, a senior biology major, in a room tucked away in Marshall's Robert C. Byrd Biotechnology Science Center.

Their goal is to develop a new intervention for age-associated cardiac problems.

They have been working since the beginning of summer, testing the effects of acetaminophen on rats. Acetaminophen is a major ingredient in Tylenol.

The group uses a rat-aging model. When the rat reaches the equivalent of a human's 50 years, it starts to receive treatment.

The bottom line of what they are discovering is that acetaminophen is good for the heart. The researchers are concluding that acetaminophen manages the complex, chemical systems that dictate whether heart muscle breaks down or not.

With acetaminophen, they believe, the proper rhythm of the heart is more likely to hold up over time.

Getting to that conclusion is a complex lesson in biology.

The group tests the amount of microRNA in the rats before and after treatment. MicroRNA refers to single strands of coding with the job of regulating gene expression.

MicroRNA may be responsible for heart arrhythmias, said Eric Blough, an associate professor of molecular physiology at Marshall.

Megan, 21, and her fellow researchers have found arrhythmias may be caused by a decrease in the protein connexin 43, also known as CX43. Connexins, also known as gap joint proteins, are essential for many physiological processes, such as the regulation of cardiac muscle.

When the amount of CX43 in the heart decreases, the microRNA levels increase, Blough said. But acetaminophen appears to reduce the amount of microRNA, he said. The upshot is that CX43 levels increase, causing less of a chance for arrhythmias.

"If CX43 decreases, you lose the ability to properly regulate the heart's contractions," Blough said.

The nine students have taken on different roles in the project. Some work with the rats, ejecting microRNA from the muscle. Others study the tissue under microscopes.

Megan and her partner, Jackie Decker, look at the reactions of acetaminophen in tubes and determine the different levels of microRNA as the rats age.

Winning the statewide competition was no walk in the park for Megan, who is also busy serving as women's ministry director for Revolution Ministries, a campus Christian group, and as Supreme Court chief justice for Marshall's student government association.

For the research contest, students across West Virginia were invited to submit abstracts and posters.

Megan was one of about 20 picked to present a project during the symposium in Morgantown. She had to submit a one-page abstract and a poster and give an oral presentation.

She said she was just a little nervous for the oral part.

"It was just kind of like talking," she said.

Jackie Decker, Megan's partner, could not enter the competition because she is a graduate student. But Megan plans to give Jackie half of her winnings.

"She did half of it, too," Megan said.

Megan began working in the lab as a volunteer in January. That's when she stumbled upon the project she later was asked to join.

"She was a tremendous asset, her and Jackie, to look and develop that whole molecular aspect," Blough said.

Last summer Megan was awarded a $4,000 grant from an undergraduate research program that allowed her to spend more time in the lab. She also didn't have to worry about finding a summer job.

She is continuing her work on the project. She plans to use it as the capstone project that is required of Marshall undergraduates.

The researchers hope to expand and develop their initial findings.

Megan is applying to graduate school. She would like to work in the health sciences field, either in medicine or pharmacy.

Her initial interest in biology was sparked while she was a student at Triway High School in Wooster, Ohio.

"I've always liked the sciences, and I've always kind of wanted to go in the health field in some way," she said. "Going into biology is a pretty big step into getting into the health field."

She is proud to say she is part of the project.

"It's awesome to be a part of something that matters," she said. "I feel like I'm accomplishing something. It's not just coming in and sitting at a desk. This project may help people. It actually means something."

NSF Day in West Virginia Scheduled

8:30 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Waterfront Place Hotel, Morgantown

The National Science Foundation (NSF), West Virginia Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (WVEPSCoR) and West Virginia University Research Corporation are sponsoring a program to provide an introduction to and overview of the National Science Foundation, its mission, priorities and budget. The session also will cover the NSF proposal and merit review process.

Representatives from the seven NSF directorates (Mathematical and Physical Sciences; Biological Sciences; Engineering; Geosciences; Computer and Information Science and Engineering; Education and Human Resources; and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences) and the Office of International Science and Engineering will make presentations about their programs and will also be available individually and in breakout sessions for more specific discussions of potential research proposals.

The cost of the workshop is $40, payable at the door; however, advance registration is required. For a copy of the agenda and a registration form, contact Ginny Painter at ginny.painter@wvepscor.org.

Advisory Council to Meet Dec. 12

The Advisory Council of the West Virginia Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (WVEPSCoR) will hold its regular board meeting at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007. The meeting will be held in the offices of the Secretary for Education and the Arts, Room 205, Building 5, State Capitol Complex, Charleston. For more information, contact Annette Echols at echols@wvepscor.org or (304) 558-4128.


Agenda
Call to Order
Approval of Minutes from last meeting
Program Status Report
Federal Programs
RII
RII RFP for ‘08
State Programs
ESRE
RCG report
New Grant Recommendations
Administration
Legislation
Finance Report
Events
STaR Symposium Assessment
Undergraduate Research Forum
Communications Report
Next meeting date and announcements
Adjourn

Internationalization Grant Award Competition Announced

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC), through the Consortium for Internationalizing Higher Education (CIHE), has announced the 2008 Internationalization Grant Award Competition. Up to $15,000 will be awarded to three public institutions of higher education to implement programs that seek to internationalize their majors, core curricula and foreign language programs with some impact on international student enrollment or sending West Virginia students abroad. The application deadline is Feb. 29, 2008.

The grant award process will be administered by the CIHE Council. All public universities in West Virginia will be eligible to apply if they have submitted, by Dec. 14, an updated action plan outlining international goals and objectives.

Only one grant application per institution may be submitted. Applications must be submitted by the Campus Internationalization Committee.

This year, six West Virginia public colleges and universities received a total of $90,000 through the competition to develop or expand international education initiatives. Concord University, Fairmont State University, Marshall Community and Technical College, Shepherd University, West Virginia State University and West Virginia University each received grants.

For more information or to request a copy of the request for proposals, contact Dr. Clark Egnor, CIHE Council chair, at egnor3@marshall.edu.

Undergraduate Research Day Program Scheduled

The fifth annual Undergraduate Research Day program at the West Virginia State Capitol has been scheduled for Thursday, January 31, 2008. For more information, visit http://www.marshall.edu/urdc/.

Sputnik: It’s time for another science education drive in the United States

This op ed commentary appeared in the October 7, 2007, edition of the Sunday Gazette-Mail (Charleston).

Paul L. Hill and Jay Cole

Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the Soviet launch of Sputnik I — the world’s first artificial satellite. A watershed event, it caught the U.S. public off-guard and marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-Soviet space race.

Sputnik captured the world’s attention, both as a singular technical achievement and as a symbol of overall Soviet superiority in scientific and technical fields. The Soviets had defeated the Americans in the first leg of the space race, so the launch created a real sense of urgency about improving math and science education in this country.

As a result of public and political outcry, the U.S. Congress passed and President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act in 1958. One of the primary purposes was to produce more and better math and science students — the next generation of scientists and engineers who would ensure America was able to compete with the Soviet Union.

Fifty years later, the world is a very different place. The Soviet Union no longer exists. And, thanks to extraordinary achievements such as the space shuttles, the International Space Station and the Mars Rover missions, space exploration has come light years since Sputnik.

But the need to improve math and science education in America is more urgent than ever. Instead of Sputnik as a single, simple, galvanizing event, we now confront more numerous and complex forces — climate change, human genomics, terrorism, disease, energy dependence and technological revolutions. As great as the challenge of Sputnik was, these challenges are far greater and require a larger commitment and level of investment in order to produce the next generation of scientists and engineers who will ensure the continued progress of human civilization.

The U.S. Congress recently took decisive action to achieve this goal with the passage of the America COMPETES Act. It will be to the first half of the 21st century what the National Defense Education Act was to the second half of the 20th century —a landmark piece of legislation that will affect the lives of millions of students and thousands of teachers in every school district and on every college campus across the country.

The act authorizes doubling the budgets of the National Science Foundation, the foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. It will increase funding for young researchers and significantly expand the foundation’s funding for the Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program and its Math and Science Partnerships. The bill also includes a number of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education initiatives to ensure students are prepared for the needs of higher education and the workplace.

What a victory for science and for the entire United States! Even though the appropriations cycle is not yet complete and we do not know how much will be set aside for these initiatives, it is certain that the America COMPETES Act is a major step forward for our country and its future.

Here in West Virginia, academic leaders from kindergarten through college have already begun working together to ensure an overall state strategy that will allow us to gain the maximum benefits from the act. We must not miss out on the opportunities the act affords. The stakes are simply too high.

West Virginia’s own Senators Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller were co-sponsors of the Senate version of the America COMPETES Act. We should be proud of their leadership on this vital issue.


Hill is the vice chancellor for science and research at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and the executive director of West Virginia EPSCoR. Cole is the education policy adviser to Gov. Joe Manchin III.