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The National Science Foundation has awarded a $168,779 grant to Elaine Reynolds, assistant professor of biology and chair of neuroscience, to conduct research with Lafayette students that will provide valuable insight into the nervous system and mechanisms that underlie diseases such as epilepsy and neurodegenerative disease. The work potentially will lead to new disease therapies.
With all related experiments involving student collaborators, says Reynolds, the research also will create a learning environment for students to undertake projects that add to the understanding of nervous system function.
“This project will provide undergraduate students with hands-on training in the methodologies of experimental science,” she explains. “They will also communicate their results through presentations at conferences and papers. This training will provide students with knowledge that will help them become better scientists, teachers, and citizens.”
The work will consist of many small components, allowing individual students to help design, carry out, and complete one segment of the project. Reynolds expects a dozen students to participate over the course of three years, each working two or three semesters.
“This training has a large impact on the students themselves and the larger community,” she notes. “Students use the research as a way to apply the knowledge learned in the classroom and to decide on their future career choices. The experience of attending and presenting at a meeting, especially at the national level, can make a tremendous impact on the student’s view of his place in the scientific world.”
“As the students begin their careers, they can use their laboratory experience as a reference point,” adds Reynolds. “For students continuing in research, the benefits are obvious. For those going on to non-research fields, an understanding of basic research can help them interpret information they encounter and make them better citizen-scientists.
The research and conference attendance funded by the grant will also enhance Reynolds’ teaching and community outreach activities, she says.
The researchers will study the function of mitochondria — cell components containing genetic material and many enzymes important for cell metabolism — which are thought to be key in the aging process and the progressive nature of many diseases. They will conduct a variety of laboratory experiments with mutant Drosophila flies that are “bang sensitive,” meaning that they respond to mechanical shock or extreme temperatures with seizure and paralysis. When a vial of these flies is rapped on the edge of a table, for example, they shake violently for about five seconds, remain motionless for nearly 30 seconds, and then seize again before recovery. The paralysis worsens with age and the mutant flies have a shortened life span. This condition and epilepsy are thought to be related because the “bang” response and shortened life span are caused by defects in the mitochondria of the fly’s cells.
Reynolds is using equipment purchased through a $144,058 National Science Foundation grant awarded last year, which is enhancing laboratory exercises and expanding research opportunities for students and faculty, including cancer research.
Since joining the Lafayette faculty in 1997, Reynolds has involved more than 25 Lafayette students in her study of the function and development of the nervous system using bang- sensitive mutations in Drosophila melanogaster, including a dozen students who have coauthored papers that have been published, or accepted for publication, in a scientific journal. Three papers being prepared for submission to journals have a total of seven Lafayette student coauthors: neuroscience majors Stephen Tanner ’04 (Florence, Ala.) and Eric Stauffer ’02 (Fairfax Station, Va.); biology majors Kate Devlin ’03(Holland, Pa.), Elizabeth Rojahn ’03 (York, Pa.), Brooke Keim ’03 (Lancaster, Pa.), and Lisa Martin ’00 (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.); and Nicholas Trotta ’00, a double major in biology and English. Reynolds also has partnered with Lafayette students on more than 20 published abstracts and papers presented at conferences.
Through many grants from the National Science Foundation and other agencies, the College’s EXCEL Scholars program, and other opportunities that it provides students, Lafayette has become a national leader in undergraduate research. Many of Reynolds’ student collaborations have been funded by EXCEL, which provides students with a stipend to assist faculty with research. Many of the 180 students who participate in EXCEL each year go on to present research at conferences and/or in academic journals.
As a national leader in undergraduate research, Lafayette’s contingent is among the largest at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year. Over the past five years, more than 130 Lafayette students have presented research conducted with faculty mentors or under their guidance at the conference.
Reynolds is mentoring three seniors in yearlong honors research projects, including Tanner, who is conducting experiments on Drosophila to discover what parts of the brain are responsible for epilepsy. He conducted related EXCEL work with Reynolds this summer, including experiments using the anti-oxidant melatonin to see if it would cause the fly to seize for a shorter amount of time. He recently presented his findings at a Neurobiology of Drosophila conference hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.
“It’s almost like [working] with another student who knows a lot more than you,” Tanner says of his EXCEL research. “I consider Professor Reynolds a pretty good friend right now.”
In an advanced research course, Reynolds is mentoring neuroscience major Nicholas Hargus ’04 (Center Valley, Pa.) as he tests the effects of the experimental drug Topomax on mutant Drosophila. He is continuing work completed last year by neuroscience major Jacobi Cunningham ’03(Mattapan, Mass.), now pursuing a master’s in pharmacology at Boston University School of Medicine. In Cunningham’s investigation, the drug proved promising in combating epilepsy, significantly decreasing similar symptoms in a group of flies that received a daily dose.
She is also mentoring another advanced research student, neuroscience major Erin Wolfson ’04(Haddonfield, N.J.), who is studying the causes of neuro-degeneration in bang sensitive Drosophila. Last semester, Wolfson observed differences in the number of mitochondria by dissecting the flies, staining them with a fluorescent dye called a mitotracker, and observing the results under a confocal microscope, which creates three-dimensional images on a computer screen.
Wolfson calls Reynolds a “wonderful mentor” who is flexible and extremely knowledgeable in her field.
“I find Lafayette to be a good environment for projects like mine because the mentors are really here to help students,” she says. “There is no possible way that I would be doing this research at a larger university as an undergraduate student.”
Devlin, now a research technician at University of Pennsylvania, worked with Reynolds last year on bang sensitive, “easily shocked,” and normal flies to determine whether a pivotal gene was located in fly antennae. She found an affirmative answer by removing the flies’ antennae. After receiving mechanical stress, those mutant flies to no longer seized up, and they recovered almost immediately.
“I was very fortunate to be working under the supervision of such a qualified and enthusiastic faculty member,” says Devlin. “After talking to Dr. Reynolds about different research possibilities, her excitement over these particular projects made me interested in pursuing them.”
An innovative instructor, Reynolds has incorporated service-learning into her Developmental Neurobiology course, which focuses on aging and the molecular basis of neurological disease. Students work one to two hours a week with Alzheimer’s patients at a local nursing home and shelter for women and their children. Journal entries on each service session, class discussion, and readings integrate practical experience with scientific literature, including analysis of the societal impact of basic science and the contribution of service to personal growth and to society.
Reynolds has received a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship, a Genetics Society of America Travel Award, and Lafayette’s Delta Upsilon Distinguished Mentoring and Teaching Award, which honors distinctive and extraordinary teaching through mentoring.
She serves as academic adviser to the Alpha Phi sorority and women’s basketball team.
For the last three years, Reynolds has organized, moderated, and presented at workshops held at the annual Drosophila Research Conference. She also moderated a “Neurophysiology and Behavior” platform session at the 2002 Drosophila Research Conference in San Diego, Calif. She has served as a grant reviewer and as a paper reviewer for Journal of the Texas Academy of Science, Journal of the Pennsylvania Academy of Sciences, and Invertebrate Neuroscience.
She is a member of the Genetics Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society for Neuroscience, Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience, and Pennsylvania Academy of Science.
A member of the College’s Neuroscience Advisory Committee since 1998, Reynolds has served terms on faculty committees for enhancement and evaluation of instruction and for academic policy, as well as search committees for the math and psychology departments. She organized Professional Women of Lafayette in 2000-02.
Before coming to Lafayette, Reynolds held positions at University of California-Berkeley, State University of New York at Buffalo, and Stanford University. She earned a Ph.D. in biological sciences from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988 and a B.S. in microbiology (with high honors) from Penn State in 1983.