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Before this summer, biochemistry major Joyce Ong ’04 (Panang, Malaysia) had never given much thought to the food snails eat, nor to the parasites that nosh on snails.
Now Ong, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, is deeply familiar with the digestive habits of Helisoma trivolvis snails and the manner in which Biomphalaria glabrata snails are infected with Schistosoma mansoni parasites.
Ong dissected dozens of both varieties of the disk-shaped snails throughout the summer as part of an EXCEL Scholars research project with Bernard Fried, professor emeritus of biology, and Joseph Sherma, professor emeritus of chemistry.
“I studied how diet and infection with parasites alters the level of metallic ions in the whole body of a snail,” says Ong, who placed the dissected snails in nitric acid, then sent the dissolved samples to Kenneth Koehnlein ’95 at Merck & Co. Inc. in West Point, Pa. Koehnlein, who earned a B.S. degree in chemistry from Lafayette, used a highly sophisticated instrument called an inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometer to analyze the metal levels in each sample.
In addition, Ong learned how to use atomic absorption and ion chromatography equipment with the help of Michael Chejlava, chemistry instrumentation specialist at Hugel Science Center, then performed further analysis on the samples using that equipment.
Ong says that while she doesn’t have all the results for the diet samples yet, she’s learned that the parasite-infected snails had higher levels of four metals than uninfected snails.
“Joyce used very modern analytical methods in her research,” Fried says, pointing out that little research has been done on the metallic biochemistry or inorganic metabolism of snails.
Ong, who hopes to eventually conduct cancer research, says her current research, along with two previous EXCEL projects at Lafayette, are preparing her well for both working in industry and graduate school studies.
In one of her prior research projects, she studied ways of using solar energy to decontaminate water polluted by the pulp and paper, textile, and food industries. As an example, Ong says, pulp and paper wastewater must be cleansed of the matter that causes its yellowish color before it is environmentally safe. The student read current research and worked on building a new apparatus for performing experiments.
“One of the best things about Lafayette is the close interaction that students have with their professors,” she says. “Plus, we have instruments and equipment that match those of larger schools.”
Ong adds that she was particularly glad to be working with two professors who are renowned in their fields.
Included in the current edition of Who’s Who in America and once featured on the Discovery Channel, Fried is one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of parasitology, with three organisms named in his honor. His research has led to important advances in the effort to conquer tropical diseases caused by parasitic flatworms.
Author of more than 550 research papers, books, and reviews, Sherma has spent much of his career advancing the fields of pesticide analysis and chromatography, a procedure for separating closely related compounds for analysis. A recipient of the Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution by American Chemical Society, Sherma has involved more than 140 different students as coauthors for over 195 papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
Ong also participates in the International Students Association and the Asian Cultural Association. She received the American Chemical Society’s Polymer Chemistry Award during her junior year and the Chemical Rubber Freshman Achievement Award during her first year at Lafayette.