Undergraduate students are applying their knowledge of physics, biology and chemistry to solve real and relevant dangers facing humanity. “Everything we do in our lab is strongly motivated by significant, real-world issues, and all of our research is driven by undergraduates. These students are all making contributions to their respective fields which will be published in peer-reviewed professional journals,” say Ben Evans, director of the research group.
Using microfabrication techniques pioneered the lab, sophomore Michael Berg is constructing a life-sized model of cilia, whip-like projections ubiquitous in biology which are responsible for everything from propelling bacteria to keeping our lungs clean. Berg’s artificial cilia are only 25 microns tall, and nearly one million of them fit in a single sample about the size of a pencil eraser. The goal is to understand how ependymal cilia – cilia in our brain – are able to respond to the adverse effects of diseases such as bacterial meningitis and continue to transport vital cerebrospinal fluid. While similar processes are beginning to be understood in human lung cilia, ependymal cilia appear to operate by a fundamentally different mechanism which has not yet been described.
“It’s a classic case for biomimetics,” Evans says. “By building a working model, we can learn things about ependymal cilia that would be impossible to learn from studying the biological system itself.”
Studying targeted therapies
Often in cancer therapy, treatment is delivered directly to the affected area rather than to the entire patient.
“Imagine chemotherapy without the side-effects – no fatigue, hair loss,” Evans says. “In targeted treatment, the tumor can receive a much higher dose while healthy tissue is spared.”
Targeted treatments have become an intense focus of the research community, and the field is extremely competitive. But sophomores Ali Deatsch and Julie Ronecker believe they have a unique opportunity to make a contribution.
Using a new type of micron-sized magnetic sphere that Deatsch designed last fall, the pair has been working to demonstrate the utility of the spheres in targeted drug delivery applications. They have already demonstrated that the microspheres can absorb a significant quantity of a model drug and release the drug slowly over time. The magnetic component of these spheres will allow them to be concentrated at specific sites within the body, thereby confining the dosage to affected tissue.
Deatsch and Ronecker’s work on this project has only just begun. A physics major, Deatsch hopes to apply her knowledge of magnetism to create microspheres that are effective in targeted magnetic hyperthermia treatment.
“Magnetic hyperthermia therapy is a relatively new treatment in which magnetic material is introduced to the tumor and heated in vivo by a high-frequency magnetic field, thereby killing cancer cells,” she says. The process works much like an induction cooktop heats a pot. Energy from the magnetic field passes directly through healthy tissue and heats only the magnetic spheres, creating a localized ‘hot spot’ at the site of the targeted tumor.
As a biochemistry major, Ronecker has a different take on the project and hopes to exploit a chemical means of binding the microspheres directly to malignant cancer cells. In this technique, microspheres will bypass healthy tissue. Once bound, chemotherapy agents may be released or the spheres may be heated with magnetic fields to kill the cells.