Department of Biology Masters Distance Learning Program

MASTERS DISTANCE MONITOR

January 2015 Issue 22

WELCOME

New Online Masters Students for Spring 2015: Laura Alzubi, AZ; Heston Anderson, VA; Becky Augustine, MN; Michelle Baer, CA; Marilyn Brooks, WA; Tarah Clements, RI; Heather DeVille, TX; Casey Dorough, CA; Joel Ferguson, NE; Brittany Gabriel, NC; Kelsey Gonzalez, UT; Lindsay Gorman, CT; James Gwinn, PA; Helmut Handszer, TX; Amanda Haupt, CO; Jennifer Hedrick, VA; Lindsay Hullinger, CO; Lorenzo Jackson, TX; Kimberly Jones, PA; David Kahler, CO; Avetik Kazarian, CA; Rae Krasko, CA; Leslie Kuiper, MI; Meikle, Cayman Islands; Erica Oberlin, MA; Shelby Ratzlaff, CO; Anthony Rineer, PA; Linett San Juan, FL; Mary Sexton, TN; Steve Shenouda, CA; Ashley Thompkins, SC; Jennifer Thornsberry, PA; Elizabeth Tripp, ID; Kyle Tulisiak, OH; Carrie Vogan, TN; Kathern Wendt, NE; Gwenevere White, CA; Princess Williams, MS

Dr. Bryan Drew is a first year faculty member in the Biology Department who is teaching BIOL 830P - “Flowering Plants: Systematics & Evolution” during the spring of 2015. Dr. Drew completed his PhD at the University of Wisconsin and later conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Florida. His research focuses on the phylogenetics, evolution, and historical biogeography of plants. So far, the main focus of Dr. Drew’s research has been studying the evolutionary relationships within the mint family, or Lamiaceae, but he is involved with several other plant groups as well. At the University of Florida he was part of the Open Tree of Life research group, which is building the first phylogenetic tree that contains all named organisms.

Dianne Ewing was hired as the Office Associate for the Graduate Online Program for Biology and Computer Science & Information Technology. Previously, she worked as an Administrative Assistant at the John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, IL and served in several administrative roles in the Rock Island School District in Illinois. Dianne was a lifetime resident of Illinois up until September, when she moved to Kearney and quickly became a proud Husker! Dianne has two children, Pyper and Thomas. Pyper attends Horizon Middle School and Thomas is a freshman at Kearney High. Wedding bells are in the air, as Dianne has recently become engaged.

CONGRATULATIONS

Fall 2014 Graduates: Christopher Alberts, Brooke Anderson, Dorothy Artale, Tonya Baxley, Julia Brown, Angela Cayce, Jason Dussault, Caroline Early, Anna-Maria Easley, Dustin Franklin, Jennifer Gonzalez, Karla Gunter, Nancy Hegeman, Brittany Knight, Elliot Lisiecki, Marcello Mangano, Alka McAndrew, Valerie Miller, Lisa Mose, Jonathon Newkirk, Andrea Robarge, Destin Rutherford, Tiffany Seder, Annamarie Walker, Li Wang (Thesis), Zachariah Woiak (Thesis)

The winter weather did not impede two graduates from making the journey to Kearney for the UNK Winter Commencement ceremony on December 19th held in the Health and Sports Center. Over 15 guests; including one graduate, his family and Biology faculty; attended the Department breakfast before the ceremony to honor our graduates. (pictured from left to right: Dr. Julie Shaffer, Graduate Program Chair; Jonathon Newkirk, December 2014 graduate; Dr. Kimberly Carlson, Professor; Dr. Joe Springer, Department Chair)

Newsfeed

Another Biology Professor has been featured in New Frontiers, the Research and Creative Activity publication at the University of Nebraska Kearney. Below is an excerpt from the article on Dr. Paul Twigg, Professor in the Department of Biology, entitled “Plants to Fuel: Paul Twigg in Race to Find Next Big Biofuels Discovery”. For the full article click on the link: unknews.unk.edu/2014/10/28/plants-to-fuel-paul-twigg-in-race-to-find-next-big-biofuels-discovery/.

Paul Twigg’s spring garden is a thing of beauty: Beautiful black dirt is powdery yet flat and even, awaiting his pointy hoe – perfectly straight rows carved at a uniform depth.

While his neighbors look on – fat cows sloshing in the mud from the pasture across the fence, Twigg dribbles little handfuls of fertilizer, then, small handfuls of seeds, bending from the waist with long arms carrying precious bits into the rows beneath him. Kohlrabi, carrots, mesclun align near paper bag-tented huts protecting different varieties of tomatoes, peppers (“the black ones are ‘Dracula’ peppers,” he points out). Peas and garlic are well on their way.

Paul Twigg is happiest, he says, in his garden. Digging in the dirt, smelling that yummy aroma of fresh soil, feeling the seedlings in his hands.

This brings back memories of his childhood growing up in Pennsylvania, he says, in his grandpa’s garden. “Pap” he calls him.

“I’ve always loved plants. It’s not that I don’t love people,” he said, “it’s just that from the time I was a little kid I always wanted to work with plants. Pap had this huge garden and I worked with him in it pretty much since I was big enough to pick up a shovel, working in the garden and doing things with him. It kind of all started there.”

Where will it lead? Perhaps to a major discovery that will unlock the mystery of gene regulation that will produce the best plant for developing biofuel.

In contrast to his gardening hoe and line stakes, Twigg’s research tools are more high-tech and microscopic. He utilizes Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machines and next-generation sequencers to look at plants at the cellular and molecular level, analyzing plant DNA. His main research subjects are algae – specifically a single-celled algae called Chlamydomonas – and

switchgrass. Both plants are popular subjects for research worldwide for potential biofuel sources.

His love of plants comes from his DNA and propels his research, as a scholar and teacher, to discover clues that could solve a very important problem: How to use natural resources to sustain humans’ technology.

Twigg, a molecular biologist in his 22nd year at UNK, doesn’t simply study plants or fuel per se, but instead, he examines questions at the cellular level through expression of genes that control specific traits in plant cells.

Question one: how to alter or manipulate insect resistance.

Question two: how to create different varieties of plants with different levels of cellulose and lignin. Lignin is a complex polymer in plant cell walls and plays an important role in the carbon cycle because it yields more energy when burned than cellulose. Lignin represents a loss of energy for ethanol production, Twigg said, so their projects attempt to find cultivars of switchgrass with lower levels of it.

Question three relates to nitrogen deprivation. Basically, determining how, when you “stress out” plant cells, how and where they get nitrogen. Take a plant cell’s nitrogen away, and it begins to scavenge nitrogen away from someplace else in its cell, breaking down proteins and storing the resulting leftover carbons as fat. That fat is pretty much one step away from being diesel fuel, Twigg says.

Complex work. And necessary, at the basic research stage, to inform further research to develop plants for use as fuel.

DNA DETECTION

“In our research, we’re analyzing gene expression, that is, trying to isolate the genes necessary for that production of fats,” Twigg says, sitting in his greenhouse office near UNK’s Bruner Hall of Science.

“One of the things we do (for our research) is real-time PCR, it’s like a Xerox machine for DNA. It documents the amount of DNA as it’s being made, so then you can connect that to how many copies of that transcript there were so you can measure levels of gene expression.”

Real-time polymerase chain reaction is a lab technique that amplifies and simultaneously quantifies a targeted

DNA molecule. The quantity can be either an absolute number of copies, or a relative amount when normalized to DNA input or additional normalizing genes. It’s a new approach compared to standard PCR, in which the product of the reaction is detected at the end of the process.

Using a complicated and expensive real-time PCR machine, Twigg uses fluorescent dyes or DNA probes to quantify and detect messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid) and non-coding RNA in cells or tissues. (RNA differs from DNA in that it’s single-stranded and has a much shorter chain).

Much of Twigg’s research is funded by grants from the departments of Energy and Defense, and the National Science Foundation, through EPSCoR (the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research), and collaborative with researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His funded research over the past five years is nearly $5.5 million. Researchers on the teams work on different components and assign specific tasks to each researcher, compiling the data into research papers to be submitted to journals. Twigg is a lead or co-author on dozens of papers that are informing biofuels research.

“It’s a race to make the big discovery first and to be able to find the best organism (to make biofuel),” Twigg said. “Different people have different organisms they want to promote. Some people think switchgrass isn’t good and they’d rather grow another kind of grass. So there’s a race on that and with Chlamydomonas, looking at different algae, different conditions, different ways of growing it so everyone is working on different aspects of it.”

Publications, Meetings, Grants

Grants Twigg, P. Title: Nebraska Center for Algal Biology and Biotechnology: Undergraduate lab enhancement project. September 2014-September 2015. Agency: NSF/EPSCOR. Amount: $10, 500.

Meetings Rachel Schnoor, Corey Willicott, Kelsie Musil, MaryAnn Pelc, and Paul Twigg. August 2014. The Wild

Algae Hunt: Domestication of naturally occurring algae for biofuel production in Central NE. Annual NE-EPSCoR Symposium. Lincoln, Nebraska. Oral Presentation.

Li Wang, Corey Willicott, Kelsie Musil, and Paul Twigg. August 2014. Measuring expression changes associated with proteins known to be altered under nitrogen stress in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Annual NE-EPSCoR Symposium. Lincoln, Nebraska. Oral Presentation.

Corey Willicott, Kelsie Musil, and Paul Twigg. August 2014. Does protein up-regulation equal increase in expression in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii under nitrogen stress? Annual NE-EPSCoR Symposium. Lincoln, Nebraska. Oral Presentation.

Publications Babaian, C. S., and Chalian, A. A. (2014). “The Thyroidectomy Story”: Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and

the Novel Approach to Teaching Head and Neck Surgery Through the Genre of the Comic Book. Journal of Surgical Education, 71(3), 413-418.

Continue to send us updates on any meetings, publications, grants, or awards that you have been involved with. Please email details to msbiology@unk.edu.

Faculty News

Three Biology faculty received awards this past fall: Dr. Paul Twigg, Professor (pictured left), received the Pratt-Heins Foundation Faculty Award for Outstanding Service to UNK in Scholarship/Research. Dr. Janet Steele, Director of the Online Master of Science Degree Program (pictured right), received the Pratt-Heins Foundation Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching. Both were honored at Faculty/Staff Fall Convocation. To read more about these awards go to: unknews.unk.edu/2014/08/28/twigg-lilly-steele-receive-prestigious-pratt-heins-faculty-awards/

Dr. Julie Shaffer, Graduate Program Chair (pictured left), was presented with the Leland Holdt Distinguished Faculty Award at the December commencement ceremony. This is UNK’s highest faculty award, given to a faculty member that demonstrates outstanding achievement in teaching, research and service. More information is available at: unknews.unk.edu/2014/12/19/julie-shaffer-presented-unks-holt-distinguished-faculty-award/

Student News

Tonya Baxley (Fall 2014 graduate) has accepted a full-time resident faculty position at Mohave Community College in Bullhead City, Arizona. She will be teaching introductory biology, general biology for majors, and Anatomy and Physiology. She already put what she calls UNK Fun Facts to work in her first semester teaching. Rick Henry (Summer 2005 graduate) is starting his fourth year teaching at Helena College, a two year community college in Helena, MT.

Mariann Britzman (current distance student) and her husband, Alex, recently welcomed their first child! Roxann Ellis was born September 30th weighing 6 lbs 5 oz and was 18 inches long. (pictured far left)

Jocelyn Bryant (Fall 2010 graduate) gave birth to her first baby on July 25th. Logan Leonard was exactly one month early and weighed in at 5 lbs 7 oz and was 18 ½ inches. (pictured left)

Camille Merck (current distance student) welcomed her second child, Colton Price on November 20th at 2:02 pm. Colton weighed 8 lbs 9 oz and was 22 inches long. (pictured far left)

Please let us know what is going on in your lives; email us your news at msbiology@unk.edu.

Office Space Spring 2015 Deadlines: January 12th – Spring classes begin January 19th – Martin Luther King Jr. Day, classes dismissed and UNK offices closed January 22nd – E-bill notifications sent to Lopermail account February 2nd – Last day to apply for Spring graduation February 12th – Tuition & Fees due in full March 13th – Last day to drop a course (no refund at this time) March 22nd –March 29th – Spring Break, all classes dismissed April 6th – Early registration begins for Summer and Fall 2015 for all currently enrolled students April 10th – Comprehensive Exams (for graduating students) must be returned to the Biology Dept. April 27th – General registration begins (for admitted students not enrolled in Spring 2015) May 4th -May 7th – Final Exams May 8th – Graduation May 11th – Summer semester begins

Students planning to graduate this May 2015 must apply for graduation on MyBlue. Even if you do not plan to attend ceremony you must apply in order to receive your degree. The deadline to apply for May graduation is February 2nd. There is a $25 application fee which can be paid on-line during the application process. Commencement ceremony will take place at 10:00 am on May 8th in the Health and Sports Center. Please consider making the trip to Kearney to walk in graduation and if you do, please let the Biology Department know so we can plan some special events for you.