Improving projections for how much ocean levels may change in the future and what that means for coastal communities has vexed researchers studying sea level rise for years, but a new international study that incorporates extreme events may have just given researchers and coastal planners what they need.
The study, published today in Nature Communications uses newly available data and advanced models to improve global predictions when it comes to extreme sea levels. The results suggest that extreme sea levels will likely occur more frequently than previously predicted, particularly in the west coast regions of the U.S. and in large parts of Europe and Australia.
“Storm surges globally lead to considerable loss of life and billions of dollars of damages each year, and yet we still have a limited understanding of the likelihood and associated uncertainties of these extreme events both today and in the future,” said Thomas Wahl, an assistant engineering professor in the University of Central Florida who led the study. He is also a member of UCF’s Sustainable Coastal Systems Cluster.
The study was conducted to make data about extreme events a part of the ongoing research and planning required to help communities prepare now for conditions that may be dramatically different in the not-too-distant future.
Extreme sea levels are typically caused by a combination of high tides, storm surges, and in many cases waves, Wahl said.
When an extreme event collides with continually rising seas, it takes a less intense storm, such as a Category I hurricane, to inflict as much coastal damage as a Category II or III storm would have had when the seas were lower.
Because of the rising sea levels, which research has confirmed has occurred steadily during the past century and is expected to accelerate in the future, extreme events that are now expected to happen, on average, only once every hundred years, could occur every decade or even every year, in many places by 2050, the study said.
Using a representative sample of 20 different methods for predicting extreme sea levels the researchers focused intensely on the measures of uncertainty that accompany any prediction, but that are particularly vexing in the analysis of extremes.
Interspersing sea level rise with the latest predictions of extreme sea level events, the research team was able to illustrate the dramatic effect one has on the other and pinpoint regions of the world that are especially threatened.
“In order to understand coastal impacts under current and future climate and socio-economic conditions, we do not only need robust projections of mean sea level rise but also a profound knowledge of present-day and future extreme sea levels, because these events drive the impacts,” Wahl said.
The researcher team agreed that including extreme sea levels into coastal impact studies is imperative in helping vulnerable parts of the world effectively protect themselves by adapting through new or upgraded infrastructure such as dikes, pumping systems, barriers, or other tools like new building codes or flood zoning that prevents new infrastructure from being built in high-risk areas.
“Based on our results we can see, for the first time globally, what role uncertainties in extreme sea level predictions play,” said study co-author and associate professor Ivan Haigh of the University of Southampton, UK. “It helps identify hotspots where we can focus on in more detail, performing localized studies to reduce the uncertainties and improve our confidence in the results.”
Also part of the team was Professor Robert Nicholls at the University of Southampton, UK, Jochen Hinkel at Global Climate Forum, Germany, Arne Arns and Soenke Dangendorf at the University of Siegen, Germany, and Aimée Slangen at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and University of Utrecht, Netherlands.
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Undersea Life Holds Promise for Killing Tuberculosis
A team of researchers at the University of Central Florida has discovered a potential new weapon in the fight against tuberculosis, and it lives in the Little Mermaid’s realm.
UCF graduate student Carolina Rodrigues Felix led the study in UCF Assistant Professor Kyle Rohde’s lab. Through a partnership with graduate student Amy Wright of the Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, the team screened 4,400 chemical extracts derived from extracts of sponges and other marine organisms to see if they could kill the dormant tuberculosis bacteria. Tuberculosis is a highly contagious disease that is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide.
“To our knowledge this is the largest marine natural product screening on TB and the only one that focused on dormant bacteria,” Rohde said.
The team identified 26 compounds that were active against replicating tuberculosis bacteria, 19 killed dormant bacteria including seven that were active against both.
“There were some that actually killed the dormant bacteria better than the replicating bacteria, which is a novelty,” he said, “as existing drugs are better at killing replicating bacteria.”
Findings of the study published in June in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, which is published by the American Society of Microbiology. The National Institutes of Health funded the study.
Tuberculosis, an infectious bacterial disease that mainly affects the lungs, is spread from person to person through the air. Globally, there are about 10.5 million new cases and about 1.5 million deaths reported each year.
“One of the biggest problems is the lack of effective treatments,” Rohde said. “Tuberculosis is very difficult to treat and in most cases, takes six to nine months of taking at least four drugs daily. And most patients don’t stick to their drug regimens for six to nine months because they have undesirable side effects, or they stop taking it when they feel better.”
Tuberculosis bacteria have thick cell walls that drugs have difficulty penetrating. The bacteria also express proteins that make it resistant to treatment. And the bacteria can hide within the immune system and become dormant, only to reappear after treatment ends. “Most of the drugs we have only kill bacteria that are trying to replicate,” he said, “so we need drugs that can kill those dormant ones.”
Scientists have been isolating marine natural compounds from sea sponges and other marine organisms to find treatments for diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis. Rohde said many of these compounds are not in the sponges themselves, but are made from microorganisms such as fungi or bacteria that live on the sponges.
Rohde and his team plan to purify and further isolate the individual compounds in these extracts to identify which ones have antibacterial properties. So far, they have identified five pure compounds with verified antibiotic potential against tuberculosis.
“Once we’ve identified these compounds, we want to study them to understand how they work,” Rohde said. “That way if the compound turns out not to be a great drug for use in humans as is, at least we would have identified a new target for antibiotics. Alternatively, we could work with chemists to modify the drug to improve its clinical usefulness.”
UCF Professor Wins National Master Ethics Teacher Award
With the number of businesses running into trouble for everything from inappropriate funding to sexual harassment allegations, UCF Professor Marshall Schminke makes sure students in his classes are schooled in business ethics.
His college colleagues say he is a pro and this summer so did his colleagues nationwide. Schminke was one of four professors recognized for their excellence with a national Master Ethics Teacher Award.
He was recognized for making significant contributions to the teaching of business ethics at the Teaching Ethics at Universities Conference in late May.
Schminke has served as a research fellow with the Ethics Resource Center in Washington, D.C., and was an advisor to organizations ranging from family businesses to Fortune 500 firms, the U.S. Strategic Command and Army. He also has been an expert witness on corporate ethics in U.S. District Court proceedings. Schminke received his doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University and has served as a visiting scholar at Oxford University and the London School of Economics.
He has published two books, more than 40 articles, and given more than 70 presentations on business ethics at professional conferences and universities in the United States and abroad. His thoughts on business strategy, management and ethics have appeared in more than 50 newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Newsday and Chicago Tribune.
This year Schminke was joined by fellow award recipients Joanne Ciulla of Rutgers University, Daryl Koehn of DePaul University and Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale University.
The Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University hosted the conference and it was sponsored by the Society for Business Ethics and the Wheatley Institution at BYU.
Professor’s Composition to be Performed at U.S. Capitol Concert
One of UCF Professor Stella Sung’s longtime dreams has been to have one of her musical compositions performed on a national stage – and this summer she will achieve that goal when the National Symphony Orchestra plays one of her songs at a Labor Day concert to be broadcast from the U.S. Capitol lawn.
John Morris Russell, guest conductor for the NSO and conductor of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, selected The Peace Corps from Sung’s Rockwell Reflections collection to play at the annual event. He also will conduct the piece at a Fourth of July celebration in Cincinnati.
“It just feels so amazing to finally have that dream come true,” said Sung, who also is director of the Center for Research and Education in Arts, Technology and Entertainment (CREATE) at the university’s downtown Center for Emerging Media.
Sung wrote the Rockwell Reflections collection for the Orlando Philharmonic in 2007. At that time, a collection of paintings by artist Norman Rockwell was touring the country and Sung became so inspired she created orchestral pieces for five of his works.
The Peace Corps was the final composition in the set and inspired by a painting of President John F. Kennedy with a group of the organization’s volunteers.
“It’s a very inspiring illustration, it just personifies that really wonderful American spirit and hope and service because that’s what the Peace Corps was all about,” Sung said. “This piece is reflective of those Peace Corps feelings.”
Russell said Sung’s composition was inspiring.
“It has the grand, open sonorities reminiscent of Copland, an epic scope worthy of John Williams, capped by a beloved melody by Irving Berlin,” Russell said. “It is as American as apple pie: inspirational and stirring.”
Sung’s music has been played all around the world by a multitude of different orchestras such as the German Ministry of Culture, the Dayton (Ohio) Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and others.
“I really am forever indebted to all the other orchestras, the youth orchestras, the university orchestras, regional orchestras, that have played my music,” Sung said. “I owe a debt of gratitude to all my colleagues and musicians because you can’t start with major orchestras. You build and have those years of support and it has finally come to fruition.
“This is one of my favorite pieces. Even if it doesn’t get played by another orchestra, I’ll be really happy with how everything turned out.”
UCF Alumni, Students Develop Tools to Avoid Long Lines at Theme Parks
Two UCF alumni and a student each earned first place in a competition that stretched their statistical math skills to come up with better resources to help people visiting theme parks avoid long lines.
Kanak Choudhury ‘17, Taha Mokfi ’17 and statistical computing major Phuong Pho competed individually in Touring Plans’ Big Data Challenge. The contest challenged college students to build statistical models that would predict the wait times for multiple Walt Disney World attractions up to a year in advance. The rides included Splash Mountain, Soarin’ and others. They each will receive from $500 to $1,500 depending on the success of the final models submitted.
The students had to use Big Data to do solve the problem. The information included thousands of files containing wait times for each of the attractions over several years, opening and closing times, temperature records and more.
Pho, a graduate teaching assistant in the economics department, said the project was one of the most time-consuming he’s worked on. He said he tried numerous statistical models until he found one that worked.
“I really enjoyed the Big Data Challenge because it gave me a great opportunity to apply the modelling methodology I learned in school to real-life problems,” he said. “It’s satisfying when you find the meaningful function form or the interaction that improved the predictability of the model.”
Choudhury, who will pursue a doctoral degree in statistics at Iowa State University this fall, said “It was a really challenging task to find the best model due to large and complicated data. Strong statistical experience helped me to apply the necessary techniques to decipher some of the numbers.”
Mokfi, a statistical computing graduate, used predictive models to accomplish the objective. He said he combined five different models.
“Without having enough theoretical background, no one can be successful in such competitions,” Mokfi said. “UCF offers various courses about data mining and machine learning and these courses can be excellent resources for learning big data methodologies.”
Mokfi is now employed in Hartford, Connecticut, as a data science analyst for Aetna insurance company.
The competition is another example of the power big data yields in helping business and in this case families, plan for the future. A family with young children visiting a theme park for example could use predictive information to plan their day by either avoiding peak waiting times for the children’s favorite rides or by preparing by making sure to have lunch before a long wait.
But big data is still an evolving field and the companies providing these services are looking for talent, especially people who can come up with more efficient and creative approaches.
Touring Plans is a national company that provides park information – including wait times – for tourist attractions via an app. Touring Plans and the UCF Department of Statistics sponsored the competition. The three UCF winners said they are scheduled to meet with Touring Plans officials to discuss the possibility of incorporating one or more of the models on the company’s app.
Rosen College of Hospitality Management Receives $1.5 M from Marriott Foundation
The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation has made a commitment of $1.5 million to help fund construction of a new foodservice lab at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management. The facility will be named the Marriott Foodservice Lab.
The new 3,500-square-foot lab is needed to accommodate rapid growth in the college. Currently more than 1,400 students in six different courses learn about design, catering, franchise development, food preparation, cost controls and managerial skills in two existing foodservice labs, which closely resemble modern restaurant kitchens. But as teaching labs they are also equipped with video monitors and other instructional enhancements. The new lab is expected to be completed in 2019.
Viewing the hospitality and tourism industry as one of the world’s most important drivers of economic growth, the Marriott Foundation seeks to help educate and prepare the next generation of hospitality leaders by supporting programs that offer exceptional curricula, real-world experiences, and opportunities for students to engage with mentors in the field.
“The Rosen College of Hospitality Management not only offers an excellent education, but also emphasizes access and opportunities for students from all backgrounds,” said Marriott Foundation executive director Anna Gunsteens. “That aligns closely with our Foundation’s priorities.”
The Rosen College of Hospitality Management opened the doors of its new campus in 2004 to just 75 students. Today, it is ranked among the top five hospitality management programs in the world, enrolling more than 3,700 students and offering five undergraduate and two graduate degrees, in addition to a Ph.D. in hospitality management.
“The Marriott Foundation’s support of the Rosen College is an endorsement of our programs and an investment in the hospitality leaders of the future in foodservice operations and food industry management,” said Dr. Abraham Pizam, Dean of Rosen College. “The Foundation recognizes the importance of stellar educational facilities and the challenges of growth, and we are extremely grateful for their partnership and support as we prepare our students to take on the challenges of accommodating and entertaining the 666 million visitors that make Orlando their destination of choice each year.”
About the UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management
The UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management located in Orlando, offers students an unrivaled opportunity to learn and work in the heart of hospitality. Ranked in the top five hospitality management programs worldwide, Rosen College has been an educational leader for over 30 years. Uniquely positioned in America’s top tourism destination, we educate the next generation of industry leaders through internationally-recognized faculty, innovative academic programs, cutting-edge research and strong industry and community partnerships. To learn more, visit hospitality.ucf.edu.
Biologist and Genetics Expert Team Up to Solve Turtle Health Mystery
Almost 50 percent of the green sea turtles in the Indian River Lagoon have tumors all over their bodies and despite data going back more than two decades, the cause of the disease remains a mystery.
University of Central Florida assistant professor and biologist Kate Mansfield works on various sea turtle research projects and is now partnering with UCF molecular ecologist Anna Savage to see if they can figure out how fibropapillomatosis or FP for short develops in turtles and why.
There is some existing work on FP, but Savage brings a unique approach to the UCF team. She specializes in figuring out the role genes play in species resistance to viruses and bacteria. Most of her work has been with frogs and she had never worked with turtles, until now.
“That’s why I’m so excited,” Savage said. “There’s been a lot of data collected and there is some literature on FP. But it’s a complicated disease. The belief is there are a lot of factors that play into the tumor formation. I’m taking a slightly different approach by looking at the genes related to turtle immunity to see if we can find a pattern that might lead us to some answers.”
Preliminary data show that the tumors in the sea turtles Savage has examined carry a specific herpesvirus. But some turtles with no tumors also have biomarkers for the virus in their skin and blood. And there are some turtles that have no presence of the virus at all. Important clues may be found in the genes of turtles with the virus, but no tumors, Savage said.
She and Mansfield recently earned a $17,631 grant from the Sea Turtle Conservancy to take a deeper genetic look at what may be driving the tumor disease among green and loggerhead sea turtles. They have a deep data set to review thanks to the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group that has been collecting sea turtle data since 1982. UCF researchers and students have been monitoring the health and nesting patterns of sea turtles at the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge (with US Fish and Wildlife Authorization), the Indian River Lagoon and the Tidal Basin near Cape Canaveral. The Archie Carr is a one of the most important nesting area for sea turtles in the Western Hemisphere.
Mansfield and her students capture sea turtles in the Indian River Lagoon twice a month to collect data and monitor their health. The biologists check the turtles’ weight body condition, collect samples of blood, skin, and when present, tumors. When finished, all turtles are flipper tagged and released back into the water. Large numbers of juvenile green sea turtles visit the lagoon – one of the most important feeding areas for the species.
“We encounter on average 100-200 turtles in the IRL a year and in some cases we have samples going back a decade or two,” Mansfield said. “So we have a unique opportunity to leverage our long-term dataset to answer some long-standing questions, and to fill some needed data gaps in sea turtle conservation.”
The UCF Marine Turtle Research Group studies all life stages of these sea creatures. Sea turtles remain at sea for most of their lives, where it is difficult to observe and track them over time. Turtles don’t reach maturity for 20-30 years. It is important to understand the threats and impacts to the health of the juveniles, like those found in the IRL, in order to ensure that future generations of sea turtles will continue to nest in Florida.
In addition to work on our local nesting beaches and coastal waters, Mansfield and her graduate students have been working in the Gulf of Mexico, and south Atlantic and Indian oceans to unravel the mystery of the sea “lost years” – examining where the youngest stages of sea turtles go and how they interact with their oceanic habitats.
Mansfield and the turtle team’s work helps state and federal managers better protect the endangered and threatened species for future generations.
UCF Student Paddles 800 Miles Down Gulf Coast to Raise Money for Environment
A UCF student is making waves as he paddles nearly 800 miles down Florida’s Gulf Coast this summer.
Cole Kolasa, an environmental engineering major, is documenting his summertime adventure in his blog Kayaking for Conservation. Kolasa started a Go Fund Me page in hopes of raising $10,000 to support artificial reefs in his hometown of Hernando County.
The funds raised will be directly donated to Hernando County for the construction of reef balls to aid the county’s shallow reefs and living shorelines. The money will also support the sinking of a 50-foot concrete sailboat to serve as the county’s first “wreck reef” to attract divers to the coast and raise awareness for the region.
“The Gulf Coast is a beautiful area that needs to be preserved. The money raised will help bolster coastal resilience and shoreline stability,” he said during a phone interview as he paddled through the waters near Homosassa, Florida. “I want to spend my summer raising money to help fund research for local restoration projects.”
Kolasa, born and raised in Brooksville, Florida, spent three months planning his solo voyage before embarking on May 8 from Big Lagoon State Park in Pensacola. The 19-year-old is averaging about 22 miles a day — give or take a few miles depending on Mother Nature — in his 18-and-a-half-foot sea kayak built in the 1980s.
“My kayak is meant for a trip like this,” Kolasa said. “I got stuck in three-to-five foot seas offshore, near Destin. The waves submerged my kayak underwater but I was fine.”
Kolasa’s kayak carries all of the essentials: a tent, bug suit and spray, small stove for cooking easy-to-make meals, Marine radio, flashlights, navigational system, emergency signaling devices, as well as water filtration systems and up to 25 liters of water incase there is no resupply nearby. He charges his phone with portable solar panels.
He carries nearly two weeks worth of food at a time such as trail mix and ramen noodles, and meets up with friends or family to restock along the way. After he’s paddled as far as he can for the day, he stops sleep at primitive campsites along nearby islands or beaches, and sometimes at state parks.
Kolasa has made a few friends throughout his solo-excursion. He’s paddled with the Florida Circumnavigation Saltwater Paddling Trail, as well as friends and family who’ve come out to spend the day with him.
“There’s a lot of support for a trip like this,” Kolassa said. “There’s a network of people that have helped and supported me along the way.”
Several sponsors donated supplies to help Kolasa along his journey. Those companies include Sun Bum, a sunscreen manufacturer based in Cocoa Beach, Travel Country Outfitters, who donated nearly $700 worth of outdoor gear, and Wagan Tech, a company which produces high-end outdoor electronic gear.
“This is an exciting trip for me because I’ve spent so much time outdoors hiking different trails, but this is neat because I get to do those types of activities and live simply all to aid in conservation and restoration of our ecosystems,” Kolasa said. “I’ve finally found a way I can tie two of my favorite things together.”
Kolasa plans to end his journey this June somewhere in the Florida Keys between Islamorada and Marathon. You can keep up with his adventures by following his Facebook page.
UCF Hosts Cleantech Business-Plan Competition
Ten promising cleantech companies from across the United States, including three from the University of Central Florida, will face off in a business-plan competition today, June 9, for a chance to win $50,000 to grow their innovations into a business.
The competition, called Megawatt Ventures, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Cleantech University Prize and will be held at UCF’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management. The competition begins at 8 a.m. and is open to the public. The winner will have the opportunity to compete for another $50,000 in the final round later this month.
“The overriding mission of the competition is to encourage the commercialization of innovative clean technologies from the lab to the marketplace,” said Thomas O’Neal, associate vice president for innovation at UCF.
UCF is one of eight universities nationwide that facilitates Cleantech UP competitions to connect promising research in energy efficiency with experienced entrepreneurs, business executives, industry partners, venture capitalists and other resources that can lead to commercial products and high-wage jobs.
This is the fifth year of the Megawatt Ventures competition, which has been funded by the DOE for a total of $1.25 million. Teams from previous years have raised more than $4 million in additional funding after winning the competition.
The UCF Megawatt Ventures team travels to universities throughout the Southeastern United States to recruit talented multidisciplinary teams and build excitement about the concept of solving energy challenges with new technologies.
Teams consist of two or more members and at least half of the team must be students.
“We are striving to capture the innovation coming out of our universities and connect it to funders in a way that is both exciting and sustainable,” O’Neal said.
The 10 teams selected for the 2017 competition received training from UCF experts in entrepreneurship, clean energy, funding strategies, commercialization and proper presentation tactics.
The three teams with UCF ties are:
- Energitek – Founded by Necati Catbas, a professor of civil, environmental and construction engineering at UCF, the company uses highly advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to predict the amount of energy that can be generated at any given time by solar photovoltaic panels to help homeowners reduce energy costs and prevent adverse effects of increased residential solar photovoltaic usage on utility grids. Other members of the company are Ph.D. students Chuan-Zhi Dong and Ozan Celik.
- Thor ORE – Brandon Carpenter, a researcher at UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center, and Dylan Weitzman, an undergraduate in physics were UCF students when they joined entrepreneur and now CEO Glenn Wagner to form the company. The company uses nano-filtration systems to extract needed rare earth elements and uranium from the waste streams of the mining and manufacturing industries. These elements can be used in various industries from electronics and medicine to defense and renewable energy. The company’s goals are to decrease U.S. reliance on China for the elements and to reduce waste products generated by the phosphate fertilizer industry.
- ThuRiYa Energy – founded by Ngwe Zin, a postdoctoral researcher at UCF’s Florida Solar Energy Center, ThuRiYa is focused on simplifying manufacturing processes and improved efficiency of solar cells.
The teams will pitch their company business plans Shark Tank-style to a panel of judges including venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, renewable-energy veterans and Fortune 1000 company technology scouts. In addition to O’Neal, confirmed judges will be George Gramatikas, founder of Turbine Technology Services and UCF I-Corps mentor; Purnesh Seegopaul, general partner at Pangaea Ventures; Carol Hunter, construction project controls manager at Disney Parks & Resorts; and Janine Elliott, program officer at VentureWell, an organization focused on supporting STEM students and researchers.
The event will also feature speakers discussing topics related to opportunities for student entrepreneurs, clean energy and local sustainability efforts, including representatives of the DOE’s Technology-to-Market Office, VentureWell, and the City of Orlando’s Green Works department.
The winner of Friday’s competition will advance to the national-level completion to be held in Austin, TX, June 26-27.
MegaWatt Ventures
MegaWatt Ventures is an annual clean energy business-plan competition that is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Cleantech University Prize (Cleantech UP) and the University of Central Florida. The competition has an overriding mission of encouraging the commercialization of innovative clean technologies from the lab bench into the marketplace. Innovations submitted through the competition are vetted by industry experts and customers with high energy/water demands throughout the entire process. A majority of members from each team must be students from U.S. universities. UCF, along with the University of California Berkley, Carnegie Mellon University, Clean Energy Trust, Rice University, Rutgers University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the California Institute for Technology host Cleantech UP collegiate competitions. VentureWell and the Department of Energy will host the Cleantech UP finals, at which top teams from each collegiate competition will be eligible to participate. For more information, visit www.megawattventures.com or call 407-882-0663.
UCF Scientists Use Gene Editing To Develop New Screening Tool For Parkinson’s Disease
A team of researchers at the University of Central Florida is using breakthrough gene-editing technology to develop a new screening tool for Parkinson’s disease, a debilitating degenerative disorder of the nervous system. The technology allows scientists in the lab to “light up” and then monitor a brain protein called alpha-synuclein that has been associated with Parkinson’s.
“Alpha-synuclein is a protein that is normally found in the brain. We all have it,” said Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences doctoral student Levi Adams, one of the lead researchers on the project. “But for some reason, when you have Parkinson’s the levels become abnormal. So, if we can monitor this protein in the cell, we can start to measure what causes it to go up and also what treatments can cause it to go down.”
The team published its findings in the Scientific Reports journal. The National Institutes of Health (5R21NS088923-02 ) funded the work. The researchers believe their work is a crucial step toward identifying new drug therapies for Parkinson’s disease.
Adams is partnering with doctoral student Sambuddha Basu, associate professor and neurosciences researcher, Associate Professor Yoon-Seong Kim, and scientist Subhrangshu Guhathakurta to study Parkinson’s, which affects motor functions caused by a gradual loss of brain cells. There are about 60,000 new cases of Parkinson’s each year in the United States.
They are using CRISPR Cas9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) gene-editing technology. The system is one of research’s fastest growing biomedical techniques that allows scientists to make specific changes in the DNA of plants and animals while not killing cells. The system is becoming instrumental in studying genetically based treatments for diseases including cancer and Parkinson’s.
“It’s the most powerful and widely used gene-editing technique in use because it allows us to change the DNA in living cells,” said Kim, who is also a medical doctor. “The innovation of this method is that it enables us to monitor this gene in real-time without killing the cell. Without the CRISPR Cas-9 method, you would have to extract all the proteins from the cell to measure them, which kills the cell.”
Using the CRISPR technique, the Burnett team edited the alpha-synuclein gene and inserted a luminescent tag made from proteins that causes fireflies to light up. Every time the cell creates the alpha-synuclein protein, the tag gives off a light. That reaction “makes it much easier to measure,” Adams said. “More light means an increased level of alpha-synuclein, which would be considered a diseased state.”
The team found that measuring light was a reliable method to measure alpha-synuclein production.
“If we take one of these modified cells and treat it with a particular drug, if it doesn’t produce light anymore, then this means the drug is a potential treatment for this disease,” Basu said.
With the engineered cells, researchers can screen new and existing drugs to see how they regulate alpha-synuclein level in patients.
“With an easy-to-measure reporter like light production, this will allow us to do high throughput screening, where you can test a large panel of drugs at once,” Guhathakurta said.
With the new technology, the scientists hope to identifying ways to reduce alpha-synuclein production that can possibly prevent Parkinson’s or its progression in patients diagnosed with the disease.
The team said research will focus on what aspects of the alpha-synuclein protein kill neurons during Parkinson’s disease.
