College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Engaging Students
Search for Chronic Disease Risk Factors in
Horses Leads to Clues about Prevention
Bringing New Life to an Eroding Stream
Value-added Soybeans to Save Money and Environment
Expanding the Learning Experience
Crossing Traditional Boundaries of Science
To Find Health Solutions
Hobby-size Planes May Be Future of
Early Warning System
Improving Local Economies Through Agritourism
Incentive Payments May Reduce Phosphorus Pollution
Protecting Milk’s Flavor and Nutritional Value
Finding a Healthful and Environmentally Friendly Use For Peanut Skins
Supporting Virginia’s Expanding Wine Industry
Virginia Tech Reaches Top 10 in Agricultural Research
Entrepreneurship Education Puts Business Owners in the Express Lane
E-learning Option for Place-bound Professionals
Financial Planning – From the Farm to the Household
New Graduate Program to Train Faculty in Agricultural Education Fields
Farmers’ Markets from Diverse Communities Benefit from Sharing
Families, Food, and Fun
Developing Disease-free Mosquitoes
Mites Make Right in Honduras – or Not?
Help for the Hippos of Zambia
Crossing Traditional Boundaries of Science
To Find Health Solutions
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Students and researchers at Virginia Tech are hoping to find solutions to some of the most pressing health issues by creating a better understanding of the free-radical and oxidation processes through interdisciplinary training.
This training is being conducted through the Macromolecular Interfaces with Life Sciences (MILES) program funded by a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award.
The program uses free-radical and oxidation processes as the common theme to help students become better scientists. Oxidation is a process that involves free radicals, which cause food to spoil or taste bad and damage cellular processes in living things. Oxidative stress is implicated in many chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity as well as compromised immune function.
The MILES program is led by a team of researchers: Susan Duncan, professor of food science and technology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Tim Long, professor of chemistry in the College of Science; and Craig Thatcher, large animal clinical sciences professor in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.
“The scientific scope of the program is broad, crossing traditional boundaries in science from the oxidation of fats to understanding disease mechanisms,” says Long. “The program bridges the gap between traditional macromolecular science and biological disciplines.”
MILES supports the interdisciplinary training of Ph.D. scientists and engineers. Twenty core faculty members from five of Virginia Tech’s colleges – Agriculture and Life Sciences, Engineering, Science, Natural Resources, and the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine – provide cooperative research, interdisciplinary education, and outreach experiences to more than 30 students.
“We are focused on training the future scientific leader, one who functions in an ever increasingly interdisciplinary field at the intersection of biology and chemistry,” says Long. “We also hope to develop leaders who can convey scientific advances to the general public and who are involved in the educational process from an earlier point of their training.”
To facilitate the development of these skills, students take a set of core courses that help to establish the foundation for their research. The program also provides outreach activities and mentoring as well as leadership opportunities through committees and presentations at scientific meetings.
The MILES program strongly encourages collaboration that may not have traditionally formed among facultymembers and students in multiple disciplines.
“There are no walls in this experience, and we use the entire strength of the university to accomplish our training,” says Long. “We value the importance of speaking many scientific languages, which requires students to immerse themselves in the other ‘country.’”
To foster this collaboration, students participate in industrial tours, seminars, lunches, discussion groups, novel classes, and for the first time, laboratory training at the graduate level.
MILES students are required to seek knowledge beyond their specific research focus and work collaboratively with students and faculty members in other disciplines to create novel projects.
For example, Sharlene Williams, a Ph.D. student in chemistry, and Ben Lepene, a Ph.D. student in biomedical and veterinary sciences, are working together on research projects focused on polymer-based drug-delivery systems designed to reduce the oxidative damage present in many conditions associated with human aging and disease. One aspect of their research is the development of antioxidant delivery systems with unique polymer architectures that allow the systems to target specific cell receptors.
“We have worked together to synthesize a new polymer drug-delivery system, conducted in vitro testing to quantify cellular uptake and biocompatibility, and conducted efficacy studies designed to investigate the impact these antioxidant delivery systems have on oxidative damage to lipids, proteins, and DNA,” says Lepene.