Crossing Traditional Boundaries of Science
To Find Health Solutions
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.