A
Per io d i c
Ne ws l e tte r
a bo u t
t h e
S cien ces
at
A lbrigh t
C o l l e g e
Winter 2012 | VOL. 8 • NO. 2
the winds of change
Student study explores impact of
wind turbines on small mammals
W h at ’s I n s i d e . . .
Perrotty
greenhouse
nurtures
knowledge
of plants
albright
grad pursues
research
and vaccine
development
albright
upgrades nmr
equipment
integral to
student research
the
Student study explores
impact of wind turbines
on small mammals
When he graduates from Albright College
this spring, Chris Hauer ’12 plans to combine
his love of the outdoors with his interest
in science by pursuing a career in wildlife
management.
Knowing it would be helpful to have field
research experience, he approached Steve
Mech, Ph.D., associate professor of biology,
about working together on a research project. Mech suggested that they study the
effects of wind turbines on small terrestrial
mammals, and Hauer readily agreed.
Numerous studies have been done on the
effects of wind turbines on birds and bats,
said Hauer, whose concentration is biology
and evolutionary studies, but “it seems that
no one had done such research on small
terrestrial mammals before, so I was excited
about it.”
To prepare for the study, Hauer completed
an Albright Creative Research Experience
(ACRE) project that involved writing a grant
proposal to attract funding for the field
research. He received a $2,000 grant from
the American Wildlife Conservation Foundation as a result.
In his proposal, Hauer noted that it’s important to study small terrestrial mammals
at windmills because they influence forest
regeneration through the predation and
dispersal of seeds. Small mammals also serve
as the primary food source for a number of
predatory species while they themselves prey
on many insect populations. Their numbers
could be either bolstered or diminished by
wind turbines because of increased noise
levels, fewer birds of prey swooping down
on them, and the fragmentation of their
habitat, among other things.
“We didn’t know what to expect, but we
came up with some logical hypotheses,”
2
Winds of Change...
Mech said of the pending research. “If the
animals avoid the sound from the windmills
we would expect to have decreased populations and decreased persistence times. That
is, individuals won’t be there as long because the sound’s going to drive them out.
“If fewer predators are the driving factor
then we would expect higher populations and
increased persistence times,” Mech added.
Where their habitat has been fragmented by roads and other barriers near
the windmills, Mech said, he expected to
find decreased population size but higher
persistence times because the animals would
essentially be stranded there.
The field research was conducted last
summer at two sites each at Hawk Mountain
Sanctuary in Kempton, Pa., and Bear Creek
Camp near Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Bear Creek Site One was about 500 meters
from a ridge where 10 wind turbines had
been installed. Site Two was about 250 meters closer to the turbines. At Hawk Mountain, one site was about 50 meters from
a heavily used road, while the other was
located in a relatively undisturbed area.
To survey the population densities of small
mammals at the sites, the research team
used small traps to catch white-footed mice,
deer mice, southern red-backed voles, and
eastern chipmunks. Larger traps were used
to catch larger animals such as squirrels.
With help from Gina Carmaci ’13, a biology and evolutionary studies student who
was conducting separate research on the
impact that roads have on small terrestrial
mammals, Hauer and Mech first set up
the two trapping sites at Bear Creek. They
checked the traps every morning and night,
recording the species, mass, sex, age and
reproductive status of each animal they
captured. They also used underground
microphones to test the effects of the noise
generated by the wind turbines.
After a week at Bear Creek the team broke
camp and went to the Hawk Mountain site
to record the same data on the animals captured there. They conducted two week-long
trapping sessions at each site, with three
weeks between trapping.
The field work was followed by analysis
of the data, which revealed several general
trends in the distribution, age structure and
sex ratios of the small mammal populations. The greatest number of animals was
captured at Bear Creek Site Two, the closest
to the windmills. The fewest were captured
at Bear Creek Site One, which was further
away. The numbers of animals captured at
the two Hawk Mountain sites were similar.
In his report, Hauer noted that the
increased population densities near the
windmills partially supports the hypothesis
that decreased avian predation near wind
turbines would increase population densities
of small terrestrial mammals.
Considering the many variables involved,
however, Mech says the results of the first
phase of the study are highly suggestive.
“We did not see anything definitive just yet,”
he said, “and I’m very cautious.” To help get
closer to a definitive answer, Mech plans to
duplicate the study this summer at different locations, and then combine two years’
worth of data.
“These are called natural experiments,” he
explained. “We’re not actually manipulating
things, we’re looking at things that have already been manipulated. The windmills may
be causing a little bit of difference in small
mammal populations, but those populations
have good years and bad years. The difference between good years and bad years can
be stronger than the difference between
windmill and no windmill. That’s why we
need multiple sites and multiple years.”
In the meantime, Hauer plans to present the team’s preliminary findings at the
92nd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists to be held in Reno,
Nev., in June. n
fusion | A Periodic Newsletter about the Sciences
“...small terrestrial mammals at windmills influence forest regeneration
through the predation and dispersal of seeds. Small mammals also serve
as the primary food source for a number of predatory species...”
Chris Hauer ’12
3
Perrotty Greenhouse
“I didn’t even put out a call, but people offered.”
- andrew Samuelsen, Ph.D.
Nurtures Knowledge of Pl ants
Part research lab,
part “living museum,”
much space as the one it replaced, so
“For instance, ecology classes will use
the interior could be laid out in two
the space for conducting experiments
the greenhouse built against the
distinct sections.
with soil types and taking growth
measurements of their plants. They can
Center’s new Trustee Hall will give
sort of repository for plants that we use
students the opportunity to see, touch
in the lab to give students a chance to
and work with many of the plants they
actually see them live rather than just in
percent of the plants in the old
learn about in class.
a textbook,” Samuelsen said. “So when
greenhouse were transferred to
The greenhouse features an
we talk about ferns in the lab they’ll
the new one. The rest of the plants
automatic drip irrigation system,
be able to see the spores and make
were donated after the new building
automatic temperature and humidity
use of them. And when we talk about
opened. “I didn’t even put out a
controls, and an automated shading
modifications of plants such as the
call, but people offered,” Samuelsen
system. “It’s set up for a certain light
spines on cacti we can bring some of
said, acknowledging contributions
intensity,” said Andrew Samuelsen,
them into the lab to show the students.
from Kathy Ozment, M.A., instructor
Ph.D., an associate professor of
Or, we can bring the students into the
of Spanish; Bob Shade, manager of
biology who oversees the greenhouse.
greenhouse, since it’s big enough for
advancement communications; Theresa
“When the sun’s out the shade cloths
all of us to fit out there.”
Smith, Ph.D., professor of political
will deploy and protect the plants.
The collection also features
also experiment with shading.”
Samuelsen said that about 10
science; and Patt Snyder, Ph.D. ’70,
They’ll still let light through, but it’s
representatives of different types of
diffused light instead of direct light.
plants that can be used in taxonomy
That’s important, especially to prevent
class. “We have some cacti and
made by Jerry Dersh, M.D. ’49, a
scalding on the orchids.”
succulents that are at one end of the
former trustee who donated around
The new greenhouse was named the
professor of psychology.
By far the largest contribution was
spectrum,” Samuelsen said, “and we
120 plants, most of them orchids that
Perrotty Greenhouse in honor of Craig
have some shade-loving ferns and low-
can now be seen through the glass at
and P. Sue Perrotty ‘75 in recognition
light plants that you might find in the
the south end of the greenhouse.
of their support of the Crossing
understory of a natural environment.
Boundaries comprehensive campaign,
Those are gathered around the pond at
Jensen legacy lives on
which helped make construction of the
the south end of the greenhouse.
Albright College’s original greenhouse
new Science Center possible.
The former greenhouse, built in
“The orchids are representative of
was built in 1978 to provide practical
epiphytes,” Samuelsen continued,
experience for students in botany. It was
1978 to provide practical experience
“and we have some plants that show
named in honor of Roger Jensen, Ph.D.,
for botany students, had temperature
particular features such as stolons, which
who joined the faculty as the College’s
controls but no shading. “The only way
are horizontal above-ground stems.”
first botanist in 1976. Dr. Jensen died
we had to shade it was by painting the
The north end of the room will be
in 1983, just prior to the ceremony to
glass with special greenhouse paint,”
used for student research. “We left
name the greenhouse in his honor. The
Samuelsen said.
some empty counter space for students
original plaque honoring Dr. Jensen will
to do experiments so it won’t be like
be installed in the new greenhouse as a
a jungle in there,” Samuelsen said.
way of continuing his legacy. n
At 871 square feet, the new
structure contains more than twice as
4
“The ‘living museum’ end acts as a
fusion | A Periodic Newsletter about the Sciences
David Markowski
outside west wall of the Science
Alexander Blackstone ’13 tends to plants in the new
greenhouse. The psychobiology student was instrumental in
helping to set up the new “living museum.”
5
research path leads to vaccines
Soon after he enrolled
at
Albright in 1988, Erik Johnson, Ph.D. ’92
decided to pursue a career in research. That
set him apart from many of his classmates,
who were planning to go to medical or
veterinary school.
“I knew that was a path I didn’t want to
take,” he said. “The alternative was to do
research, and the professors at Albright really
opened my eyes to the world of graduate
school and continuing in research as an alternative to going to professional school such
as medical school. So I set my sights on that
path relatively early on in my time at Albright.
“As my classes progressed from intro
courses to more and more specialized courses
it cemented for me the idea that that’s what I
wanted to keep doing.”
Johnson never looked back, and today
he’s a principal research scientist in the
Vaccines Early Phase Programs at Pfizer
(formerly Wyeth Inc.).
In his senior year at Albright,
Johnson completed an independent research project
under the guidance of Frieda
Texter, Ph.D. ’72, professor
of chemistry and biochemistry. “We were studying the
folding kinetics of a certain
enzyme, trying to make slight
mutations into it to see how
that affected the enzyme itself—
its physical structure and how it
folded and how it catalyzed reactions,” he
explained.
After graduating summa cum laude with a
bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, Johnson entered the doctoral program at Yale
University, where he studied genetics. “The
independent research project I completed at
Albright was an invaluable experience for me
because it helped me transition into graduate
school,” he said.
As part of his thesis work at Yale, Johnson
experimented with various combinations of
genetic material in hopes of developing an
HIV vaccine. That was fortuitous, because
it was just the sort of research that WyethLederle, which has now become Pfizer Inc.,
was interested in pursuing.
“Wyeth was trying to license the technology
that we were developing in my thesis lab and
put it to use for their own vaccine research,”
Johnson said. The head of Wyeth’s vaccines
research department at the time
knew Johnson’s mentor at Yale,
and things fell into place.
“Even though I was
coming fresh out of grad
school I was sort of the
perfect candidate for the
job because I knew the
technology they were
trying to license and use
for their own practical
purposes,” Johnson said.
Today, as part of his
responsibilities as a principal research scientist,
Johnson helps shepherd bacterial and viral vaccines through their development and preclinical
testing phases.
“We work on projects where we try to
find vaccines against specific diseases,” he
explained. “I work in the early stages of the
basic research, where we locate the target
we’d go after to make a vaccine against a certain disease. We then engineer that target to
deliver it to a human being so that their immune system would raise a response against
it that would be effective when it encounters
the actual pathogen.
“We do a lot of molecular biology work
in the lab, a lot of protein work and a lot of
small animal studies. We engineer a vaccine
candidate, put it into an appropriate animal
model and measure the responses, and then
try to move it forward from there,” he added.
“In the past few years I’ve started to see
projects move further along in the life cycle,”
said Johnson, who has co-authored numerous papers and helped develop a number of
vaccine-related patents. “So I’m getting to
see a project move from the early discovery
stages to later discovery and early development. That’s where we have something that’s
promising so we try to figure out how we
would manufacture it on a large scale.”
One of the most promising projects Johnson has worked on involves an HIV vaccine
he helped develop using the technology he
employed as a doctoral candidate at Yale.
“Wyeth sold the vaccine off to a smaller
biotech company,” he explained. “They just
got it into the first phase of clinical testing in
humans and started enrolling their first
subjects a few weeks ago. It’s exciting to know that I had a hand in
it and it’s now being tested on
people.” n
Bren “Zeke” Cole ’14, a chemistry concentrator and researcher, places
a sample into the bore of the 400 MHz superconducting magnet.
albright upgrades nmr equipment integral
to student research
With help from a $75,000 grant provided by the
1943, 1944 and 1952. The use of the technique to study molecular
George I. Alden Trust, Albright College has purchased a top-quality,
structure was adapted by chemists and resulted in two chemistry
used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer from Pfizer,
Nobel Prizes in 1991 and 2002. A further Nobel Prize in physiology and
which has been liquidating instruments obtained during its acquisition
medicine in 2003 resulted from the medical implementation of NMR for
of Wyeth. The 400 MHz Varian Unity Inova NMR spectrometer has
visualization of soft tissues in the form of MRI.
more capabilities than the College’s existing 300 MHz NMR, making it
more useful for varied research applications.
NMR spectrometers help scientists study the structure of molecules
“The NMR is the single-most-powerful analytical tool available
to chemists,” said Christian Hamann, Ph.D., associate professor of
chemistry and biochemistry. Within Albright’s chemistry curriculum,
by observing the interaction of nuclei with radio frequency
the NMR is used from the sophomore level up. Science faculty and
electromagnetic radiation in the presence of a large stationary
students use the NMR for research, and it is also used by science
magnetic field, provided most often by a superconducting magnet. The
majors in classes. In addition to its two NMR spectrometers, Albright
presence of two instruments at Albright provides ample availability
offers science students access to other cutting-edge equipment,
of NMR analysis for curricular, research, and some planned outreach
including scanning and transmission electron microscopes, lasers, a
usage in the College’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS), a spectropolarimeter
These instruments are used mainly for structure analysis, investigation
(circular dichroism), two spectrofluorometers, two infrared
of chemical interactions, and kinetics experiments.
spectrometers, and high-powered liquid chromatographs (HPLC).
Pamela Artz, Ph.D. ’87, professor and chair of chemistry and
One goal of the Albright science programs is to expose students to
biochemistry, played a key role in the acquisition of both the
state-of-the-art instruments in an authentic way, so no instruments in
Alden grant and the instrument it helped obtain. “The acquisition
the collection are reserved solely for research purposes. The extensive
of the higher-field-strength magnet increases the sensitivity and
use of the College’s instrumentation by its students often sets them
resolution of our analyses,” Artz said. “Additionally, this instrument
apart when they interview with potential employers, participate
is equipped with a robot for programmed sample changing as well
in internships, attend graduate or professional schools, or start in
as a flow temperature system that will allow temperature studies
industrial or research positions.
ranging from -40°C to 100°C. A software upgrade funded by the
Over the past few decades The Alden Trust has awarded numerous
Alden grant will create a more seamless interface for the collection
grants that have made it possible for Albright College to enhance
and processing of data.”
its respected science program. “We are truly grateful to the George
The technique of NMR spectroscopy developed from a physical
I. Alden Trust, whose support will enable many fortunate students
theory into a method for chemical analysis and then an essential
to gain valuable applied instrument training that will enhance their
clinical tool for medicine in the form of MRI. The phenomenon of
science education and help them compete for graduate school and
nuclear magnetic resonance and investigation of the fundamental
career opportunities,” Artz said. n
theory by physicists was rewarded by three physics Nobel Prizes in
6
fusion | A Periodic Newsletter about the Sciences
7
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This issue of Fusion, along
with previous issues, may
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Brain Teasers
Brain Teasers Answers, Summer 2011
Time to brush up on your knowledge of physics. The first 10 readers
to submit the correct answers to the following questions will receive
a prize! The answers will be provided in the next issue.
None of our readers were able to correctly answer all the
questions in last issue’s quiz. Here are the questions and the
answers we were looking for:
Q: Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider recently claimed to find
evidence of particles traveling faster than light. What particles
were these?
Q.Which two elements are found together in nature, are
notoriously difficult to separate, and are named for a Greek
father who stole from the gods and his prideful daughter?
Tantalum (named for Tantalus, the father) and niobium
(named for Niobe, the daughter)
Q: Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider may be close to finding
the so-called Higgs Boson. What is special about this particle?
Q: What is graphene?
Q: In 1998, astronomers discovered that distant supernovae
appeared brighter than expected. What did this imply about the
universe?
Q: While shooting positively charged “alpha” particles at a thin
gold foil, Ernest Rutherford noticed that some of the alpha
particles bounced back. What did this imply about atoms?
Answers may be emailed to rshade@alb.edu or submitted
via the Albright web site at www.albright.edu/fusion.
Q. Howard Hughes set off a rush for what element by
commissioning a special ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer, in
an elaborate ruse during the cold war? Manganese
Q.The liquid in a fever thermometer looks like mercury
but is not, since mercury may no longer be used for
this application. What is this material and what is its
composition? Galinstan. It’s a mixture of gallium, indium and
tin (stannum), thus the name is derived from the first letters
of each element.
Q.What metal is the hardest metal element, not the hardest
material, not the hardest element, but the hardest pure
metal on the Brinell scale of hardness? Osmium
Fusion is published by the College Relations Office. Bob Shade, Editor. Gina French, Art Director.