Introducing Dr.
Gregory Frederick: He’s recently joined LETU as Professor and Department
Chair of biology. He has 35 years of experience as a biologist, has been
professionally published dozens of times, serves on editorial boards of three scientific journals, and has received multiple
professional awards. He’s now helping LETU biology students get an extreme head
start on their futures as scientists in health-related fields.
In 2008, the renowned Howard
Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Maryland started the Science
Education Alliance (SEA) to give college students the opportunity to do
hands-on research in lab settings. With only about 80 higher education
institutions worldwide accepted to participate, the program is very exclusive.
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| Dr. Gregory Frederick |
“HHMI realized it’s important to get undergrad students
involved in research as quickly as possible,” Frederick said. “That’s what this program is about.”
LeTourneau University’s biology program
was recently accepted in this exclusive number. SEA offers several different
programs, and LETU will be participating in their Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (PHAGES) project over the 2015-2016
school year.
“A phage is a virus that attacks bacteria. I explain it like
we’re training virus hunters,” Frederick said. “Students are going to go out
and find new viruses. That gets them pretty excited because we’re implementing
it in the lab of our general biology course. They’ll get the experience immediately
in their freshman year.”
This research program content will be incorporated with Frederick's general biology course in Fall 2015. To clarify the importance of this project,
Frederick cites the well-known problem of antibiotic-resistant
bacteria.
“There are a lot of bacterial strains that are becoming
resistant to antibiotics. Most everyone realizes that. The problem is that
making a new antibiotic takes a lot of time. During that time, that bacteria
we’re trying to treat mutates,” Frederick explained.
It’s very difficult to treat bacteria that have a tendency
to mutate, Frederick explains. The antibiotic doesn’t change once it enters the
body, but the organism it’s working to treat does, rendering the antibiotic
ineffective. Some disease organisms have the genetic makeup that causes them to
mutate more quickly than others, one being the organism that causes
tuberculosis.
That’s where the LETU “virus hunter” students come in via
the PHAGES program. Frederick does point out that they will not be handling any
bacterium or viruses that have the potential to harm humans. Their research
may, however, help solve the problem of drug-resistant bacterium by researching
viruses that attack the TB-causing bacteria.
“The students will be isolating viruses that can kill a
cousin of the organism that causes TB,” Frederick said. “The cool part is, when
you throw a virus at a bacterium, the bacterium may mutate, but so does the
virus. So as the bacterium mutates, the virus is also throwing off new strains
that hopefully will be able to infect the bacterium that change. It’s an
interesting therapy with lots of potential, and we’re going to see it more and
more in medical therapy down the road.”
This opportunity will allow freshman bio students to learn a
wealth of new skills as they complete their research. They will collect virus
samples, characterize them using an electron microscope, purify and separate
them to get a pure culture of one virus type, and extract the virus’ DNA
material—and that’s just in the first semester.
Over Christmas break, the DNA samples will be sent to HHMI
to be sequenced. In the second semester, Frederick and his bio students will
use that data for further characterization, using software to identify and
annotate the genes. That way, they’ll be able to determine the virus’
capabilities. It’s an area of research that Frederick says very few
undergraduate students have the opportunity to take on.
Frederick is confident that getting students involved in
research and equipping them with the skills that PHAGES requires will get them
excited to execute further research later in college. The course isn’t for the
faint of heart, though. It’s a two-hour, twice-a-week lab that requires more
outside work than most general biology courses.
“It’s real research, and research takes time,” Frederick
said.
That work will pay off. Students will present their research
during at least one scientific conference, and their DNA sequence research will
also be published in an international database, with their names permanently
attached. If the virus they’re working with hasn’t previously been discovered,
there’s a strong possibility that their work will be published in a scientific
journal.
Again, that’s all work that will be done during freshman year. The possibilities
afforded by this kind of experience so early in a student’s career will prepare
him or her for an abundance of notable future opportunities. PHAGES embodies the heart of LETU: to equip
students to excel in their fields with ingenuity while making a positive impact
across the globe.
