MSU President's Newspaper Column
August 7, 2021
Mayville State scientific research making a difference for students as well as the greater good
Mayville State University undergraduate students have the invaluable opportunity to be involved with important scientific research. Working together with faculty mentors, students are exploring topics that are related to cancer, value-added uses of wheat bran, mosquitoes, and more. Not only are the students gaining valuable experience, but they are also being paid for their work. Several of them have been busy working in the labs throughout the summer.
Some of these wonderful research opportunities are made possible because of the work of Mayville State Science Division faculty who have secured grant funding through North Dakota EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). They work collaboratively with colleagues from North Dakota State University (NDSU), and the University of North Dakota (UND), as well as from all other state colleges in North Dakota.
Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs Tami Such and I had the privilege of meeting with ND EPSCoR Executive Director Dr. Kelly Rusch and ND EPSCoR State Project Administrator Dr. Jean Ostrom-Blonigen on July 15, when researchers at Mayville State hosted several colleagues. These colleagues are working on a National Science Foundation (NSF) cooperative agreement. Researchers and others from NDSU, UND, and the ND EPSCoR state office came to Mayville State to discuss their collaborative efforts within the Center for Cellular Biointerfaces in Science and Engineering (CCBSE).
It was exciting to see these partners come together in person to discuss their work. Each of the groups works from their own location, but all of them are dedicated to the same goal. While they are collaborative partners, they probably don’t have an opportunity to be together often.
Currently at Mayville State, Dr. Khwaja Hossain, Professor of Biology, and Dr. Michael Kjelland, Assistant Professor of Biology, are part of the CCBSE interdisciplinary team conducting research to define improved ways to grow three-dimensional cell cultures. With assistance from their student employees, Hossain and Kjelland and their CCBSE colleagues have set a goal to reduce the need for animal testing and to improve the relevance to human physiology
Mayville State faculty members recently received a ND EPSCoR state office equipment grant for a multigas (trigas) incubator that can be used for many aspects of cell culture research. The incubator will be an important tool as they work on designing bio-inspired materials (hard and soft tissue) as platforms for growing cancer cells in soft tissues (the primary tumor site) and hard tissue (metastatic bone site). They are working to better understand how biochemistry and cell biology intertwine with regard to cancer cells and tumors.
The CCBSE project is just one of several research projects underway at Mayville State. Dr. Hossain and Dr. Kjelland are also working on other projects. Dr. Hossain is working together with student Trevor Gravseth on an INSPIRE-ND project which involves using wheat bran for industrial resources. Four undergraduate biology students, Brooke Roeges, Haley Boechler, Taylor Stegman, and Madisen Knudsvig are involved with a ND-ACES projects related to breast cancer intervention, use of wheat bran for boosting immunity in humans, and cell and tissue engineering. INSPIRE-ND and ND-ACES projects not only help in developing research infrastructure at Mayville State, but they also help in the development of biomedical and health science skill sets of our students.
In addition, Dr. Tom Gonnella, Professor of Chemistry, is working with students Simon Barker and Terrel Voth this summer, examining the binding of coumarins to human serum albumin, the most abundant protein in blood plasma which transports a wide variety of substance such as hormones, fatty acids, and drugs to target organs. This class of compounds have anti-inflammatory, anti-coagulant, anti-anti-retroviral, anti-arthritic, anti-asthmatic, and anti-oxidant properties. The work is being funded through the state-wide ND-INBRE (IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence) grant.
Dr. Joseph Mehus, Associate Professor of Biology and Chair of the Division of Science and Mathematics, and his team are studying mosquitoes and their role in the ecosystem. Their work is funded through an INBRE grant as well. Dr. Mehus and student researcher Taylor Painter have just returned from the American Midwestern Conference of Parasitologists in De Pere, Wis. Taylor presented data on mosquito population dynamics and mosquito identification from the Mehus lab. Other students working in the Mehus lab this summer are Lily Pyle, Laura Jacobson, Taylor Painter, and Austin de Laroque.
I am grateful to Mayville State Science Division faculty for the research work they are doing to make the world a better place. Not only are they making a difference for the entire population, but they are also making a difference for our Mayville State students who are being given an opportunity to be a part of this important and exciting work. These opportunities are most certainly setting them up for future success.