Newsletter, May 2020

Special Greeting from Research Vice President Paul DiCorleto

Our newsletter always highlights some of Kent State’s most recent notable accomplishments in research and creative activities, but much has changed since our last newsletter.
I first want to wish you and your loved ones health and security during this difficult time.
Like other universities, COVID19 has forced Kent State to change its approach, but we’re proud of the way our faculty and student researchers have adjusted. While we have worked to keep them safe, they have worked to show that Kent State’s dedication to top-tier research has not waivered.
Though our campus was closed mid March with only essential research activities permitted, we saw leadership and devotion that kept our Environmental Science and Design Symposium alive with well-attended on-line conference activities in place of the conventional format. Our annual Undergraduate Research Symposium was held with on-line posters prepared and posted by students and then judged by faculty for awards. Our Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Program attracted our largest ever cohort with students and faculty defining projects that could be pursued remotely. I want to personally thank every member of the Kent State community for displaying such perseverance and composure in these unprecedented circumstances. This is what it means to be a Golden Flash.
I hope the stories in this newsletter will emphasize how Kent State University, already a national innovator in many fields, is committed to expanding its research culture and engaging an ever-increasing number of students in generating knowledge to better the world — no matter what the world throws at us.
To learn more about our research, please visit our website and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Kent State Biologist Secures NIH Support to Expand Study into Muscle Thermogenesis

Scientists have long since established that the effects of stress on our bodies are largely negative. But understanding stress as a trigger for using calories and burning fat also could lead us to better mechanisms for healthier behaviors.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently funded a Kent State University researcher to continue her efforts toward that goal.

Based on a recently-published study, Colleen Novak, associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, will use a three-year, $447,000 grant to analyze two new elements believed to drive muscle thermogenesis.

Novak’s previous study, recently accepted by the Journal of Experimental Biology, showed that rats exposed to predator odors burned more calories and ran for longer periods.

“This is a completely previously-undiscovered physiological response to predator threat,” she said. “To my knowledge, nobody but us actually measures skeletal muscle heat in animals.”

Rats exposed to the odor displayed increased muscle temperature within minutes, and all lost weight. They also were able to run longer by at least five minutes.

The study further showed that exposure to certain conditions, coupled with predator odor, yielded a learned response, wherein the conditions themselves became stressful, with or without predator odor.

Novak said all of this was driven by the sympathetic nervous system.  She’ll now leverage that insight into a study of a specific part of the brain and specific changes in the muscles, which both may drive thermogenesis. 

“We are the only ones I know trying to figure out the neural control of muscle thermogenesis," Novak said. "Even the folks who investigate the muscle biochemical and cellular mechanisms look at things like weight gain and loss on different diets, or reaction to cold, rather than measuring the actual muscle temperature. So this is completely new.”

Novak will first study a specific cell group in the brain region called the ventromedial hypothalamus — known to play key roles in the control of metabolism and the behavioral response to predator threat.  

“If you block these cells, then animals don’t act the same around predators, like trying to escape,” she said. “We think this set of cells is important to the capacity to show physiological responses to predator threat as well.”

Novak also will analyze which specific changes in the muscle generate heat. “There are a few possibilities, but we are focusing on a calcium channel,” she said. “We hypothesize that this pump that shuttles calcium from one part of the muscle cell to another uses more energy and/or pumps less calcium. Essentially, there is an ‘uncoupling’ of this channel. The wasted energy is dissipated as heat. We are also measuring levels of proteins in the muscle which have the job of uncoupling this calcium channel.”

Media Contact
 Dan Pompili: 330-672-0731, dpompili@kent.edu

Kent State Aviation Professor I. Richmond Nettey Chairs National Academy Research Committee

An airport staff member guides an incoming aircraft into position during a past Aviation Heritage Fair at the Kent State University Airport.

I. Richmond Nettey, Ph.D., professor of aeronautics in Kent State University’s College of Aeronautics and Engineering, has been appointed the new chair of the Transportation Research Board Standing Committee on Airport Terminals and Ground Access at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

Environmental Science and Design 2020 Symposium Lives on Online

Torrance Gaskins and Kaitlin Shvach, first place winners of 2020 ESDRI Symposium Poster session

The COVID-19 pandemic halted Kent State University’s plans for the 2020 Environmental Science and Design Symposium, but it hasn’t impeded the spirit of the conference.

In late April, Environmental Science and Design Research Initiative (ESDRI) leadership, in collaboration with representatives from the university’s Design Innovation (DI) Initiative, hosted virtual events to keep symposium registrants engaged, and celebrate students’ research projects.

“We were a little heartbroken, after all the efforts of a full year, to have to cancel the in-person conference, but I’m very thankful for working with such an intrepid crew,” said Symposium Chair Margarita Benitez, MFA, Associate Professor of Fashion Design and Merchandising.

On April 22, using the virtual meeting platform Zoom, members of the DI Initiative hosted a virtual workshop that was scheduled to occur at the in-person symposium.

The workshop, entitled “Accelerating Sustainability: Science Meets Design Innovation," was led by J.R. Campbell, MFA, Director of the DI Initiative; and Andrea Oleniczak, Design Innovation Hub/Ecosystem Manager.

During the session, participants stepped out of their laboratories and maker spaces, into a session about facilitating the meaningful conversations that can drive collaborative projects to success.

Using the “Superpowers” app, attendees learned how understanding the strengths and perspectives of each team member from the start can avoid many pitfalls that plague research teams.

The workshop comprised whole group and break-out sessions, including sessions on the role of empathy in the problem-solving process, and a “worst possible solutions” exercise that highlighted how breaking down bad ideas can illustrate what makes for good ones.

In addition to Campbell, the workshop was organized and facilitated by Julie Messing, Director of LaunchNet (the University program that serves students, alumni, staff, and faculty with their entrepreneurship and innovation efforts); John West, Ph.D., Trustees Research Professor; and Michael Kavulic, Ph.D., Director of Research Strategic Initiatives.

“Taking time to assess the group’s strengths, individually and collectively, should be an important part of every collaborative creation process,” said Messing.

Virtual Poster Session
On April 24, ESDRI also hosted a virtual poster session on Blackboard Collaborate Ultra for students who would have displayed their projects in person at the March event.

Graduate students and undergraduates displayed and discussed and their posters their research with investigators from inside and outside the university. Their posters are available for viewing through the Kent State Libraries’ Online Archive system (OAKS).  The poster session was organized by Xiaozhen (Jen) Mou, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biological Sciences.

Faculty judges also assessed the posters and awarded prizes to students. The undergraduate winners were Torrance G. Gaskins (first prize), and Michael P. Back (second prize).

The graduate winners were Kaitlin Shvach (first prize), and Max Barczock (second prize). 

“The ideas and results presented on a research poster often represent the outcomes of a year or more of work that a team has done on a project. We didn’t want anyone to lose the opportunity to showcase their work,” said Chris Blackwood, Professor of Biological Sciences and co-Director of ESDRI.

“Poster sessions also provide this unique opportunity for dialogue with other people, often resulting in new ideas and connections," Blackwood said. "The live online forum we chose to use had some quirks, but I think overall it was able to replicate a lot of the interaction we were hoping to reproduce from an in-person poster session.”

ESDRI leaders said they still hope to make some of the symposium’s scheduled presentations available sometime this fall.

“We’re looking at creative ways to deliver portions of the symposium content remotely with an in-person segment if feasible,” said Diane Davis-Sikora, M. Arch., Associate Professor of Architecture and Environmental Design and ESDRI co-Director. “We’ve assembled an amazing slate of speakers, and hope to offer a forum for exciting conversations around this year’s Biodesign theme.”

Media Contact
Dan Pompili: 330-672-0731, 330-301-1008, dpompili@kent.edu

Kent State Biologist Joins Tennessee, Toledo Colleagues to Study Arctic Climate Change Effects

Lauren Kinsman-Costello, assistant professor of biological sciences at Kent State, stands in a field in the arctic circle, in Sweden.

In early February, scientists reported the hottest temperature on record in Antarctica: 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Studies show climate change is disproportionately affecting the poles, warming them faster than anywhere else on Earth, and raising questions about what kinds of changes we can expect in arctic ecosystems as temperatures rise.  A Kent State University biologist has teamed up with some colleagues in an inter-institutional effort to answer some of those questions. 

Kent State Biology Lab Publishes Paper Describing Potential for New Male Contraceptives

A free stock image depicting sperm approaching an egg for fertilization

The first rubber condoms were manufactured in 1838. Along with abstinence, they would remain the only effective and widely available means of male contraception until the vasectomy became a common procedure in the mid 20th century.

Since then all contraceptives have focused on the female reproductive tract, with varying results, complications, and controversies.

Now a team of Kent State University researchers has proposed a new method of contraception that may soon be accessible for both men and women, with an emphasis on inhibiting sperm fertility.  

Souvik Dey and Alaa Eisa are graduate students in the laboratory of Srinivasan Vijayaraghavan, Ph.D., professor of Biological Sciences in Kent State's College of Arts and Sciences. Their paper, "Roles of glycogen synthase kinase 3 alpha and calcineurin in regulating the ability of sperm to fertilize eggs," recently published in The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB Journal), shows how drugs inhibiting calcineurin or glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3 alpha) can interfere effectively with the reproductive process.

"Our lab has been working on signaling mechanisms, proteins, involved in epididymal sperm maturation," said Vijayaraghavan. The epididymis is a long coiled tubule between the testes and urethra present in mammals. "There are two enzymes: one is called GSK-3 alpha, the other is called calcineurin, both essential for sperm maturation in the epididymis." 

Calcineurin is present in the brain and has a role in immune response. Calcineurin inhibitors are used at relatively high concentrations in patients to stop the body from rejecting transplanted organs.

"But it turns out that sperm have their own version of calcineurin," Vijayaraghavan said. "If you take this out in sperm, mice become infertile." Indeed, researchers in Japan found that a drug (FK506) designed to block calcineurin, when injected into mice, results in infertility due to impaired sperm maturation in the epididymis. Data in the new paper from Kent State shows that the drug, at very low concentration, also inhibits sperm during fertilization of eggs.

 The other enzyme, GSK-3, is present in all mammals, and has been a focus for researchers studying potential treatments for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, inflammatory cancers, and even bipolar disorder. Most inhibitory drugs target both isoforms of GSK-3, alpha and beta. GSK-3 alpha is highly conserved in mammalian sperm, and plays a role in sperm maturation in the epididymis. Researchers in MIT have now developed a drug (BRD0705) which specifically targets GSK-3 alpha without affecting GSK-3 beta.

Vijayaraghavan has studied sperm motility — the process by which sperm become active and capable of reaching and fertilizing the female egg — for more than 20 years. He said his recent research has shown that sperm are activated once in the epididymis, and then hyperactivated in the female reproductive tract, where they take on a whiplash motion that allows them to penetrate the egg's outer surface.   "It's like going to a lower gear with more power output, so that it will push through into the egg," he said. Dey and Eisa found that drugs inhibiting calcineurin and GSK-3 alpha both prevented the sperm from hyperactivating, thus greatly reduced the rate of fertilization, and achieved this in exactly the same ways.

The team has since secured a provisional patent to develop contraceptive methods using the inhibitory drugs (FK506 and BRD0705) either alone or in combination. Dey said once they are able to replicate the results of mouse models in human sperm, the next step is to determine the proper concentrations that could be used to impair sperm function in non-human primates.  

Once that has been determined, Vijayaraghavan said, the contraceptives could take the form of an injection in males to stop sperm maturation in the epididymis or a contraceptive vaginal ring targeting sperm in the female reproductive tract.

Media Contact
Dan Pompili: 330-672-0731, dpompili@kent.edu

NSF Grant Supports Kent State Researchers’ Plan to Help Students Improve Study Habits

The “C” in “college” might as well stand for “cramming.”
Studies show students are notoriously bad at adopting and adhering consistently to high-impact study habits that help them retain knowledge long-term.
Researchers and faculty at Kent State University, however, are collaborating on a new project to put a modern technological twist on a tried-and-true study tactic.