This story was written by Megan Hanks and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

UMBC’s Lee Blaney and research partners have published a landmark study on contaminants of emerging concern in the Chesapeake Bay. Their article in Science of the Total Environment is the first research study that quantifies concentrations of antibiotics, estrogenic hormones, and UV-filters in multiple locations of the Bay.

Blaney, an associate professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering, conducted the research with Ke He, Ph.D ‘17, chemical engineering, and Ethan Hain ‘21, chemical engineering. They also partnered with collaborators at the U.S. Forest Service and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. 

Underway since 2016, their work highlights the importance of understanding how previously unexamined chemicals impact the environment. The project has been primarily funded by Maryland Sea Grant through a Program Development Fund to Blaney, and a Graduate Research Fellowship to Hain.

The researchers studied the prevalence of contaminants of emerging concern in water, sediment, and oyster tissue collected from the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Their study of how accumulated UV-filters negatively impact the environment is the first of its kind. UV-filters are one of the primary ingredients in personal care products, such as sunscreen and cosmetics. The accumulation of these UV-filters can impact organisms and animals.

Maintaining a healthy Chesapeake Bay 

While the Chesapeake Bay is one of the most well-studied ecosystems in the United States, Blaney says that little is known about the sources, occurrence, and impacts of contaminants of emerging concern in this important estuary. 

“As the health of the Chesapeake Bay continues to improve due to recent nutrient and sediment regulations, it is important to consider new threats from specialty chemicals like antibiotics, hormones, and UV-filters,” he explains. “The first step to ensuring the safety of the Chesapeake Bay is to measure the concentrations of these contaminants in water, sediment, and tissue.”

Lee Blaney. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

The discharge of antibiotics into the Chesapeake Bay may speed up the spread and development of antibiotic resistance, a global public health challenge, explains Blaney. He adds that estrogenic hormones and UV-filters are considered priority chemicals of concern due to reported toxicity and other effects on reproductive systems in aquatic and marine organisms. 

Over the past two years, Blaney and his team have continued to collect data throughout the Chesapeake Bay to better understand differences in contaminant levels. They have found relatively high levels of antibiotics in the Chesapeake Bay, and the reported concentrations are in the range that can select for antibiotic resistant bacteria. In addition, most samples have contained UV-filters, including two common in sunscreens that were recently banned from being sold in Hawaii due to concerns that they are toxic to corals. 

The researchers argue that their findings suggest a need to improve municipal wastewater treatment and agricultural waste management to remove contaminants of emerging concern and prevent their introduction to the environment. In this regard, Blaney and his collaborators are actively working on a number of technologies to improve the transformation of contaminants into benign molecules that do not have antibiotic or estrogenic properties or other toxicity concerns. 

Continuing to expand the research

In 2017, Blaney received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to study contaminants of emerging concern and their effects on the urban environment. That research focused on the Gwynns Falls watershed in Baltimore, and the Chesapeake Bay research is an extension of that work. In addition to the public and ecological health concerns highlighted in the current article, Blaney also continues to examine issues like antimicrobial resistance and the impact of agricultural runoff.

Blaney was recently named associate director for sustainability engineering and liaison to the University System of Maryland (USM) vice chancellor for environmental sustainability. In this capacity, he will work closely with collaborators at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and will lead additional sustainability-focused research projects within the USM. 

Banner image: Lee Blaney, left, working with a student in the lab. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

This story was written by Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

Preminda Jacob, visual arts, has been named the new associate dean of research and community engagement for UMBC’s College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CAHSS). She will join the current team of associate deans in providing support for the College’s many departments, programs, and research centers. Together they will continue to implement CAHSS’ strategic goals and objectives, focusing on projects around recruitment and retention of diverse faculty, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, and further developing community engagement work. 

Scott Casper, dean of CAHSS, is excited about the level of expertise Jacob brings to the team. “Preminda Jacob brings a wealth of experience as a scholar, teacher, and UMBC citizen, and leader to the Dean’s Office,” says Casper. “I am delighted that she has joined our leadership team and look forward to her continued contributions to the College and the University in this new role.”

Jacob at graduate commencement.

Engaging faculty

Jacob will begin by joining the team of associate deans in working to further foster the current research community within CAHSS and build broader awareness of CAHSS research. One way Jacob hopes to share faculty research is by collaborating with campus partners on updating the university’s current faculty research database capabilities. This digital tool will help academics, researchers, educators, and students from around the world more easily access information about UMBC researchers and their areas of study.

“I see part of community engagement as an accessibility issue,” explains Jacob. “UMBC faculty conduct top-level research. A searchable database elevates our commitment to provide research-based answers to the world’s most pressing questions by placing the research within everyone’s reach.”

Jacob will also help faculty better connect with each other across departments, including for research that involves community partnerships. She looks forward to working with faculty who have research expertise on community engagement by exploring topics through existing brown bag lunch series and working groups in the five CAHSS research centers as well as across UMBC’s colleges. 

Engaging the community

Prior to joining the Dean’s Office, Jacob served as chair of visual arts from 2015 to 2018. As a professor of visual arts specializing in art history and visual culture, she worked to connect her passions for research and community engagement.

Jacob recalls a four-year partnership between the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Catonsville and her Space, Place, and Public Art class as a particularly significant collaboration. Jacob partnered students with the museum’s staff to create public art pieces from start to finish in one semester. “Students were excited to work directly with a local organization and leaders within the organizations were equally excited to serve as guides and mentors in the process,” she says. 

Over the years, Jacob’s students have created object and wall labels, interactive and interpretive recordings, and works of art for the museum. They produced a video featuring interviews with local leaders and archaeologists talking about the archaeological dig conducted by the Maryland Historical Trust in the 1980s on Benjamin Banneker’s property.

Museum exhibit three teams of students helped design.

Victor Pineda ‘15, visual arts, who went on to serve as a museum intern after participating in Jacob’s class, helped record an actor’s interpretation of the voice of Benjamin Banneker. The recording became part of an interactive device in the Banneker Gallery. Today, visitors can listen to Benjamin Banneker discuss his letter to Thomas Jefferson. 

Pineda recording audio for interactive exhibit at the museum.

“Through the museum’s partnership with the visual arts department at UMBC,” says Willa Banks, the museum’s former director of education and curatorial affairs, “Dr. Jacob’s public art class provided a phenomenal service that not only benefited UMBC faculty and students but also the museum and the general public as well.”

Jacob plans to work with faculty already engaged with community partners in the Baltimore region to amplify relationships like this one. She is also dedicated to opening pathways for new community engagement opportunities, in the greater Baltimore region and beyond. 

Banner Image: Preminda at MFA celebration. All images by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC with the exception of the images of student work at the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum which were courtesy of Willa Banks.

This story was written by Kait McCaffrey and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

According to the recent QS World University Rankings 2020, UMBC is one of the top 500 universities in the world overall and among the best of the best in a key measure of faculty scholarship.

This new ranking recognizes UMBC as a state, national, and global leader in the area of citations per faculty member. In this category, UMBC is #48 globally, #17 overall in North America and #1 in the state of Maryland.

The directors of UMBC’s NASA partner centers (l-r): Jan Merka (Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute), Jane Turner (Center for Space Science and Technology), and Belay Demoz (Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology).

UMBC’s strength in scholarship

The World University Rankings list is produced annually by the British firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). It was initially developed through a collaboration with Times Higher Education. In recent years it has been recognized as one of the most widely-read global university rankings.

To inform its competitive World University Rankings list, QS takes into account six metrics: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, and international student ratio.

Deepa Madan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, with her student Karla Negrete.

In addition to recognizing UMBC’s particular strength in citations per faculty, the report also categorizes UMBC’s research output as “very high.”

“I share with our colleagues in the pride that their publications are so highly cited,” says Karl Steiner, vice president of research. “This is a welcome indicator that UMBC’s scholarly work is widely recognized and has a growing and long-lasting impact on the broader scientific community.”

Quickly rising to prominence

In addition to the newly announced QS ranking, Times Higher Education has again recognized UMBC as one of the world’s top young universities as part of the Golden Age University Rankings. This year, UMBC ranks #86 on the list—one of 12 U.S. universities in the world’s top 100.

This list highlights visionary institutions that have quickly risen to prominence on the world stage—over decades rather than centuries. It specifically includes institutions established 1945 – 1967.

“UMBC’s continued recognition as a Times Higher Ed Golden Age University is affirming, indeed. It speaks to what we, as members of this community, know and experience about UMBC on a daily basis—that this is a vibrant, dynamic, exciting and forward-moving place,” says Yvette Mozie-Ross ’88, vice provost for enrollment management.

UMBC is the only school represented from the state of Maryland.

Banner image: UMBC campus in the spring. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC Technology Catalyst Fund

FY20 Request for Proposals 

Announcement Date – August 13, 2019

Deadlines: An initial draft proposal must be submitted by Wednesday, September 25, 2019.  The final deadline for proposal submissions is Wednesday, October 16, 2019. Please be advised that several preliminary steps must be completed prior to final submission and applicants are advised to contact OTD at least 3 weeks in advance of the first deadline.

Background: The UMBC Office of Technology Development (OTD), under the Office of the Vice President for Research, is continually seeking ways to help bridge the funding gap – support that can be difficult to obtain from traditional funding sources. With support provided by the State of Maryland, we are happy to announce the FY 2020 UMBC Technology Catalyst Fund, which is designed to advance innovations originating from UMBC research to more commercially viable technologies. Additional proof-of-concept studies, extending data collection and prototype development are examples of the essential steps needed to demonstrate commercial potential.

A total of $100,000 is available annually for this initiative. UMBC plans to make several awards up to $25,000. Projects will be funded at the level deemed necessary to achieve the goals outlined in the proposal. Awards will be for a six- to twelve- month period and only proposals that can demonstrate achievable milestones within that time period will be selected for funding.  One-time, no-cost extensions may be granted, subject to approval by the review committee. No overhead will apply.

Requirements: All UMBC members with Principal Investigator status are eligible to apply as long as the technology to be developed has been previously disclosed to OTD. We welcome projects from all disciplines and encourage interdisciplinary collaborations.

Criteria:  All proposals will be reviewed by a committee comprised of faculty, administrative research personnel and outside reviewers from the business community, and will be held confidential. PI’s whose proposals are selected to continue onto the final round of evaluation will be notified, and the PI will be invited to give a presentation to the Review Committee. Finalists must be available to present their proposals to the review committee on Friday, November 15, 2019.

The evaluation criteria will include factors such as:

·       Significance of the market need and opportunity to impact the public.

·       Competitive advantage the technology presents over current solutions.

·       Probability that the project will result in additional funding or licensing.

·       Probability that the research results will strengthen the patent position.

·       Probability of reaching milestones within the time frame and budget.

Deadlines: An initial draft proposal must be submitted by Wednesday, September 25, 2019.  The final deadline for proposal submissions is Wednesday, October 16, 2019. Please be advised that several preliminary steps must be completed prior to final submission and applicants are advised to contact OTD at least 3 weeks in advance of the first deadline. Awards will be announced in the fall with an anticipated starting date of January 1, 2020.

Contact: Interested applicants should contact Wendy Martin, Director, OTD at wmartin@umbc.edu or call 410.455.3658 to request the Proposal Process and Executive Summary Checklist and the Cover Form.

View the poster.

This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

This fall, hundreds of Retrievers will set foot in UMBC’s new Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building for the first time. They may be inspired by the vibrant art installation, find a quiet nook to study, or work together in research labs with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking pocket gardens and curving pathways. The new facility offers features that set it apart as a space for learning, and set up students and faculty for transformative moments of discovery.

“New things will brew”

Each research floor in the ILSB is connected along its entire length and bounded by glass on all sides. Inside the labs, benches are configurable so that instrumentation can go in and out as needed. Neon-colored glass surfaces double as marker boards for quick sketches of lab protocols, equations, or encouraging doodles. Just outside the lab are spaces, overlooking an airy atrium, where graduate students can write and undergraduates can meet with mentors. 

It’s a research environment that looks toward the future. These shared, open spaces are designed to help anyone who enters sense that they have a role to play in addressing big challenges, discovering more about the world, and developing the next generation of scientists.

Greg Szeto, right, and Shirin Parsa ’20, biological sciences, conduct research in one of the ILSB’s open-concept labs.

“The ILSB provides an unprecedented opportunity to have researchers who are intellectually next to each other also be physically next to each other,” shares Greg Szeto, assistant professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering (CBEE). “When you share a kitchenette with a biologist, a chemist, an engineer and somebody from public policy, it’s inevitable that new things will brew.”

Szeto is part of the new Translational Center for Age-Related Disease and Disparities (TCARD²), an initiative made possible by the ILSB. The initiative is led by Chuck Bieberich, professor of biological sciences, and also includes faculty from CBEE and psychology. Bieberich’s lab focuses on cancer biology, especially prostate cancer, while Szeto works on cancer therapies that leverage the immune system. “When we bring our two approaches together, hopefully it will lead to new research, new papers, new grants,” and new cancer treatments, Szeto says.

Faculty and students relax in one of the ILSB’s break areas. A spiral staircase reminiscent of DNA swirls up to the next floor in the background.

On top of the collaborative advantage, the ILSB offers all the equipment labs need in one place. Szeto’s students were already collaborating with biologists, but that used to mean carrying samples to instruments in other buildings. Not anymore. “Now everything is going to be in the ILSB,” Szeto says. “Being able to centralize the operation both intellectually and logistically is so critical.”

Bringing the outside in

Faculty in the new Interdisciplinary Consortium for Applied Research in Ecology and Evolution (ICARE²) are also taking up residence in the ILSB. Tamra Mendelson, professor of biological sciences, leads the initiative. It also includes faculty in CBEE, geography and environmental systems (GES), and marine biotechnology.

“The collaboration is designed to bring together evolutionary biologists, ecologists, conservationists, social scientists, and engineers,” says GES professor Chris Swan. “We want to build a powerful network of people to collaborate on training graduate students, solving environmental problems relevant to Baltimore, and building out UMBC’s focus on ecology.” The ILSB will offer ICARE² researchers the opportunity to work in a shared space for the first time.

The ISLB atrium offers spaces to study or just relax. The art installation and a floating staircase add a whimsical, creative feel.

A new, state-of-the-art environmental science lab in the ILSB will also open up the possibilities for these researchers. It’s a space “devoted to environmental work,” which often means, “It’s dirty!” Swan says. The lab will enable larger-scale controlled experiments that can be hard to manage in the field and that would be incompatible with a lab focused on molecular work, where the slightest bit of stray DNA could ruin an experiment.

“A total game-changer”

Chris Hawn, assistant professor of GES, is excited to move to the ILSB because of the doors it will open for their environmental research. Hawn runs chemical analyses on spiderwebs to measure local air quality. They are collaborating with an advocacy group for houseless people that will train them to collect webs in spaces where they are living to send to Hawn for analysis. The goal is that they can use the findings to advocate locally for their health and make the best possible choices about where to stay. 

Hawn also studies how pollutants in waterways are passed through the food chain from small aquatic insects, to spiders, to birds.

The ILSB “is a total game-changer for me,” Hawn says. With the instrumentation available at the ILSB, “There are protocols where I can get ‘level unlocked.’ It just opens things up for me and my students.”

Chris Hawn (center) and their students in the ILSB, backed by the INFLIGHT art installation.

Hawn is the first researcher assigned to their floor of the new building. They note, “I’m excited to make the space my own, but also excited that it will be a shared space very soon. It will be interesting to see how we can work together.”

Even if they aren’t working together directly, having other researchers nearby is a good thing, Hawn adds. “Working simultaneously and having people around you is important, especially for graduate students who are spending a lot of their time in the lab.”

Coming to life

Sarah Leupen, senior lecturer in biological sciences, has been looking forward to teaching in the ILSB—and not just because it’s a new space, but because it’s a new kind of space. Even the building’s largest learning spaces are designed to help students connect with each other and the material in an engaged, intimate, collaborative way. 

Undergraduate researchers gather outside one of the labs in the ILSB. These spaces are designated as writing and meeting space for student researchers.

One of Leupen’s favorite rooms is filled with small round tables that seat six students. Screens and whiteboards appear all around the room and there is plenty of open space. “It’s this kind of flipped classroom that makes possible truly active learning, the kind of teaching that is most well-supported by research.”

Bill LaCourse, dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, which administers the building, is thrilled to see it come to life. “For me, it’s been a decade of planning, design and construction to create this building that can serve the needs of our community in essential ways.” 

“The process really epitomized the ethos of UMBC, involving the input and collaboration of so many people across the university,” he shares. “To see it evolve from a germ of an idea to the magnificent building we see today is a tribute to UMBC’s strength in the life sciences and commitment to student and faculty success.” 

Banner image: Undergraduate researchers outside the TCARD² lab. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.  

This story was written by Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

In the late spring, the UMBC Center for Social Science Scholarship (CS3) convened researchers for the 2019 Research Forum: Immigration and Mobility in Higher Education. The event was the fifth in a UMBC research forum series that highlights original research and interdisciplinary discussions about pressing national and international issues. Christine Mallinson, director of CS3, co-hosted the event with Karl Steiner, vice president for research, to spotlight UMBC’s immigration research and to enable new collaborations.

Mallinson welcoming forum attendees.

Through the forum, Mallinson aimed to create a space for discussion and brainstorming for both students and faculty. “This critically relevant forum creates new collaborations and research that can change conversations about the effect immigration has on education, economics, workforce, and policy,” she explained. 

Panelists and attendees included UMBC faculty, staff, and students from the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT), and College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS), as well as the Office of International Education Services. 

Julie Park, associate professor of sociology and director of Asian American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, delivered the event’s keynote address. Park spoke to the changing demographics and intergenerational mobility of new immigrants who are working to attain secondary and postsecondary degrees.

Trauma-informed services

The first panel, “Borders of Opportunity: Migration, Education, and Mobility and Immigration Policies,” focused on global education, the social welfare of immigrants in the U.S., and the information-seeking behavior of highly educated immigrants. 

In this panel, Jayshree Jani, associate professor of social work, shared research on the burdens that undocumented students carry. Daunting situations such as being separated from their parents, having a parent incarcerated, and being unable to access social services cause long-term trauma for children, even years after reunification or receiving support services. “When someone is undocumented and living in fear, it is really hard for them to have a stable life,” explained Jani. 

Jani, center, discussing immigrant family separations.

Her research showed how visible and invisible consequences of trauma currently overwhelm local schools, communities, and law enforcement. She described a significant need for training in how to provide trauma-informed services, and noted that this gap has had major negative impacts.

Jani’s call to action was to inspire her colleagues and future providers to conduct more research. “In order to support trauma-informed services in schools,” she argued, “universities need to encourage research on this population and prepare future professionals to create, expand, and provide services.”

International student perspective

Awareness of and access to services is a hurdle that undocumented and documented immigrants, as well as international students and faculty, must navigate. Doctoral student Wajanat Rayes, information systems, attended the forum, bringing to the event her perspective as both an international student and a researcher.  

Rayes investigates the role that information networks play in the lives of international students. She specifically focuses on the transition to the U.S. of highly skilled Saudi Arabian international students who are also mothers. “I like how information can empower people and mitigate the challenges we have day today,” she says. 

“I am a faculty member at a university in Saudi Arabia and a mother,” Rayes shares. “I have had a lot of challenges in my transition to studying in the U.S. I hope my research will help other mothers navigate the system in the future.”

Immigration and higher education

The second panel examined “Immigration Policies and Politics: Local, National, and International Impact.” Four UMBC faculty presented the latest research about higher education policies and their effects on immigrant and international students. They also discussed the current landscape of international research exchange in higher education and the role of higher education associations in immigration policy debates.

Mortarboard from commencement 2018.

In this session, UMBC researchers Tim Gindling, professor of economics, and Lisa Dickson, associate professor of economics, focused on access to higher education for undocumented youth. Their ongoing research covers the cost-benefit analysis of policies that determine the price of higher education for undocumented students—access to-state resident tuition and additional financial aid. They also examine the impact of the national Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy on students’ enrollment, graduation, and persistence in higher education.

With two recently awarded grants, The Hilltop Institute is contributing to the development and deployment of MODRN, developed by members of the State-University Partnership Learning Network (SUPLN) and hosted by AcademyHealth. MODRN facilitates efficient, data-driven, cross-state comparisons of Medicaid initiatives to advance policymaking. The distributed research network model enables high-quality analyses of multiple states’ Medicaid administrative data without the need to share sensitive person-level data across states.

Hilltop, with its nationally recognized 25-year partnership with the Maryland Medicaid program, is one of the founding members of the SUPLN, which now boasts 25 partnerships in 23 states. Cynthia Woodcock, Hilltop’s executive director, chairs the SUPLN steering committee. Julie Donohue, PhD, Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director of the Medicaid Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, is leading the development of MODRN on behalf of the SUPLN.

Under MODRN, each state-university partnership adopts a common data model, contributes to a common analytic plan, and conducts analyses locally on its own Medicaid data using standardized code. Findings are aggregated and shared across states.

Examining the Quality of Opioid Use Disorder Treatment in a Medicaid Research Network

With funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, researchers from The Hilltop Institute and eight other state/university partnerships—Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin—are harnessing the power of MODRN to assess opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment quality and outcomes in Medicaid with the goal of informing policy decisions on coverage and payment for evidence-based OUD treatments in Medicaid. These states account for 20% of (15 million) Medicaid enrollees. The partnerships have access to complete and recent Medicaid data for their respective states and are employing MODRN and the Medicaid Common Data Model. The nine state partners are now constructing and will report on 15 standardized measures of OUD treatment performance. Then they will link Medicaid claims to vital statistics to examine the association between the quality of OUD treatment and fatal and non-fatal drug overdoses. Finally, the researchers will examine associations between Medicaid coverage policies, OUD treatment quality, and overdose outcomes. Dr. Donohue at the University of Pittsburgh is the principal investigator on this project, and AcademyHealth is coordinating the interstate activities.

Using Section 1115 Demonstration Waivers to Increase Access to Substance Use Disorder Services: Experiences in Virginia and Maryland

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research in Transforming Health and Health Care Systems program managed by AcademyHealth, The Hilltop Institute is partnering with researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) to examine the experience with §1115 waivers for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment in Maryland and Virginia. These waivers granted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) enable Maryland, Virginia, and a number of other states to receive federal matching payments for Medicaid beneficiaries aged 21 to 64 who receive inpatient and residential SUD treatment in institutions for mental disease (IMDs). The waivers are intended to increase access to the full continuum of addiction treatment services, improve quality of care and coordination with co-occurring physical and mental health problems, and reduce overdose deaths. To compare and contrast the effect of the waivers in Maryland and Virginia—states with different approaches to addressing the integration of behavioral health and somatic health care and the opioid crisis—Hilltop and VCU will conduct semi-structured interviews with state officials, providers, and other stakeholders, taking advantage of MODRN to analyze Medicaid administrative data. The principal investigator of this work is Peter Cunningham, PhD, at VCU. Cynthia Woodcock, Hilltop’s executive director, is co-principal investigator.

The Hilltop Institute is proud to announce that Senior Policy Analyst Oludolapo Fakeye, PhD, MA won the award for best student poster at the 2019 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (ARM), held in Washington, DC, from June 1 to 4, 2019. The ARM brought together a wide variety of more than 3,000 stakeholders from around the world working to improve health and health care through evidence-based policy and analysis. Fakeye joined Hilltop after completing doctoral studies in health services research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His winning poster, titled Disparities in Quality Performance among Patient-Centered Medical Homes by Proportion of Low-Income Patients Served, described a comparative study from his dissertation, which evaluated expenditure, quality of care, and access outcomes of Maryland’s statewide demonstration of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model. Fakeye also presented another poster and gave a podium presentation on other aspects of this research at the meeting.

Other Hilltop staff gave several presentations at the ARM as well. Director of Health Reform Studies Laura Spicer, MA, and Senior Policy Analyst Alexis Smirnow, MPH, gave a podium presentation titled Estimating the Potential for the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) in Maryland at the State Health Policy Interest Group Meeting on June 1. Senior Policy Analyst Charles Betley, MA, presented a poster titled Estimating the Costs to Mississippi Medicaid Attributable to Tobacco Using Paid Amounts to Providers for Tobacco-Related Illnesses at both the State Health Policy Interest Group Meeting on June 1 and the ARM on June 3. Senior Director of Analytics and Research and Chief Data Scientist Ian Stockwell, PhD, presented a poster titled Risk-Based Waiting List Prioritization on June 3. To view the presentations, click on the titles.

This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

Today in Genes, Genomes, Genetics, UMBC postdoctoral fellow Sarah Stellwagen and co-author Rebecca Renberg at the Army Research Lab published the first-ever complete sequences of two genes that allow spiders to produce glue—a sticky, modified version of spider silk that keeps a spider’s prey stuck in its web.

The innovative method they employed could pave the way for others to sequence more silk and glue genes, which are challenging to sequence because of their length and repetitive structure. Better understanding of these genes could move scientists closer to the next big advance in biomaterials.

Sticky solutions

Spider silk is what spider webs are made of, and it’s been touted for years as the next big thing in biomaterials because of its unusual tensile strength combined with its flexibility. There are more than 45,000 known species of spiders, each of which makes between one and seven types of silk. However, despite many partial sequences, less is known about the full genetic structure of spider silk: Only about 20 complete genes have been sequenced. “Twenty pales in comparison to what’s out there,” Stellwagen says.

Plus, spider silk has proven tough to produce in large amounts. Spiders convert liquid blobs of silk into solid, spindly fibers in a complex process inside their bodies. Scientists can make the liquid, but “we can’t replicate the process of going from liquid to solid on a large industrial scale,” Stellwagen says.

Sarah Stellwagen with her pet baby orange-kneed tarantula.

Spider glue, however, is a liquid both inside and outside the spider. While the glue “does have its own challenges,” Stellwagen says, that difference might make spider glue easier to produce in a lab than silk.

Stellwagen sees great potential for spider glue applications as organic pest control. After all, she says, “This stuff evolved to capture insect prey.”

For example, farmers could spray the glue along a barn wall to protect their livestock from insects that bite or cause disease, and then could rinse it off without worrying about polluting waterways with dangerous pesticides. They could use glue similarly to protect crops from pests. It could also be applied in areas where mosquito-borne illnesses are prevalent. “It could also just be fun to play with,” Stellwagen says.

A “behemoth of a gene”

Before Stellwagen and Renberg’s work, which was funded by the Army Research Lab, the longest silk gene sequenced was about 20,000 base pairs. When she started this project, Stellwagen was expecting to sequence the glue genes quickly and then move on, building on what she learned from the sequence. Instead, it took her and Renberg two years just to finalize the sequence.

Ph.D. student Tyler Brown and his (and Stellwagen’s) advisor Mercedes Burns, assistant professor of biological sciences, conduct genetic testing on harvestmen DNA. Harvestmen (often called “daddy-long-legs”) are close relatives of spiders.

“It ended up being this behemoth of a gene that’s more than twice as large as the previous largest silk gene,” Stellwagen says. It was a long, hard road to the day she found Renberg in the lab and said, “I think our gene is 42,000 bases long. I think we finished it.” And in the end, it was taking a risk on a cutting-edge technique that finally yielded the complete sequence.

Not only was the gene exceptionally long, but, like spider silk genes, it has many repetitions of the same sequence of bases—A, T, G, and C—in the middle. Modern sequencing techniques (called “next generation sequencing”) work by generating DNA sequences for all of an organism’s genes, but chopped up in little pieces. Then, like solving a puzzle, scientists must match up the overlapping ends of the short sections to determine the entire sequence.

However, if your gene is repetitive, you need a single sequence, or “read,” that extends from before the repetitious region to beyond the end to know how many repetitions there are. If your repetitious section is long, as it is in the glue genes Stellwagen and Renberg studied, the chance that you would get the read you need with next-generation methods is slim.

Sarah Stellwagen discusses spider biology with Tyler Montgomery ’20, biochemistry and biological sciences, and Genevieve Ahearn ’19, biological sciences and environmental science.

Fortunately, “third-generation” sequencing techniques are now available. Third-generation sequencing produces longer reads, but fewer of them. Only by repeating the experiment several times do you have a chance of getting the reads you need to determine the number of repetitions and finally define the gene’s entire sequence. “It’s challenging,” says Stellwagen. “You’re picking a needle from a haystack.”

But it worked. After two years of going to the computer and not seeing positive results, Stellwagen and Renberg finally got the reads they needed to define the entire gene’s sequence.

Stellwagen is already thinking ahead to what comes next. “Now that we have a protocol for discovering full-length silk genes, what do silks from other species look like?” she asks.

“I’m super excited that I was able to finally figure out the puzzle, because it was just so hard,” Stellwagen says. While it was a much bigger challenge than she expected, “Ultimately we learned a lot, and I am happy to put that out there for the next person who is trying to solve some ridiculous gene.”

Banner image: Sarah Stellwagen (left) and her postdoctoral advisor Mercedes Burns work together in the lab. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Read the complete article in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics.