The Sci-Files on Impact 89FM
The Sci-Files is hosted by Mari Dowling and Dimitri Joseph. Together they highlight the importance of science, especially student research at Michigan State University.
Episodes
Emily Bolger on Understanding the Role of Machine Learning and Text Analysis in Systematic Literature Reviews
On this week's episode of The Sci-Files, your hosts Mari and Dimitri interview Emily Bolger. Emily Bolger is a 5th year PhD Candidate in the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering. She works in the Computing Education Research Lab (CERL) with Dr. Danny Caballero. Her dissertation research uses Natural Language Processing to identify and synthesize themes in Inst
Aubree Marshall on What Dental Calculus Can Tell Us About Past Lived Experiences
On this week's episode of The Sci-Files, your hosts Mari and Dimitri interview Aubree Marshall. Aubree is a 5th year PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology. They work in the MSU Bioarchaeology Lab with Dr. Gabe Wrobel, and their research interests include understanding health, diet, and food access in ancient Maya populations, specifically from Central Belize. To do this, Aubree
Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) Part 2
Mari and Dimitri interview undergraduate student researchers from Michigan State University's Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP). The second episode of this 2-part series features Chris Lin, Kevin Villatoro, and Darnilla Samuel.If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Mari and Dimitri at thescifileswdbm@gmail.com. C
Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) Part 1
Mari and Dimitri interview undergraduate student researchers from Michigan State University's Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP). The first episode of this 2-part series features Kandy Pierre, Mohamed Elgallad, and Isteaq Zim.If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Mari and Dimitri at thescifileswdbm@gmail.com. Che
COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC): Part 4
Mari and Dimitri interview student researchers at the 16th annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC), hosted by the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). The final episode of this four-part series features interviews with Jared Reiling from the Department of Computational Math Science and Engineering, and Priyanka Kathari from the Department of Teacher Education.If you’re interested in dis
COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC): Part 3
Mari and Dimitri interview student researchers at the 16th annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC), hosted by the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). The third episode of this four-part series features interviews with Md Fyaz Sadiq from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Marc Freidman from the Plant Pathology Program.If you’re interested in discussing your MSU r
COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC): Part 2
Mari and Dimitri interview student researchers at the 16th annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC), hosted by the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). The second episode of this four-part series features interviews with Roselane Kithan-Lundquist, and Ifeanyichukwu Eke from MSU's Microbiology department , and Simon Sanchez from the Department of Biomedical Engineering.If you’re interest
COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC): Part 1
Mari and Dimitri interview student researchers at the 16th annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC), hosted by the Council of Graduate Students (COGS). The first episode of this four-part series features interviews with Sam Norcia and Char Dengler from the College of Nursing, and Bismarck Amaniampong from the Department of Chemistry. If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research o
Veona Cutinho about Revolutionizing Cloning: The Power of a Single Protein in Unlocking Nuclear Transfer Efficiency
On this week's episode of The Sci-Files, your hosts Mari and Dimitri interview Veona Cutinho. Veona works in the Cellular Reprogramming Laboratory at MSU led by Dr. Jose Cibelli. She works with zebrafish embryos and manipulates them so they can be ideal donors for cloning. These tiny embryos are perfect for studying cloning because their development is quick, easy to see, and happens outs
Yunting Gu about Articulatory Preference: Explaining Universal Sound Patterns
Yunting Gu is a PhD candidate in linguistics from Michigan State University. Her research in speech production suggests a basis for several universals regarding the sound pattern of languages. Despite the differences in languages, some sound patterns are common to most languages of the world. For example, cross-linguistically, syllables starting with pl are more frequently observed than s
Kiyotaka Suga on The Roles of Speaking and Writing Practice in Second Language Grammar Learning
On this week's episode of The Sci-Files, your hosts Mari and Dimitri interview Kiyotaka Suga, a PhD candidate in Second Language Studies.One of the engaging questions for second language (L2) teachers is how to introduce grammar instruction to help adult L2 learners develop their well-balanced communicative abilities. Most L2 teachers may believe intuitively that engaging in output (speak
Bryan Stanley on Understanding and Supporting Informal Physics Programs and their Student Volunteers
Bryan Stanley is a PhD student in the Physics Department. He does Physics Education Research (PER), where he primarily studies informal physics programs. Informal physics programs create physics learning spaces outside of the traditional classroom settings. Examples of these types of programs include, but are not limited to, summer camps, planetarium shows, public lectures, student groups
Natasha George about a "Cool" Approach to Unraveling Antibiotic Resistance
When you get a scrape or cut, you might reach for a tube of Neosporin, but have you ever wondered what exactly this antimicrobial ointment does to bacteria, or how bacteria might avoid being killed? Bacteria possess a dizzying variety of specialized protein machinery that help them resist our medicines, complicating treatment of infection. Natasha, a graduate student in the department of
Logan Soule on Blood Storage: Even Red Blood Cells Get a Sugar Crash
Blood transfusions can be life-saving procedures for patients in need. However, they can also impart much more devastating complications, leading to poorer outcomes than prior to transfusion, such as infection, inflammation, and even death. This is in part due to the red blood cell “storage lesion”, which refers to the irreversible metabolic and physiological damages that occur to red blo
Nupur Huria and Harsna Chahal about Factors Impacting Perceptions and Stigma Surrounding Menstruation: Michigan State University Perspective
Period poverty is an important, yet often ignored, public health crisis. The social shame and steep cost of menstrual products often push low-income people to adopt unhygienic practices during menstruation, negatively impacting their health, education, and dignity. Specifically, period poverty significantly impacts young menstruators in universities. The lack of access to menstrual hygien
Alyssa Saunders about A Tale of Tailless Sperm: Investigating the Unique Gametes of African Electric Fish
Alyssa studies the reproductive biology of African electric fish, called mormyrids, with a focus on their sperm and eggs. These freshwater fishes are found throughout lakes and river throughout the African continent and are used by research laboratories across the globe to study questions in evolution, neuroscience, behavior, and other biological disciplines. Besides their amazing ability
Ben Kline in Out of the frying pan into the fire: How will Coldwater Fish Survive on a Hot Planet?
Ben is a graduate student in the Departments of Integrative Biology and Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at Michigan State University. His research interests include understanding how species adapt to changing environments, especially thermal stress and conservation of coldwater fishes. Ben uses genomic tools to improve our understanding of species conservation by examining adaptive poten
Megan McGrath about Gaining the System: What the Thalamus can Teach us about Consciousness
On the first episode with the new hosts of The Sci-Files, Mari Dowling and Dimitri Joseph interview Megan McGrath. Interacting with the world relies on our ability to take in information and stimuli from our environment and integrate it into a cohesive explanation of what it happening around us. But the world is full of constant, unending stimuli...so how do we know what to pay attention
Goodbye to Chelsie and Daniel
On this episode of The Sci-Files, Mari Dowling and Dimitri Joseph interviewed Chelsie Boodoo and Daniel Puentes about their research. Daniel Puentes graduated from Michigan State University with a Ph.D. in Physics. His work focused on using experimental information to inform nuclear astrophysical simulations describing the creation of elements in space. Daniel also developed a first-gener
Welcoming Dimitri Joseph and Mari Dowling
Chelsie and Daniel visited the COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC) for the last time. For their final interview, they spoke with Dimitri Joseph and Mari Dowling, the new hosts of The Sci-Files. Dimitri Joseph is a 4th-year DO-PhD student in the Pharmacology and Toxicology department. He uses bioinformatics to study disparities in cancer. Mari Dowling is a 4th-year DO-PhD student in th
COGS GAC Part 2
Chelsie and Daniel visited the COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC) for the last time. They continued to interview students briefly about their research. Listen to them speak with Jamily Ramos De Lima and Betul Kara.If you want to discuss your MSU research on the radio or nominate a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at scifiles@impact89fm.org. You can ask questions about future e
COGS GAC Part 1
Chelsie and Daniel visit the COGS Graduate Academic Conference (GAC) for the last time. They interviewed students briefly about their research. Listen to them speak with Debkumar Debnath, Sam Weiser and Daniel Marri. This will be a three-part series as Daniel and Chelsie say bye and welcome the new hosts of The Sci-Files soon. If you’re interested in discussing your MSU research on the r
Brett Volmert about Growing Mini Human Hearts from Stem Cells
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Brett Volment. Heart diseases represent the leading causes of death worldwide. Researchers commonly use cellular and animal models to investigate and study cardiovascular disease and other diseases. However, these models do not provide the best representation of human physiology. To this end, Brett’s work focuses on grow
Joshua Kaste about Building Biochemical Traffic Maps
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Joshua Kaste. Joshua is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Michigan State University, and he works in the Shachar-Hill laboratory. His work focuses on building and analyzing mathematical models that describe the rates of all the chemical reactions going on in a living cell or who
Jamell Dacon about Fairness and Bias in Social Media Dialogue
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts, Chelsie and Danny, interview Jamell Dacon. Jamell is the MSU Department of Computer Science and Engineering. His current research focuses on fairness and bias in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Because inclusivity matters in all forms. He intends to investigate, examine and mitigate societal biases to conceptualize the "isms" that plague our so
Emily Greeson about Controlling Bacteria with Heat and Magnetism
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts, Chelsie and Danny interview Emily Greeson. Emily works in the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics department in the Contag lab at Michigan State University. Her work focuses on studying and engineering genes in bacteria to create new functions. Recently, Emily has been working on Bacillus subtilis, a soil bacterium, and adding temperature-sensitiv
Hariharan Ramakrishnan about Reducing Chemotherapy Side Effects
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts, Chelsie and Danny interview Hariharan Ramakrishnan. Cisplatin is an incredibly powerful chemotherapy drug used to treat a variety of cancers. However, its side effects, such as kidney toxicity and painful neuropathy, may result in dose reduction or termination of treatment increasing patient mortality. Physicians must closely monitor the patient’s
Anna Kim and Roksana Riddle about Bacteriophage as Plant Biocontrol
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Anna Kim and Roksana Riddle. The United States CDC estimates 2.8 million drug-resistant infections resulting in 35,000 deaths yearly. Pseudomonads are amongst the most resistant to antimicrobials, not only in clinical settings but equally in plant systems like P. syringae. P. syringae is a causative agent for multiple di
Sam Barans about Trauma Affecting Psychosis
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Sam Barans. Sam researches patient histories of trauma in populations at Clinical High Risk for psychosis at the University of New Mexico. With estimates of trauma exposure ranging from 54 to 97% in this population, it's important to identify trauma risk factors and focus treatment on patients' history of trauma. Sam's r
Zahra Ahmad about Police Use of Force: Changing Policy Can Save Lives
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Jamie Liebold. Zahra is a senior studying Comparative Cultures and Politics with Minors in Global Public Health and Epidemiology and Computational Math, Science, and Engineering. Aware of the racial bias in police use of force, Zahra's research focuses on the impact police administrative policy can have on police behavior, e
Alissa Ball about Mushrooms that Eat Metal!?
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Alissa Ball. Alissa is an undergraduate researcher in the Plant, Soil and Microbial Science Department looking at using fungi to clean up heavy metals. Current methods of heavy metal removal create toxic byproducts, so her work aims to investigate how effectively fungi can accumulate heavy metals, thus giving an environmenta
Jamie Liebold about Closing the Gap in PFAS Research
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Jamie Liebold. This research explores Gap Junctional Intercellular Communication (GJIC) as a bioindicator of cancer. Cells use GJIC for the signaling of proteins and stresses. When a cell is stressed, it will close its gap junctions, signaling uncontrolled cell proliferation. These experiments have specifically focused on u
Zach Miller about Cancer Cell Line Therapeutic Window Evaluation
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Zach Miller. A therapeutic window is a dose range between the minimum effective drug dose (MED) to the minimum toxic drug dose (MTD). Many commonly-used cancer drugs, including chemotherapies such as Doxorubicin, are highly toxic to normal tissues and have narrow therapeutic windows. The drug concentration should constantly
Andrew Deleruyelle about TimbuR: The People’s Forest Volume and Biomass Estimator
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Andrew Deleruyelle. How can one go about measuring the effects forests have on combatting climate change? As a student of forestry, Andrew has observed changing climates and wondered what can be done to quantify the largescale ecological patterns they’re experiencing. When Andrew finished an ecological data monitoring and an
Maddy Eischer about Sewing & Suturing - Closing the Gap between Fashion & Medicine
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Maddy Eischer. As a student pursuing a dual degree in Apparel & Textile Design and Genomics & Molecular Genetics, Maddy has long felt the societal pressure to pick one of her passions in school and in a future career. Instead of choosing between these two dichotomous interests, Maddy has managed to use her research t
Charlotte Best about Myelin, Microbiomes and Anesthesia
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Charlotte Best. Charlotte works in a lab that studies the influence of the gut microbiome (all the bacteria in our gut) on the brain and behavior. She is in charge of analyzing its effects on individual neurons and she also found that MRI impacts certain neurons in a negative way, which hasn't been documented before.If you’r
Lauren Emerick about Michigan's Pig Problem
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Lauren Emerick. Lauren is a junior studying Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University, working for Dr. Roloff in the Applied Forest and Wildlife Ecology Lab. Lauren has been researching the behavioral changes in invasive wild pigs (Sus scrofa) in response to management activities in the state of Michigan. Wild pigs
Gregory Marchal about A Gamble of Life and Death
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Gregory Marchal. Gregory's research investigated influenza vaccine hesitancy. This project uses experimental data from rural Wyoming to analyze how risk preferences and perceptions of uncertainty influence parental influenza vaccine hesitancy. Their key finding is that parents who perceive that there are more "unknowns" in t
Grant Bruninga about Saving A Species: Not a Red Herring...but Lake Herring!
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Grant Bruninga. Inland lake herring can be found in lakes all around the state of Michigan as well as the Great Lakes. However, recent increases in habitat destruction, chemical runoff, and pollution have caused significant declines in lake herring populations. Since lake herring are important prey species to much notable pr
June Oh about Learning "Cultures" in Science Through Writing
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview June Oh. How can an English major help promote critical science literacy for STEM undergraduate students? As a humanities scholar, June has been a part of an IRB-approved interdisciplinary pedagogy project that develops a first-year writing course for STEM undergraduate students. With a team of collaborators in the College o
Gregory Hess about Smart Networks for a Smart Electric Grid
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Gregory Hess. The U.S. electrical grid, the system of control centers, substations, poles, and wires that provides electricity to almost all American homes pre-dates the computer and Internet revolutions. Introducing computers to the operation of this grid allows for the grid to react faster than any human being could, eithe
Philip Engelgau about Peeling Back the Secrets to Banana Aroma Biosynthesis
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Philip Engelgau. Philip's research aims to understand how banana fruit is able to synthesize its characteristic aroma compounds. The chemicals that banana fruit produce and that we sense as banana-like are derived from the same metabolic routes as valine and leucine, common, primary metabolites that are essential to the day-
Claire Kopenhafer about Gassy Galaxies are Healthy Galaxies
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Claire Kopenhafer. The Hubble Space Telescope has given us many gorgeous images of galaxies, with bright stars and swirls of dust, but there's a lot more going on than we can easily see. Stars are born out of compressed gas, and gas is constantly flowing in and out of galaxies. Most of this gas cannot be seen in Hubble's pic
Alassane Sow about Mushroom Mania
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Alassane Sow. Alassane is an undergraduate researcher working in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics currently working on germinating symbiotic and parasitic fungi in the order Pezizalies. They are also a part of a nationwide project that focuses on creating a way to consistently grow Morels outdoors and in
Brooke Devries about Don’t Lighten Up - Health Effects of Light at Night
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Brooke Devries. Brooke is a second-year Ph.D. student working with Dr. Hanne Hoffmann. Her research focuses on daily rhythms in the body called circadian rhythms. You'd be surprised at how many things, from sleep to metabolism, to mood and energy, have predictable rhythms throughout the day! These rhythms are all coordinated
Azam Ali Sher about Drug-Resistant Bacteria in the Human Gut
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Azam Ali Sher. Azam is a dual major Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Medicine and Integrative Biology (CMIB) & Environmental Sciences and Integrative Toxicology (EITS), and a BEACON research fellow at Michigan State University. There are around 3 million infections and 36,000 deaths caused by antibiotic-resistant (AR) bact
Megan Mikhail about Disadvantage and Eating Disorders - Overturning Stereotypes
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Megan Mikhail. Megan’s research focuses on the intersection between biological and environmental risk for eating disorders, with a particular focus on underserved and marginalized populations. Historically, eating disorders have been stereotyped as “vanity disorders” that predominantly affect advantaged (i.e., white, wealthy
Serena Lotreck about Automated Hypothesis Generation for the Plant Sciences
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Serena Lotreck from MSU's Plant Biology & Computational Mathematics, Science & Engineering. Serena’s research is focused on helping researchers in the plant sciences navigate the flood of available information when designing new hypotheses and experiments. Since the 1980s, there has been a 3% increase per year in sci
Maria Milan about Improving Energy Efficiency of Homes in Rural Alaska
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Maria Milan from MSU's Civil and Environmental Engineering. Rural Alaskan communities face challenges unique to other areas in the United States. Energy usage and costs are high due to the shipping of materials and cold winters. Many communities are in need of more efficient housing to combat the cold weather and provide a s
Paul Bylsma about A Mirage in Online Education
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Paul Bylsma from MSU's Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education. This thought project discusses the simultaneous proximity and distance that most of us in the academic world felt as a result of COVID online learning. Paul and his collaborators use a unique theoretical lens that foregrounds the role of the body in learning to de
Liang Zhao about The Magic of "Poop Water" to Monitor COVID-19 Incidences
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Liang Zhao. Liang is a 2nd-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a lab member of the Environmental Virology Laboratory. His current research focuses on the prediction of fluctuations of COVID-19 incidences in communities through the application of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE).
Merve Nur Kursav about Productive Disciplinary Engagement of English Learners in Mathematics Classroom
On this week’s SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Merve Nur Kursav. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Mathematics Education at MSU and a research assistant in the Connected Mathematics Project (CMP) with anticipated graduation in Spring 2022. She received a graduate student award, and she has been recognized as a Fulbright Scholar and a Scholarship Undergraduate Teachin
Kayleigh Ward about Building Community in Japan After Disasters
Kayleigh is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Sociology and Environmental Science and Policy. Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, many coastal communities along the northeastern coast were completely decimated. In the following 10 years, various efforts have been made by national, prefectural, and local governments to assist residents as they recover from the disaster. Howe
Lexi Nadolsky about The Pandemic Penalty on Women and POC in STEM
On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Lexi Nadolsky. Lexi’s research focuses on diversity and inclusion in the workplace in academia, and how COVID-19 has had a harder impact on different groups of scholars, especially women and people of color.If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and
Jen Fry about Sport Geography is Geography
On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Jen Fry. Jen is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at MSU. Particularly limited research has been conducted on the experiences of Black female volleyball players who played in Europe, and how place, space, and geography are intimately intertwined with how they experience life abroad based on their identities (Etz
Lexi Nadolsky about The Genetics of Sex in Electric Fish
On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Lexi Nadolsky. Lexi’s research focuses on discovering the different ways that the electric fish Mormyrids determine their sex genetically. Her research involves searching for the AMHR2 gene in many mormyrid species to begin piecing together how each fish population may have evolved distinctly.If you’re interested in talking
Nick Chargo about Using Gut Bacteria to Prevent Osteoporosis
On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Nick Chargo. Nick’s research is focused on preventing osteoporosis by changing the composition of the bacteria in the gut. Menopause is a well-known cause of osteoporosis, but the bone loss also occurs as a side effect of some diseases and medications. One phenomenon associated with conditions that cause osteoporosis is gut
Justin Wigard about Graphic Medicine, Critical-Making, and English Classrooms
On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Justin Wigard. As a 2021-2022 Scholarship of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning (SUTL) Fellow, Ph.D. Candidate Justin Wigard, along with Assistant Professor Megan K. Halpern in the Lyman-Briggs College, is exploring the intersection of art and science studies in the classroom via drawing comics. More specifically, Wigard --
Nathan Kauffman about How to Use the Immune System to Fight Cancer
On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Nathan Kauffman. Nate's research revolves around developing novel radiopharmaceuticals and delivery strategies to combat solid cancers. His thesis focuses on using locally delivered internal radiation therapy to induce a systemic immune response against cancer. One of the hallmarks of cancer is the ability to escape recognit
Robert Stanley about Rising From the Ashes
On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Robert Stanley. The invasive Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis, EAB), the most destructive forest tree insect in North American history, threatens the majority of the native American ash species. This includes green ash, white ash, pumpkin ash and black ash. Green ash was widely used as a street tree, white ash is famou
Jenna Beffel about The Siblings of Children with Autism
On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Jenna Beffel, a 4th-year doctoral student in MSU's Department of Human Development and Family Studies and the lab manager of the Family Stress Lab. Jenna's research through the Family Stress Lab focuses on families with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)- specifically, the outcomes and experiences of the typically
Kylie Smith about The Nose – A Brain Health Revolutionary
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Kylie Smith. Our brains are protected by a tight-knit biological wall called the blood-brain barrier. This barrier prevents potentially dangerous substances in our blood from accessing sensitive brain tissue but also restricts access to therapeutics or imaging agents intended for brain delivery. Kylie's research focuses
Andrew Kearney about The Persistence of Salmonella in Sugar Stored for 3 Years
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Andrew Kearney. Andrew is a student in the MSU Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering. Due to the low water activity (aw) and high osmotic pressure, sugar is generally recognized as a low microbiological risk source to human health. As a low moisture commodity sugar may receive little to no additional proc
Ti'Air Riggins about Astrocytes: the Guardian of the Brain
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Ti'Air Riggins. Have you ever wondered what it's like to wake up one day and realize that you can move anything below your neck? For some people who have a stroke or have been in major accidents, this is a reality for them. Fortunately, there has been a recently developed technology called implantable probes also known a
COGS Fall Welcome Back
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Abdo Korayem, Daniel Maldanado, Max Manz, and Maria Milan about their research projects. This episode took place live at the COGS Fall Welcome Back event. If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at scifiles@impact89fm.org. You can ask qu
Yoni Lewis Israeli about Growing Mini Hearts with Stem Cells
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Yoni Lewis Israeli. Heart disease is a leading cause of death around the world, and heart defects at birth are the most common of all birth defects in humans. Modeling the developing human heart in the lab using 3D heart organoids (or miniature hearts) allows access to developmental stages that cannot be studied in human
Isabel John and Lauren Wiklund about Normalcy vs Solidarity
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Isabel John and Lauren Wiklund. Mental health stigma is a significant barrier to receiving mental health care. The two primary approaches to reducing mental health stigma are normalcy and solidarity. Normalcy refers to efforts to reduce stigma by increasing understanding of the frequency and prevalence of mental illness
Conor Bertucci about Microalgae: The Green Machine
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Conor Bertucci. With the projected population growth of over 2 billion people in the next 30 years, food and energy production will have to increase drastically to keep up with our demands. Fresh water and arable land are finite resources that are constantly diminishing due to environmental stresses. The cultivation of
Cameron Bennett about Something's Fishy: Gene Duplicates in Embryonic Development
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Cameron Bennett. Cameron is a recent graduate from Lyman Briggs College who majored in genomics and molecular genetics and human biology. Since her sophomore year at MSU, Cameron has done research with the Braasch lab in the Department of Integrative Biology studying the function of duplicated endothelin genes unique to
Kewalin Samart about Repurposing Drugs for Diseases
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Kewalin Samart. Drug discovery takes a significant amount of time and fundings due to its complicated clinical process to get new drugs approved. Computational drug repurposing is an efficient alternative that is more cost- and time-effective in discovering new drug indications from existing drugs. One important concept
Nick Ivanov about Fixing the Internet Inequality with Blockchain
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Nick Ivanov. Information technology is ubiquitous, but it is not equally available to everyone - this phenomenon is known as the technological divide. One aspect of the technological divide is the ability to have a quality Internet connection in certain regions. Specifically, billions of people on Earth have no access to
Moh Alhaj and Nicole Mancina about The Promise of Bioplastics
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Moh Alhaj and Nicole Mancina.Led by Dr. Ramani Narayan, the Biobased Materials Research Group (BMRG) design and engineer new biobased and biodegradable, compostable polymer materials and bioprocesses using agricultural crops and residues (i.e.: soybean, corn), lignocellulosic biomass, and algae. Bioplastics developed fro
Avery Tilley about Deer, Mosquitos, and Us: A New Look at Wildlife Disease
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Avery Tilley from the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Avery's interest in conservation medicine, wildlife disease, and public health spurred him to investigate if white-tailed deer could be used to predict West Nile virus risk to humans. With recent studies discussing how certain species can act as a warning or mon
Gia Haddock about The Amphibian Pet Trade Industry is at Risk of Collapse!
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Gia Haddock. Gia is a senior Fisheries and Wildlife student at MSU. Having an interest in disease, amphibians, and sociology, Gia combined the three with their undergraduate research. They study the current behaviors, knowledge, and opinions of those involved in the amphibian pet trade through the lens of disease spread.
Alex J. Roy about Understanding a Rare Movement Disorder
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Alex J. Roy. Alex is a dual-enrolled BS/MS student in Lyman Briggs and the Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics. He works in the Neubig Lab in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology.Alex studies the mechanisms of an ultra-rare genetic disorder called GNAO1 Encephalopathy. Patients, of which there
Stavros Vakalis about "See-through" Imaging with Millimeter-waves
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Stavros Vakalis. Stavros' research is about advancing millimeter-wave imaging. Millimeter-wave imaging is used in many applications that require "see-through" capabilities. The most famous example is the airport security screening, which cannot take place using a traditional camera. Millimeter-waves can easily pass throu
Thilani Jayakody and Jacob Jensen about Gene Editing Potatoes
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Thilani Jayakody and Jacob Jensen. Thilani is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biotechnology program working on applications of genome editing for crop improvement in cultivated potato in Dr. Dave Douches’ Potato Breeding and Genetics Program. Jacob is a recent graduate of the Genomics and M
Erika Buhk about Masks Under a Microscope
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Erika Buhk. Due to the current COVID-19 Pandemic, many Americans are wearing masks in public to slow the spread. Many people question whether the masks actually do anything. Erika researched how the fabric of disposable masks breaks down with use by placing them under a high-level microscope (scanning electron microscope
Geeta Kumari about Reducing the Cost of Flights Using Superalloys
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Geeta Kumari. Geeta is a joint doctoral program student in the department of chemical engineering and materials science. Her research focuses on metals and a mixture of metals (alloy). She is working on a particular type of alloy called superalloy, which comprises eighteen different elements together. “Superman is fictio
Varshini Perumal about Cellular Senescence in Alzheimer's Disease
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Varshini Perumal. Varshini is a 2nd-year undergraduate student studying neuroscience at the College of Natural Science. She has been doing Alzheimer's research at the Department of Translational Neuroscience in the MSU College of Human Medicine for around 1.5 years, assisting Dr. Gordon's research.For the past year, Vars
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