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Faculty Research Interests |
Student Research Opportunities |
Field Stations |
OFF-CAMPUS: Click here for list; now being updated for summer 2009.
ON-CAMPUS: - Check back in January 09 for the date of our information session for students interested in summer research projects mentored by Biology faculty; for Grinnell College students only.
2006 Summer Projects with Biology Faculty.
· Professor Jackie Brown:
Biologists
have long studied island radiations to understand how both adaptation and geographic
isolation have interacted to generate ecological diversity. The Hawaiian archipelago
has been a productive place to undertake such speciation studies, because its
extreme isolation from continental sources of immigrants and its highly variable
environments have spurred spectacular radiations of the few lineages to have
successfully colonized it. My current project investigates the mechanisms and tempo
of diversification of the 26+ species of Hawaiian tephritid flies, which have likely
radiated from a single colonizing ancestor in less than 3 million years. These insects
feed on plant species found only in Hawaii, including most members of the Hawaiian
silversword alliance, a classic model of adaptive radiation; many feed on the seeds
and thus have a direct impact on reproduction of their host plants, some of which are
federally endangered species. I will likely involve two or three students on this project
this summer; the research will involve a few weeks of field work in Hawaii, followed
by several weeks of molecular genetic work in my lab at Grinnell. More information can
be found here (http://web.grinnell.edu/individuals/brownj/research.html).
More information
can be found here.
· Professor Rafael Cabeza:
Sleep
is a vital function that is actively initiated and maintained by the brain. Although we
do not know what function sleep serves, it is clear that it is primarily needed by the
brain in order to maintain a proper function during wakefulness. Sleep is highly
dynamic as many disorders and stress can change the amount of sleep we get and
the architecture of that sleep. This summer we will be looking to see how nicotine
affects the structure of sleep and we will use a long acting antagonist of one of the
nicotinic receptors to see what function this receptor has in regulating the structure
of sleep. The experiments in the laboratory involve the use of rats, because they are
a nice model system for investigating sleep. The student working in my lab will learn
to do survival surgery to implant electrodes so that we can measure brain activity.
This is necessary to determine the stage of sleep or wakefulness that the rats are in
at any given moment. He/she will also learn how to record sleep and how to inject
rats. This project should take most of the summer.
· Professor Vince Eckhart:
TBA
· Professor Vida Praitis::
The
external and internal layers of all animals, including those of the skin and intestinal tract,
are made up of epithelial cell sheets. Although epithelial sheets are very diverse in
their organization, recent research suggests the mechanisms that regulate their
development may be relatively conserved (Lubarsky & Krasnow, 2003). I am working
in the genetic model system Caenorhabditis elegans, which has epithelial structures
that are similar to those of more complex animals. My goal is to identify and
characterize genes that are important for epithelial cell development in C. elegans in
the hope that this research will reveal mechanisms for development that are
conserved in all animals. Summer research projects will use genetics, molecular
biology, and fluorescence microscopy to study strains with mutations in genes
important for epithelial cell development.
Summer Internship at CERA
General information about summer research program in sciences at Grinnell
Three students describe their summer research experiences off-campus.
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