doctoral students

The basking shark receives protected status thanks to the work of a Mason PhD student

Colleen Rich — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 19:19:28 +0000

The basking shark receives protected status thanks to the work of a Mason PhD student Colleen Rich Tue, 10/04/2022 - 15:19

The basking shark is now a "protected wild animal" under new legislation that came into effect in Ireland this week. It is now an offense to hunt or injure them or to willfully interfere with their breeding or resting places, thanks to an international collaboration between United States, United Kingdom and Irish researchers, including George Mason University alum and current doctoral candidate Chelsea Gray.

Photo by the Irish Basking Shark Group

This legislation was heavily supported by the Irish Basking Shark Group (ISBG), an international network of researchers, educators, and community representatives founded in 2009. In 2021, this group organized an international consortium of scientists and conservation organizations to sign an open letter to the Irish government, calling for legal protection of basking sharks in Ireland. Simultaneously, the IBSG also ran a “Save Our Sharks” campaign, resulting in 12,000 signatures in support of this new policy.

U.S. representatives Alexandra McInturf, co-coordinator of the IBSG and a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University, and Gray have been working alongside their Irish and UK partners to conduct vital research for basking shark conservation.

“This is a great example of the importance of diversifying research methods and collaborating with as many people as possible,” said Gray, who is working on a PhD in environmental science and public policy at Mason. Her research on social attitudes helped demonstrate strong public support for basking shark conservation.

Chelsea Gray on the beach in Donegal, Ireland in 2018. Photo provided

McInturf has been conducting field studies on basking sharks in Ireland and recently published a study on the basking shark population along the U.S. West Coast. She believes international collaboration is critical to ensuring the persistence of this species worldwide.

“Basking sharks are highly mobile, capable of moving across entire ocean basins. In doing so, they pass through the jurisdiction of many different countries,” said McInturf, who also sits on the scientific steering committee for the SeaMonitor Project, an international research initiative designed to study basking sharks and other marine species. “It is estimated that Irish waters host 10-20% of the global population of this shark species year-round. Their presence in Ireland also appears relatively steady. This suggests that Ireland offers important habitat for the species.”

While shark tourism is popular worldwide, protections for sharks are often considered controversial because of perceived impacts to fisheries. In her research, Gray wanted to find out if there was any interest in basking shark tourism and if that impacted support for legal protections. In July 2018, Gray traveled to Donegal, Ireland, to interview local residents and tourists about their perspective on sharks and shark conservation.

Although basking sharks grow up to 7.9 meters (26 feet) in length, these slow swimming plankton eaters are generally harmless to humans. Gray said their docile nature and habit of feeding at the surface of the water make basking sharks an ideal candidate for shark-viewing, as they can be viewed from land or a boat, and many ocean-goers have had peaceful encounters with this type of shark.

Chelsea Gray diving with blue sharks off the coast of South Africa. Photo provided

Gray’s findings, which were the basis for her 2019 master’s thesis, showed that basking sharks are a potentially untapped tourism market and that there was widespread support for legal protections for basking sharks in Ireland. And her article, “Basking shark tourism in Donegal, Ireland—A case study of public interest and support for shark conservation,” was published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems at an ideal time, as a member of the Irish Parliament had just introduced the legislation to protect the sharks.

“The IBSG has provided me the opportunity to take an active role in shark conservation and has shown me the challenge and reward of achieving conservation legislation,” said Gray, whose appreciation for sharks began in early childhood. “This new law is a major step forward in basking shark conservation, but this is only the beginning of a long road to crafting comprehensive, science-based marine policy. I am honored to be part of a group that continues to build key relationships and push for important changes.”

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Department of Environmental Science and Policy (ESP)

Building support for endometriosis, the invisible condition that will affect 1 in 10 biological females

Colleen Rich — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 15:06:18 +0000

Building support for endometriosis, the invisible condition that will affect 1 in 10 biological females Colleen Rich Thu, 09/29/2022 - 11:06

In This Story

Jhumka Gupta, ScD

Anna Pollack, PhD, MPH

In 2014, Julia Mandeville was informed that she had stage 4 endometriosis. Just two years later, she co-founded the organization Barbados Association of Endometriosis and PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) to raise awareness, support, and research efforts toward the condition.

“When I started my PhD, I was determined to find out more about endometriosis and how it affects Black women.”

Originally from Barbados, Mandeville immigrated to the United States in 2019 and started as a doctoral student in public health at Mason in 2021.

Julia Mandeville. Photo provided

“I’ve been diagnosed with this condition, and I recognize that a lot of people around me don’t know about it,” said Mandeville. “It’s important to not only educate my friends and family, but the community at large. These conditions are chronic. There’s no cure, but what can help is having a supportive community around you.”

Endometriosis is an enigmatic condition, she explained, that is typically defined by the presence of “endometria-like” cells found outside the uterus. The disease usually emerges between ages 11 and 16.

“If we can educate persons in that age group regardless of gender, that would hopefully be able to flow through our community,” Mandeville said.

Mandeville conducted educational outreach in her Barbados community with BAEP. “Barbados is very small so it’s really easy to go around the community and to a majority of the secondary schools to educate people there,” she said.

But she still had to break through knowledge barriers. “It was originally thought to only affect ‘career women,’ non-Hispanic White women, and Asian women,” said Mandeville. “That created a lot of barriers for diagnosis and treatment. Now we know better.”

Although it was considered a gynecological disorder and, in some instances, does impact gynecological function, it can be found anywhere in the body.

“It doesn’t just affect cis-women, it can also affect trans men, and there are a few case studies where it’s been found in men who have undergone hormonal therapy and their cells have changed.”

The only way to diagnose endometriosis is through exploratory surgery; the cause of the condition is unknown. Mandeville is developing theories for the cause of the disease with Mason researchers Jhumka Gupta and Anna Pollack of the College of Health and Human Services.

Pollack is an environmental epidemiologist who looks at chemical exposures and sexual reproductive health outcomes associated with them.

Julia Mandeville (right) speaking with attendees at an event in collaboration with ENDO Black. Photo provided

“Working with Julia is delightful,” Pollack said. “She’s amazing at putting together a team that has complimentary expertise to address a specific topic or health-related issue that she wants to tackle,” said Pollack.

Pollack explained two studies Mandeville is leading. In one, they are collecting pilot data to learn whether survey participants would be willing to provide biospecimen to the researchers. Those would then be analyzed for chemical exposure. “This is formative research, which when done that next step will be to add that chemical component,” said Pollack.

Mandeville’s research on “social aspects such as race and stigma helped to bridge my and Dr. Pollack's research as well,” said Gupta.

Mandeville also collaborates with the executive director of ENDO Black, Lauren Kornegay. She connected with Kornegay, head of the Black-women-led organization that advocates for BIPOC individuals affected by endometriosis, via social media before she moved to the United States.

Mandeville said she wants to emphasize the importance of educating all communities on endometriosis.

Of Mandeville’s dedication, Pollack said, “This is something that I think as a future researcher is incredibly rare.”

Mandeville submitted an abstract of her research to the American Public Health Association (APHA), which was accepted and will be presented at the APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo in November.

“I think we’re going to be reading a lot more about Julia in the years to come,” said Gupta.

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Graduate Education

Doctoral student combines love of lab research with practical applications

Colleen Rich — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 17:48:56 +0000

Doctoral student combines love of lab research with practical applications Colleen Rich Mon, 03/29/2021 - 13:48

Mason doctoral student Marissa Howard has worked at the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM) since 2016. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

When Marissa Howard first came to George Mason University as an Honors College student and a scholar in the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Program, she was a biology major.

As she began looking for hands-on research experiences, her LSAMP mentor, Volgenau School of Engineering professor Alok Berry, suggested she give bioengineering a try.

“It really clicked for me,” said the Richmond, Virginia, native, and she ended up switching her major to bioengineering.

In her junior year, Howard participated in Mason’s Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program (ASSIP). That’s when she met Mason researchers Lance Liotta and Alessandra Luchini. She spent the summer studying the electrical properties of their Nanotrap technology.

“I really loved it,” she said. “I really loved them, and they were excited by the work I was doing and asked me to continue working with them. Since 2016, I've been in [the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM)] lab.”

Biosciences PhD student Marissa Howard tests vaccine efficacy in healthy and immunocomprised patients by running a rapid COVID-19 antibody test. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

For her senior capstone project in 2016-17, Howard led a team of bioengineering students—Sara Sharif, Sameen Yusuf, and Rohit Madhu—to create a noninvasive urine-based tuberculosis (TB) test called TB Assured, and the invention garnered a lot of attention for the team and many awards.

In addition to winning several Mason awards for being the best project of the year, the team also won the $15,000 prize from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering’s Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) challenge to help develop the test further.

TB Assured started as a dipstick test, much like pregnancy tests, that would find biomarkers of TB in urine. In an effort to make the test more sensitive and user friendly, Howard came up with the idea of using a paper origami cup as a next generation urine collection cup for the test instead of a test strip.

The biomarker-harvesting Nanotraps are in a glass wool-like substance embedded in the cup. After use, the cup is emptied, collapsed back into its original flat, two-dimensional form, and can be mailed in an envelope for processing.

“Everything that's in the urine is captured by the Nanotraps, and you don't need a centrifuge or other equipment,” said Howard, who completed her bachelor’s degree in bioengineering in 2017. “People loved it. They keep asking when it is going to be available at their local pharmacy.”

Howard is now a doctoral student in biosciences at Mason. During the coronavirus pandemic, Howard was able to get back into the CAPMM lab, but now all the researchers are working on COVID-19-related research.

“We are doing some of the analytical validation studies to help different companies file for FDA approval for their rapid COVID-19 antigen tests,” Howard said. “That's been really interesting and fun—seeing all these different tests that come in.”

For her dissertation, Howard is focusing on cancer research. She is looking at how cancer exosomes (small, membrane-wrapped packages released by cells) communicate. The findings could help create a new kind of immunotherapy.

“[Looking at the exosomes in a tumor sample] is going to tell you a little bit more information than just the pathology would,” she said. “It's sort of telling you what that tumor is thinking and how it is communicating to its neighboring cells.”

With completing her PhD still about a year away, Howard is planning a future in a lab, possibly in an academic setting.

“I love the research space and the creative potential that comes with it,” Howard said. “You never know when your next idea is going to pop up.”

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