On July 9th, incoming Science Posse Scholars will be presenting posters on various research topics including pheromones, computational models of galaxies, and software engineering. The event will take place in the Shapiro Science Center atrium from 1:30 to 3:00 PM. The 10 scholars are interested in pursuing STEM degrees and will all start here at Brandeis in the fall.
Everyone is encouraged to attend.
Brandeis is one of 57 schools to receive a $1 million 5-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI’s) Inclusive Excellence Initiative, the aim of which is “to create a community of scientists and science educators engaged in 57 experiments, each experiment aimed at understanding how institutional change with respect to inclusion can be achieved.” Under the direction of Henry F. Fischbach Professor of Chemistry and HHMI Professor Irving Epstein, Professor of Biology Melissa Kosinski-Collins and Associate Provost Kim Godsoe, the program has four major thrusts: a) Galaxy, a cohort based program, modeled on Brandeis’s highly successful Science Posse, to provide peer and near-peer support and mentorship for prospective science majors; b) workshops, incorporated into introductory laboratory courses, that address issues such as imposter syndrome, implicit bias and stereotype threat and encourage students to reflect upon the learning environment that they wish to create for themselves and their classmates; c) low-enrollment practicum courses designed to strengthen students’ quantitative skills through project-based research studies; and d) a faculty learning community that will bring together instructors in key courses to grapple with issues that may hamper student performance and retention. The discussions in b) and d) will be informed by written and oral presentations from students and alumni, who will be asked to reflect on how their preparation and their reception by faculty and other students affected their experience in STEM. These initiatives will help Brandeis change the culture and climate of how the community perceives all students studying STEM.
A major impetus for this undertaking is the recognition that students in the sciences begin with a wide range of preparation and experience, and that currently retention in science majors is heavily correlated with level of preparation and initial success in introductory courses. Nationally, only 48% if students entering college with the intention of majoring in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) actually complete a STEM major. At Brandeis the record is somewhat better, but there is still much room for improvement. The programs in this initiative are designed to overcome the “sink or swim” mentality that affects many students (and faculty) by making them aware that, with appropriate support and perseverance, all students can succeed in the sciences no matter where they start from, even if the road is rocky at the start.
BrandeisNow has posted an article about the history and accomplishments of the Brandeis’ Science Posse program. Read the following excerpt or the entire article:
In June, Macareno and his posse, all Class of 2020, get off Amtrak’s Acela Express train and take a shuttle bus to Brandeis for science boot camp. On the first day, they gather in a classroom in the Abelson physics building […]
(Melissa) Kosinski-Collins, who earned a PhD at MIT, tells them college science is profoundly different from high-school science. With equal parts candor and caring, she sets high expectations, describing the intense workload. The students know that they will be held to lofty standards and that she will support them.
Later in the day, they gather around a long lab table in the Shapiro Science Center, in an area Kosinski-Collins calls Hufflepuff — a nod to one of the houses at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School. An array of equipment is scattered before them — pipettes, balances, bottles of acetic acid (vinegar) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). There are also aluminum foil, Kimwipes, Scotch tape and Ziploc bags.
The students’ assignment is to build an air bag. When acetic acid combines with sodium bicarbonate, they produce carbon dioxide. The students must figure out how much of each chemical to add to fully inflate a quart-size Ziploc bag. But they also have to protect an egg placed inside the bag. This is where the foil, tape and extra bags come in. Along with the cushion of air, these items can be used to keep the egg from cracking when they drop the bag from the Science Center steps, about 15 feet above the ground.
There’s an important catch. Several months earlier, at a meeting in New York, the students got the same assignment. They also completed lab reports describing the quantities of chemicals they used and how they arranged the materials inside the bag to protect the egg. These lab reports are now handed out to different students. They have 10 minutes to repeat the earlier experiment using the reports as a guide […]
President Fred Lawrence and Chemistry Professor Irving Epstein visited the White House on March 31 to discuss the Brandeis Science Posse at an event celebrating the expansion of the program to a total of 10 institutions across the country. Attendees included Presidential Science Advisor John Holdren and other representatives of the executive branch, presidents of the STEM Posse schools, and current and former members of the Brandeis Science Posse. The program began at Brandeis in 2008 under Epstein’s direction with a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Usman Hameedi ’08, a member of the first Science Posse at Brandeis, has written about his experience in a piece that recently appeared at Huff Post College. Hameedi, a Biology major, scientist, poet, and aspiring doctor, tells the story of the grand experiment that was the first posse:
Science Posse was new to everyone at Brandeis — the students, the mentors, the faculty and the administration. You could tell there was a lot of interest in making it a success. People wondered: Was this too ambitious? Would this work? […]
Left: Hameedi in his Brandeis days, working in the Thomas Lab.
Melissa Kosinski-Collins writes:
You are cordially invited to attend the 5th Annual Science Posse Poster Session in the SSC atrium from 1-3 pm on Friday, July 13th.
Come celebrate the arrival and introduce yourself to our newest group of Science Posse Scholars. The scholars will be presenting posters reflecting their research into various topics in the scientific community including global warming, cancer treatment and the retention of women in the sciences.
Drinks and refreshments will be served.
The HHMI Bulletin is reporting on the upcoming graduation of the first Brandeis Science Posse
Ten extraordinary New Yorkers who were given a chance will clasp their diplomas, flip their tassels, and make history on May 20, 2012, at the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center at Brandeis University outside Boston. The students are the science posse, a collection of urban-schooled, best in class who entered Brandeis four years ago as an innovative experiment in science education.
Would it be possible to group some really sharp, overlooked students and, with a combination of boot camps, mentoring, counseling, workshops, and peer support, coach them through the rigors of university-level academics to pursue scientific careers?
See the HHMI website for more information and audio clips.
Eukaryotic cilia and flagella are highly conserved organelles present on the surfaces of many animal cells and protists. These organelles are important for cell motility and/or sensing of the environment. Virtually all motile cilia and flagella share the same microtubule-based core structure, the axoneme, composed of nine doublet microtubules (DMTs) surrounding a central pair of singlet microtubules known as the central pair complex (CPC) (Fig. 1). Structurally, each DMT is built from many copies of a 96 nm-long unit that repeats along the longitudinal DMT axis (Fig. 1A). The proper assembly and function of the components of these repeat units are necessary for the generation of the characteristic wave form of ciliary and flagellar movement. Mutations in these components have been linked to various human diseases termed ciliopathies.
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Important components of the 96 nm repeat unit include the dyneins – molecular motors that convert chemical energy into motion – and complexes that regulate dynein activity, such as radial spokes (RSs) and the Nexin-Dynein Regulatory Complex (N-DRC). The dyneins are arranged in two rows: the inner-dynein arms (IDAs) and the outer-dynein arms (ODAs) (Fig. 1B). All dynein motors are permanently anchored on one DMT and generate force by walking along the neighboring DMT, causing both DMTs to slide against one another. Connections between neighboring DMTs, e.g.the nexin links, restrict this sliding motion between DMTs and transform it into the bending motion typical of cilia and flagella. Dynein motors can only move in one direction: towards the minus end of the DMT. Consequently, dyneins on one side of the axoneme cause the axoneme to bend in one direction, whereas dyneins on the opposite side of the axoneme cause it to bend in the opposite direction (Fig. 1B).
Figure 1 (right): A) Model of the 96nm axonemal repeat containing important regulatory structures. B) An overview of the axoneme in cross section. C and D) Axoneme bending in opposing directions is achieved by alternating activation of dynein motors between opposing DMT subsets. [Heuser et al., 2009]
To generate the characteristic flagellar beating patterns, only subsets of dyneins must be active at any given time. If the dyneins were all active at once, this would put the cilia and flagella in a rigor-like state, as opposite sides of the axoneme would be trying to bend in opposing directions. Precise regulation of dyneins present on subsets of DMTs is thus required to achieve a normal beating pattern. The current model for how cilia and flagella achieve such regulation is that the dyneins receive chemical and mechanical cues from the CPC, through the RSs, to the IDAs or through the N-DRC and the I1-dynein complex to the ODAs. The RSs are key players in this signaling pathway that regulates motility. Previously, classical electron microscopy studies have described RSs as T-shaped structures that are present either as pairs (termed RS1 and RS2; e.g. in Chlamydomonas) or triplets (termed RS1, RS2, and RS3; e.g. in mammalian cilia, sea urchin flagella, and Tetrahymena). It was thought that RSs within pairs or triplets were all structurally identical. Recently, however, the Nicastro group and collaborator Elizabeth Smith’s lab at Dartmouth University demonstrated that RS1 and RS2 (green and blue in Fig. 2 bottom) of the RS pair in Chlamydomonas exhibit heterogeneity, i.e. their docking to the DMT and the structure of their bases are different, suggesting different roles in motility regulation (Barber et al., 2012; Dymek et al. 2011).
The Nicastro lab at Brandeis University aims at understanding the structure and function of cilia and flagella. Using state-of-the-art structural methods, such as cryo-electron tomography and sub-tomogram averaging, the Nicastro lab is visualizing the axonemes of different model organisms such as protists (e.g. the bi-flagellated alga Chlamydomonas or the ciliate Tetrahymena with thousands of cilia) and metazoa (e.g. sea urchin sperm flagella) at unprecedented detail (Nicastro et al. 2006; Heuser et al. 2009).
In a new study, Dr. Jianfeng Lin (a post-doc in the Nicastro lab) and his colleagues from the Nicastro lab have revealed a remarkably distinct RS heterogeneity that is highly conserved across species (Fig. 2) (Lin et al., 2012). At a resolution of 3.6 nm, it became obvious that RS3 (orange in Fig. 2 top) is structurally unique; bearing no resemblance to RS1 and RS2 (green and blue in Fig. 2 top). In comparison to RS1 & 2, RS3 is larger in mass, and has a bulkier and irregular shape, including the RS head, which consists of two rotationally symmetric halves in RS1 & 2, but is asymmetric in RS3 (Fig. 2 top).
Figure 2 (left): Top) Isosurface renderings of RS1 (green), RS2 (blue) and RS3 (orange) in sea urchin sperm flagella. Center) Cross section model of a sea urchin sperm flagellum displaying doublet specific features of the RSs. Bottom) Isosurface renderings of RS1 (green), RS2 (blue) and RS3S (orange) in Chlamydomonas flagella.
Perhaps the most intriguing structural difference observed was that RS3 exhibits features which are specific to only some of the nine DMTs, so called doublet-specific features (Fig. 2 center). For example, a structure termed the Radial Spoke Joist (RSJ) is only present on DMTs 3, 4, and 7-9 (magenta in Fig. 2 center). These features seem to act as a triad that connects three major regularory complexes, RS2, RS3, and the N-DRC. The doublet-specific features observed on RS3 suggest that RS3 plays a unique and currently unknown role in generating typical cilia and flagella beating patterns in sea urchin flagella and Tetrahymena cilia.
Although the Chlamydomonas axoneme contains only RS pairs, it does possess a structure that occupies the same site in each axonemal repeat that a third RS would occupy in organisms with RS triplets (orange in Fig. 2 bottom). This structure was termed the RS3-stand in (RS3S) by Barber et al. (2012). A comparison of the Chlamydomonas RS3S to RS3 in RS triplets revealed that the basal region of RS3 and the entire RS3S are virtually identical in structure (Fig. 2), suggesting that the RS3S is a shorter homolog of RS3 (Lin et al., 2012).
Although past proteomic studies identified the protein composition of the Chlamydomonas RS pair, i.e. of RS1 & 2, the new data suggest that the proteome of RS3 has yet to be determined. RS3 may play a novel role in regulating ciliary and flagellar motility and determining its protein composition in future studies should provide valuable clues to its function.
Reference: Nicastro et al. (2006) Science 313: 944-8; Heuser et al. (2009) J Cell Biol 187: 921-33; Dymek et al. (2011) Mol Biol Cell 22: 2520-31; Barber et al. (2012) Mol Biol Cell 23: 111-20; Lin et al. (2012) Cytoskeleton [Epub ahead of print].
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