If you go online and Google “bacterial computing,” four out of the first five entries that appear are papers that have been published by Missouri Western professors and students. Since 2006, Dr. Todd Eckdahl, Dr. Jeff Poet and eight teams totaling 19 mathematics and 35 biology Missouri Western undergraduate students have been conducting synthetic biology research, which uses mathematical modeling and molecular biology methods to design and construct new biological parts, devices and systems. They have achieved phenomenal success by every measure.
It all started in 2005, when Dr. Todd Eckdahl, professor of biology and department chair, was asked to observe and help judge a collegiate competition sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He didn’t want to at first, but his friend and colleague, Dr. Malcolm Campbell from Davidson College in North Carolina, insisted, so Dr. Eckdahl went.
The iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition, an undergraduate competition for synthetic biology research, was just two years old that year, and 13 teams from colleges and universities across the globe were competing, including Davidson. Dr. Eckdahl was not familiar with synthetic biology, which was a new field.
After he returned from MIT, Dr. Eckdahl was excited about the research and wanted to take students to the next year’s iGEM. However, he realized synthetic biology was bigger than just biology, so he met with Dr. Poet, professor of mathematics, who agreed to join in on the research.
Dr. Poet and Dr. Eckdahl collaborated with Dr. Campbell, a biologist, and Dr. Laurie Heyer, a mathematician from Davidson, to gather students from each institution to conduct synthetic biology research over the summer. And by November 2006, Missouri Western and Davidson each took a team to the third annual iGEM competition, which now consisted of 32 teams. After the first competition, the two schools joined as one team and competed at iGEM together for the next four years.
Dr. Poet related that, in the spring of 2006, he and Dr. Eckdahl signed up to attend a workshop at MIT for professors interested in conducting synthetic biology research with their students and competing at iGEM. Dr. Poet remembers one of the slides shown during a session was an engineering-like blueprint of a genetic system and very complicated.
“I looked at that and thought, ‘What did we get ourselves into?’” Dr. Poet said. “But by the end of the summer, we took a photo of a chalkboard in the lab full of our research, and it was every bit as complicated as the one at our training. And, every one of our students could explain it in detail.”
To say Missouri Western’s synthetic biology research program has had success is an understatement. Not only did the 2006 team bring home an award for Best Oral Presentation, but each team for the next four years brought home a Gold Medal for the quality of oral, poster and website presentation of research results. Dr. Eckdahl noted that only about one-third of the 129 teams competing in 2010, the last year Missouri Western competed, earned a gold medal.
And if a program is judged by the number of published articles or the amount of research grants, well, Dr. Eckdahl and Dr. Poet’s program again measures up.
Since 2007, the synthetic biology program has earned more than $2 million in grants from the National Science Foundation. Just last fall, Missouri Western and Davidson split a research grant of more than $1 million for synthetic biology research over the next three years.
And published articles? The Missouri Western/Davidson iGEM team is credited with being among those constructing the first bacterial computers, and has received worldwide media attention for this accomplishment, including mention in Scientific American and an interview on National Public Radio’s Science Friday program.
The 2006 iGEM team’s research paper, “Engineering Bacteria to Solve the Burnt Pancake Problem” that was published in the Journal of Biological Engineering was picked up by newspapers and online sites around the world. The paper earned Outstanding Paper of the Year from the JBE and stands as the second most accessed paper in its history, with more than 47,000 accesses to date.
And what, you ask, is the most accessed paper in JBE history? The published paper from the 2007 Missouri Western/Davidson iGEM team, “Solving a Hamiltonian Path Problem with a Bacterial Computer.” That one, too, earned Outstanding Paper of the Year, and has been accessed more than 54,000 times.
In all, the researchers have published a total of 11 papers involving 85 undergraduate co-authors, 44 of whom were from Missouri Western.
“We had a lot of success the first year, and I thought, ‘this is as good as it gets,” Dr. Eckdahl said. “But then we started getting NSF grants.”
“Every year, we say, ‘this is the best team yet,’” Dr. Poet added. “And we mean it.”
The professors have taken their research success to the next level, as they also conduct workshops to “teach the teachers.” For the past four summers, Dr. Eckdahl, Dr. Poet, Dr. Campbell and Dr. Heyer have taught a synthetic biology workshop for professors across the country who want to engage their students in this research. The workshops were held the first year at Davidson, the second at Missouri Western, and the next two at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute – Janelia Farm Research Campus in Virginia. This summer, they will again hold a workshop, at the University of Maryland-Baltimore.
Three years ago, Dr. Catherine Kendig, assistant professor of philosophy at Missouri Western, joined the team to help the faculty participants learn how to engage their students in discussion of the philosophy and ethics of synthetic biology. .
“NSF is very interested in philosophical and ethical questions surrounding synthetic biology,” Dr. Eckdahl said. “When new technology comes along, people say, ‘we can do this, but should we?’”
After the 2010 iGEM, Dr. Eckdahl and Dr. Poet decided to discontinue entering the competition. “By November (the month of iGEM), the teams always had more questions than answers, but every year, the new group coming in wanted a new project,” Dr. Poet said.
The 2013 research grant will fund the same research project for three years, instead of a new one every year, as is done for iGEM. Students and professors will work with their Davidson colleagues to develop a system to control bacterial metabolism.
“It’s not just about getting bacteria to produce a given useful chemical or pharmaceutical,” Dr. Eckdahl said, “but more about developing a system of getting bacteria to do so. If our idea works, we can publish a paper and others can use our system for their own purposes.”
He noted that the system could have applications in fields such as energy, the environment, pharmaceuticals, food production and more.
The three-year grant will provide 18 undergraduate students from Missouri Western and 18 from Davidson with full-time research jobs for 10 weeks each summer and support for the faculty researchers. It will also fund two trips each summer for the researchers – the Missouri Western team will travel to Davidson for one week and the Davidson team will travel to Missouri Western for a week. The grant also pays for research supplies and equipment, and travel to professional conferences for faculty and students.
“The grant application succeeded because we have a track record of collaborating across disciplines and across institutions to provide valuable educational experiences for students while they conduct cutting-edge synthetic biology research,” Dr. Eckdahl said.
“These students get the experience of not only answering questions that have not been addressed before, they get to ask questions that have never been asked,” Dr. Poet said. “They get to establish the direction of their curiosity.”
Dr. Eckdahl and Dr. Poet agree that the experience students gain in research is invaluable to their college education and their future careers. “It is really all about applied learning,” Dr. Eckdahl said. “They learn math or genetics in class, and then jump in with us to find a way to use it.”
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PORTAL to experience
The synthetic biology research conducted by Dr. Todd Eckdahl, professor of biology, Dr. Jeff Poet, professor of mathematics, and their students is just one example of students across campus that are conducting research and initiating creative projects with faculty members.
The first student-faculty research program was the Undergraduate Summer Research Institute (URSI), which began in 1991. Then, in 2002, a Summer Research Institute (SRI) began, which included high school students doing research along with a faculty member and Missouri Western students.
Both programs successfully offered students numerous research opportunities with faculty for many years before becoming incorporated into PORTAL, which began in 2012. Missouri Western’s PORTAL, the Program of Research, Teaching, and Applied Learning, serves as an umbrella for all summer applied learning activities, including internships, practica, study away, and creative projects, along with the faculty/student research.
A symposium where students present their research results to the campus and community has always been part of the URSI and SRI, and is now a part of PORTAL.
The Missouri Western State University Foundation helps fund PORTAL by providing support for faculty members and students in several areas.