Research: How does the brain control appetite?
Transcript
Kristy Townsend:
We’re in the middle of an obesity and diabetes pandemic around the globe. It really is a public health crisis in many respects.
Bethany Miles:
Alzheimer’s is a worldwide problem as well. So far, there’s been years of research and no cure, no drugs that really work very well.
Kristy Townsend:
Then you look for all those genes, what CT were they at, or cycle threshold were they at?
I think of science as a verb instead of a noun. It is a process of discovery and a process of experimentation. In a lab course you do get some of that, but in a real lab setting you see what goes into obtaining data that’s usable, or asking questions that are testable, or fundable, and the reality of working in a lab.
I think that’s the benefit for undergrads to see early on in their career, “Am I cut out for this? Do I enjoy it? Is it something I feel passionate about?” Because you really need to maintain that passion if you want a career in the sciences.
Bethany Miles:
For me, for example, I realized that there’s this whole world of research that I didn’t really realized before working in this lab. I think that’s an opportunity as well, for people to get a real feel for what the field of research is like.
Kristy Townsend:
Biggest question we have in this lab is a better understanding of how the brain regulates appetite and metabolism and that includes energy expenditure. How we take in and store calories, versus how we burn calories. As part of that, we’re interested in how the brain communicates with peripheral tissues, such as fat tissues or adipose.
Bethany Miles:
I’m interested specifically in neuroplasticity, because I have an interest in Alzheimer’s disease. That’s ultimately what I want to be studying.
Raymond Vallejo:
The brain is always interesting, that’s why my focus is neuroscience. My grandmother, unfortunately, passed away from Alzheimer’s. It’s a big impact, seeing someone who you’ve known your entire life — see, talk to every single day — forget who you are.
Kristy Townsend:
We can measure it and get another one.
You can learn in a classroom and what it’s like to work in a lab, but you really have no idea until you get in there, that there’s protocols to follow and things have to be kept sterile. You have to communicate well with the people in your team. All those are important lessons that they’ll take with them as they go. Not to mention the science that they’re learning.
Raymond Vallejo:
The skills that I was learning will eventually, most definitely, help me. Paraffin slicing, hopefully genotyping, those are huge techniques that can be reused in a variety of fields down the line.
Bethany Miles:
Once you have this foundation of knowledge and general techniques, you can use those to then, maybe, explore an area of research that no one has really gone into yet. There’s so much uncharted territory, I guess you could say.
It’s really exciting being on the forefront of all this research that’s really addressing these big, big problems that we’re having.
Raymond Vallejo:
There’s always going to be a need for someone to try to cure the next big bad thing.
Kristy Townsend:
I think the University of Maine is very unique in the ability for students to work in a lab setting like this. I think faculty at UMaine are very welcoming to undergraduate students. Both training them, and allowing to be part of a real project hands-on that could lead to a co-authored publication, or a presentation at a local research symposium.
I think this is very unique to UMaine, that students have this opportunity and that faculty are very willing to get involved at that level of their education.