Page 11 - Abacoa Community News - December '21

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FAU FeAtUres

FAU Stiles-Nicholson Brain research and training institute,” said Randy Blakely, Ph.D., in the last century. The virus
can be found in clinically
executive director, FAU Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute
Institute And Charles E. and director of the NGP. “Our program offers our students healthy turtles that don’t have
Schmidt College Of Science technologically opportunities that will prepare them to solve any tumors, suggesting that
some of mankind’s long-standing and complex puzzles – how
expression of the disease
Launch Neuroscience sensation, emotions and memory rely on, and dynamically is multifactorial. Evidence
from other studies shows
alter brain cells; how our successes, failures and social
Graduate Program experiences impact the brain; and how prevalent, devastating that there is a link between
brain disorders, ranging from depression to Alzheimer’s environmental pollution and
A collaboration between the Florida Atlantic University disease, can be understood and treated,” said Blakely. immune suppression in a
Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute and Charles E. Schmidt College NGP students are expected to complete the program within variety of animals.
of Science has resulted in the launch of a unique partnership six years, pursuing a curriculum tailored to their career interests Researchers from Florida
to train the next generation of brain scientists through the with significant time committed to advanced research. Atlantic University’s Charles
newly announced Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP). “The program provides our trainees with the flexibility to E. Schmidt College of Science
The innovative, multi-campus Ph.D. program will blend a evaluate research projects and faculty mentors prior to making examined immune function in two populations of noncaptive
comprehensive curriculum that ranges from molecules to mind a final decision on the direction of their doctoral research green sea turtles, comparing resident turtles from an area of poor
with exceptional research opportunities and will serve as a key journey,” said Teresa Wilcox, Ph.D., interim dean, Charles water quality with those in a more pristine environment.
element in FAU’s pursuit of groundbreaking interdisciplinary E. Schmidt College of Science. “NGP students will identify Researchers obtained blood samples from 87 green turtles
neuroscience research. their primary research from among the program’s three areas captured and released from the Indian River Lagoon (IRL),
To maximize exposure of students to the full breadth of of research and education emphasis – cellular, molecular a heavily polluted estuary with high levels of heavy metals,
neuroscience, the program will bring together FAU’s Charles and biomedical neuroscience; sensorimotor, cognitive and persistent organic pollutants and excessive nutrients, and the
E. Schmidt College of Science; Charles E. Schmidt College behavioral neuroscience; and theoretical and computational more pristine, man-made Trident Basin, located near Cape
of Medicine; College of Engineering and Computer Science; neuroscience – with each area presenting the opportunity Canaveral. They examined two branches of the immune
College of Education; and the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, to work across disciplines that are leading advances in system: the very specific adaptive immunity, which involves the
as well as affiliate faculty from Scripps Research Florida and the neuroscience today,” said Wilcox. recognition of antigens and the development of memory cells
Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. The NGP will initiate activities in January 2022, with student and is most often measured by how actively white blood cells
“FAU has made a significant investment in the highest recruitment already under way, welcoming the first cohort for respond to an immune challenge (lymphocyte proliferation); and
level of neuroscience education, seeing this effort as the fall 2022 semester. innate immunity, which acts as an initial defense mechanism
essential to the university’s effort to become a preeminent against pathogens and in part involves phagocytic white blood
Molecular Study Finds IRL cells that gobble up foreign particles.
Results of the study, published in the Journal of Wildlife
Green Sea Turtles Biologically Diseases, showed that both adaptive and innate immune
Stressed function were compromised in green sea turtles captured
in the Indian River Lagoon, where historical rates of green
turtle fibropapillomatosis in that population are greater than
By Gisele Galoustian 50 percent. Within the Indian River Lagoon, turtles that
Juvenile green sea turtles (Chelonian mydas) living in expressed tumors had less immune competence that those in
nearshore waters often exhibit tumors that grow on their soft that habitat without tumors. By comparison, turtles from the
tissues and shells, symptoms of a disease called green turtle Trident Basin are free of green turtle fibropapillomatosis, and
fibropapillomatosis. While the disease has been linked to a both their innate and adaptive branches of immune function
virus called chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5, the virus has co- exhibited greater immune competence.
existed within turtle populations for more than 300 million
years, although the disease itself has become pandemic only FAU Features on page 14