TACOMA, Wash. – University of Puget Sound science faculty have been awarded $233,500 in grants from two prestigious foundations to further their research in the fields of chemistry and biology.

Eric Scharrer, professor of chemistry, has received a three-year $148,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support his research on new liquid crystalline compounds, which are important components in the displays for computers, cell phones, and televisions.

Stacey Weiss, associate professor of biology, has been awarded $48,500 over two years by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to study communication signals of female striped plateau lizards, which live in the southwest United States and northern Mexico. This work will advance our understanding of the evolution of elaborate traits in animals.

Mark Martin, associate professor of biology, has been granted $37,000 by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust over two years to study a gene from the predatory bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus to improve understanding of its behavior for the scientific community and for possible future medical applications.

“Once again the valuable research being done by Puget Sound faculty in scientific fields has been recognized by leading foundations,” said Kris Bartanen, academic vice president and dean of Puget Sound. “Having the opportunity as an undergraduate student to work directly with faculty members in their labs is one of the clear benefits of attending a liberal arts college.

“Liberal arts colleges educate future Ph.D.s in science at twice the rate of other baccalaureate institutions. The support of NSF and the Murdock Charitable Trust indicates the high level of confidence that major funders place in Puget Sound’s ability to educate scientists and contribute to the nation’s advancement in critical fields.”

The grants will support research by faculty and undergraduate students and will include stipends for student summer research projects. Abstracts of the three projects follow.

Eric Scharrer, Department of Chemistry

Liquid crystal displays (LCD) are widely found in applications including laptop computers, cell phones, and flat-screen televisions. Compounds that exhibit the liquid crystal phase (pictured right) are an integral component of these displays: molecules in this phase are reoriented by an electric field producing changes in contrast, thus allowing the production of images.

The aim of the research is the investigation of a particular type of liquid crystal phase, the biaxial nematic phase. Specifically the goal is to prepare new compounds that show improved stability of this phase. The biaxial nematic phase is of tremendous interest because assembly of an LCD using a compound possessing this phase may lead to significantly faster response times, resulting in a superior image quality. Undergraduate students will be directly involved in all aspects of preparation and characterization of this technologically important class of materials. The experience they gain will be excellent preparation for graduate studies in chemistry or a related field, or for direct employment in the industrial sector.

Stacey Weiss, Department of Biology

Darwin proposed sexual selection theory to explain the occurrence of elaborate traits that appear to reduce survival, but enhance reproductive success. The theory is most often invoked to explain elaborate male visual or acoustic signals, and has only recently been applied to chemical signals or female traits.

Weiss has been studying female-specific ornaments—those expressed only by females and not by conspecific males—of striped plateau lizards in the context of sexual selection theory. Her current work will expand her studies on females’ visual ornaments to also consider their chemical signals, asking whether signals in these two different sensory modalities communicate similar or different aspects of female phenotypic quality.

In addition she will explore whether the microbial community of lizards can serve as a valuable new estimate of phenotypic quality, and whether it relates to the expression of both the visual and chemical signals. The work will establish an integrative research program to address questions of sexually selected signals. Undergraduate students will participate in all aspects of the research program, which involves field research in Arizona over the summer and laboratory-based research during the school year.

Mark Martin, Department of Biology

Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus is a very small, fast-swimming bacterium that pursues, attacks, and invades other bacteria. Within prey bacteria, Bdellovibrio swiftly reproduces and escapes to continue its predatory life cycle. Only in the past few years have genetic tools been developed to efficiently investigate this organism. Martin and his students are currently studying a gene (malA) from Bdellovibrio that encodes an enzyme that appears to break down sugar polymers (which may be important in helping Bdellovibrio “live long enough” to find fresh prey bacteria).

  Recently Martin’s laboratory has found other genes in Bdellovibrio that appear to regulate the expression of malA, and do so differently when the predator has invaded prey cells, as opposed to searching them out. Better understanding of this genetic “switch” could help in investigations of the predatory “lifestyle” of Bdellovibrio, which could possibly be modified to attack bacteria that cause human diseases. Students will gain valuable research experience throughout the project, preparing them for further study or work in this key field.

The National Science Foundation is an independent U.S. government agency responsible for promoting science and engineering through research programs and education projects. The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust provides scientific research grants to projects and programs in the natural sciences, particularly those aimed at the acquisition of new knowledge and that provide research-based training for students.

Press-quality photos of the grant recipients are available on request.

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