{"id":48284,"date":"2023-08-02T11:54:16","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T11:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/?p=48284"},"modified":"2023-08-02T12:19:37","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T12:19:37","slug":"july-lab-spotlight-walter-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/2023\/08\/02\/july-lab-spotlight-walter-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"July Lab Spotlight: Walter Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<p><em>Each month, The Michigan Daily\u2019s Research beat publishes a feature on one University of Michigan laboratory or research group to highlight the efforts of the lab team and the importance of the research. The following article is the lab spotlight for the month of July 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This edition of The Daily\u2019s lab spotlight features the<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.lsa.umich.edu\/walter-lab\/\"> Walter Lab<\/a>. Directed by Nils Walter, professor of biological chemistry, the lab studies RNA biology and DNA nanotechnology with the hope of helping create future medical innovations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Lab<\/strong><\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1\">@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 100px;}}<br \/>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>A variety of postdocs, doctoral students, graduate students and undergraduate students in a range of subspecialties across biology and chemistry make up the staff of the Walter Lab. Walter said the diversity in expertise and backgrounds is crucial to innovative science.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy philosophy about science is that in the end, diversity matters a lot,\u201d Walter said. \u201cIf you want to do cutting edge science, oftentimes you have to hear what else goes on in adjacent fields.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lab has a biology and a microscopy lab manager, with a variety of micro groups that specialize in different topics including intracellular RNA and bacterial RNA. Postdoctoral fellow Adrien Chauvier, biology lab manager, said getting an outside perspective from people in other disciplines is valuable to his own research.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPutting together all those microgroup meetings, pairing people together even though they are not in the same field exactly or the same project \u2014 we can benefit from each other,\u201d Chauvier said. \u201cI always said that the paper that I published in this lab, yeah, I did the work. But most of the ideas and troubleshooting came from another microgroup actually, a microgroup that was not at all into bacterial DNA, but they are the expertise that I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walter sees himself as a generalist, and said his ability to look at the broader picture outside of individual specialties helps him run a lab made up of so many areas of expertise.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2\">@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 100px;}}<br \/>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m interested in the big picture,\u201d Walter said. \u201cI\u2019m interested in picking up tools from computation of bioinformatics, from telecommunications, (from) whatever to apply to biological questions we are experts in, but I want to, in the process, educate people broadly, but also want them to contribute broadly to the enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neel Chhabra, a high school student working at the lab for the summer, said he found the lab to be welcoming, and appreciates the researchers\u2019 willingness to talk to him about the work they are doing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn my six weeks here, I\u2019ve never ever felt that science was being kept from me,\u201d Chhabra said. \u201cIt\u2019s always been like, I can go ask any of the postdocs, \u2018Hey, what are you working on?\u2019 and ask them questions on what they\u2019re doing, what the application is, and I can just understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Research<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Walter said he considers a variety of elements when taking on new projects, including potential logistical challenges. According to Walter, it is more difficult to get funding for a project if the proposal is similar in nature to one that has already received funding. Beyond funding, Walter said personal interests and the interests of those working in the lab are important considerations for new research directions.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3\">@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-3{min-height: 100px;}}<br \/>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cWhen you have some flexibility (with funding) \u2026 then intellectual curiosity is the other big driving force, and that curiosity can come from me in that I go to conferences or talk with colleagues and see \u2018Oh, this is a cool technique,\u2019 or \u2018This is an interesting type of question.\u2019 \u201d Walter said. \u201cAnd so that might spawn new ideas in projects that eventually then you go back and get more funding for, but it could also be individual students or postdocs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Doctoral student Jingxuan Tang studies a specific mutation in a gene that codes for a quality-control protein that causes<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ninds.nih.gov\/health-information\/disorders\/amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis-als#:~:text=Amyotrophic%20lateral%20sclerosis%20(ALS)%2C,chewing%2C%20walking%2C%20and%20talking.\"> amyotrophic lateral sclerosis<\/a>. This protein checks to see if other proteins produced in the cell meet that cell\u2019s standards.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn human cells, there\u2019s a lot of things that are misfolded,\u201d Tang said. \u201cNot every protein that your cell makes is functional and then (if not) it needs to be degraded, before things go wrong.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Doctoral student Emily Sumrall is part of the lab\u2019s intracellular RNA microgroup. Sumrall said while her group as a whole looks at the role of RNA within cells, her specific research focuses on the interaction between RNA and disordered proteins, or proteins lacking structure.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m studying how RNA generally interacts with disordered proteins, generally,\u201d Sumrall said. \u201cI\u2019m taking a model RNA, and a model protein, and then putting them into a test tube, and then looking at it under a microscope.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4\">@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-4{min-height: 100px;}}<br \/>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Microscopes are crucial in a lab that focuses on single-molecule analysis. Microscopy Lab Manager Sujay Ray said he trains new lab members on how to use the lab\u2019s microscopes and makes sure they are aware of the tools the lab has to offer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI generally train people (on) whichever microscope they want to use,\u201d Ray said. \u201cI also give a brief overview of what we have in the lab. It\u2019s good to know what we have in the lab, because if you are planning some experiment (but) you don\u2019t know if something exists in the lab, you cannot plan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Significance<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Research into <a href=\"https:\/\/mcdonaldinstitute.ca\/about\/fundamental-science\/#:~:text=Fundamental%20science%20is%20the%20pursuit,understand%20and%20explain%20natural%20phenomena.\">fundamental sciences<\/a>, which explore the way things in the universe work at a very basic level, does not always have immediate effects on the real world. In the case of RNA research, however, fundamental science research can open up a variety of opportunities, many of which lie in the field of medicine.<\/p>\n<p>Walter said as bacteria <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/research\/professor-wins-prestigious-award-combat-antibiotic-resistance\/\">evolve<\/a> to become resistant to antibiotics, knowledge of gene regulation and the role of various RNA may be important in finding a way to make antibiotics&nbsp; less susceptible to antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-5\">@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-5{min-height: 100px;}}<br \/>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cWhat I\u2019m currently very excited about is this possibility to use what (we\u2019ve) learned about gene regulation in bacteria to potentially design new types of antibiotics that will be very specific to the bacterium and will overcome problems with<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astrazeneca.com\/r-d\/next-generation-therapeutics\/small-molecule.html#:~:text=Defined%20as%20any%20organic%20compound,membranes%20to%20reach%20intracellular%20targets.\"> small molecule drugs<\/a> where the bacterium can quickly evolve a mutation that basically makes it resistant,\u201d Walter said.<\/p>\n<p>Tang said even though the mutation she\u2019s studying is relatively rare, it is still important to learn about because the mutation is interwoven with other mutations in the cell.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou study all these mutations and they\u2019re connected,\u201d Tang said. \u201cThey\u2019re all in the cell. Their pathways are connected, and if you only study one pathway, and then you don\u2019t go to the other pathways, you don\u2019t know the link between (them) and probably don\u2019t know the general cell biology as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nakelle Cooper, a high school student working at the Walter Lab during the summer through <a href=\"https:\/\/lsa.umich.edu\/chem\/diversity--equity---inclusion\/d-rise.html\">D-RISE<\/a>, said she now sees science as a collaborative process after her time at the lab.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI used to think that scientists would just work on doing their own research and all that.\u201d Cooper said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier and probably a lot more fun if you\u2019re working with other people&nbsp; doing science.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-6\">@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-6{min-height: 100px;}}<br \/>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><em>Summer News Editor Abigail VanderMolen can be reached at vabigail@umich.edu.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Please consider donating to The Michigan Daily<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<div id=\"jp-relatedposts\" class=\"jp-relatedposts\">\n<h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each month, The Michigan Daily\u2019s Research beat publishes a feature on one University of Michigan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48284"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48287,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48284\/revisions\/48287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peymantaeidi.net\/stem-cell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}