UGA Research News

Stimulus grant brings new research projects and jobs to Savannah River Ecology Laboratory

2009-10-21

Athens, Ga. – A $2.6 million federal stimulus grant from the U.S. Department of Energy will bring new jobs to the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, the University of Georgia research facility located near Aiken, S.C.

The grant for seven new and five continuing research projects will create 12 new full-time jobs and allow approximately 16 University of Georgia research professionals and technicians to retain their full-time positions.

For over 50 years, SREL has pursued basic and applied research at multiple levels of ecological organization, from atoms to ecosystems at the Savannah River Site, a U.S. Department of Energy facility.SREL also provides opportunities for graduate and undergraduate research training, and service to the community through environmental outreach. SREL has played an essential role in DOE’s stewardship and management of the Savannah River Site, researching all ecological aspects of site operations.

Over the past four to five years, as the research priorities of the DOE changed and funding to UGA decreased, the number of employees at SREL decreased from a peak of 200 in 2004-2005 to 50 this year—a 70 percent decline.This new funding will allow SREL to begin to rebuild its research programs.

“Importantly, the federal funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act means SREL can hire new research professionals who will expand our capability to bring in new sources of external funding, replacing the stimulus funding once it ends,” said Carl Bergmann, SREL co-director and the grant’s principal investigator. “We’re also pleased that SREL’s former employees will be eligible for the new jobs that this grant will provide.”

SREL co-director Ken McLeod said, “SREL’s new research projects will further enable DOE to understand and address site impacts on all levels, while also contributing to the greater scientific community.”

Most of the research projects will provide important knowledge about the behavior of environmental contaminants from human activity, especially in aquatic environments like the rivers, streams and ponds of the Savannah River Site, he explained. “This research increases our knowledge of the basic aspects of these systems, which in turn helps the development of solutions to important environmental problems.”

One project is a study of long-lived reptiles, like turtles and alligators, by conservation biologist Tracey Tuberville and ecologist David Scott. The researchers will look at how these reptiles, which live 40 to 70 years and eat other vertebrates as well as invertebrates, may be the best animals to study when assessing risks associated with long-term contaminant exposure.

In another project, ecologists J. Vaun McArthur and Dean Fletcher will examine how and to what extent trace metals introduced to streams and rivers by human activity, such as coal burning power plants, put organisms at risk. Their study will look at what an organism eats and what eats the organism, to get a complete picture of the aquatic food web and provide models for what happens to those contaminants further up the food chain—in birds and mammals.

A collaborative project between SREL biologist Larry Bryan and colleagues at Eastern Illinois University will study what happens to the environmental contaminants, including metals, radionuclides and organic solvents that have been released to a stream and pond system on the DOE’s Savannah River Site. What the scientists learn about bioaccumulation of contaminants will inform models used in assessment of the risk these contaminants pose to those at the top of the food chain, including humans.

UGA researchers find potential new use for D-Serine in treating addiction

2009-10-07

Athens, Ga. – Researchers in the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine have found that D-Serine, an amino acid being tested for the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychotic conditions, may also be useful in treating addiction.

John Wagner, a professor in the department of physiology and pharmacology, graduate student Lakshmi Kelamangalath and postdoctoral fellow Claire Seymour found that D-Serine promoted learning during drug withdrawal. Wagner said overcoming an addiction requires not only a withdrawal from the substance, but new learning that “extinguishes” the need or desire for it.

“Preventing relapse is a critical component of treating addiction,” said Wagner, “especially given that so many factors—stress, surroundings, familiar sights, smells, personal habits—can trigger cravings.”

Wagner’s lab looked specifically at cocaine because currently there is no FDA approved treatment regime. Assuming that the results of these initial studies, obtained from laboratory rats, are relevant to the human condition, their findings suggest that D-Serine may be beneficial in treating addiction. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health and UGA’s interdisciplinary toxicology program, was published in the early online November edition of the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

Wagner stresses that D-Serine is neither an anti-craving substance nor is it an addictive drug, but an amino acid that acts on specific receptors in the brain. In the reported studies, it helped to counter a conditioned response (cocaine-seeking), once the drug was withdrawn.

While Wagner’s lab is the first to look at its potential for treating addiction, D-Serine is already being tested in humans for treating certain phobias and in schizophrenia patients. Wagner’s interest in looking at its potential in overcoming addiction grew from earlier work in which he looked at the actions of cocaine on the brain and nervous system.

“For most people, addiction means dealing with uncontrolled drug-seeking behavior, which, when acute, can result in devastating consequences — job loss, financial ruin, damaged personal relationships and other destructive behaviors,” said Wagner.

In future studies, Wagner hopes to establish a time course for the effectiveness of D-Serine. He also would like to investigate whether D-Serine is effective in treating other addictions.

Female monarch butterflies on 30-year decline in eastern North America

2009-09-24

Andy Davis, a Ph.D. candidate in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, analyzed published overwintering and migratory data for the insect from 1976 to the present, discovering that the female to male ratio for the butterflies east of the Rockies has gradually been changing. In the late 1970s, Davis said, females made up around 53 percent of the monarch butterfly population that migrated to Mexico for the winter. Today, that number has dropped to about 43 percent, which paints a dire picture for population recruitment. Davis outlines his findings in a new paper co-authored with Eduardo Rendón-Salinas of World Wildlife Fund-Mexico. The paper appears in Biology Letters, rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org.

“I nearly fell over when I saw the trend,” said Davis. "It was an unintentional but extremely important finding.”

The monarch butterfly, one of the most well-known and widely-recognized insects in the world, is a flagship species for conservation. North American Monarchs can migrate more than 2,000 miles as they fly to Mexico from Canada and the U.S. for the winter. “The implications of this decline are huge,” Davis said. “Female monarchs can lay as many as 400 eggs over their lifetime, which is why the species is so resilient.”

But Davis said that as the monarch population continues to struggle because of breeding habitat loss, widespread pesticide use, and deforestation of the overwintering sites, losing a significant number of females could seriously hinder the population’s ability to rebound after periodic crashes. Davis, who studies monarchs in addition to his doctoral work, said that news of the decline has gone unnoticed until now “because no one’s ever looked at the data like this. For years, scientists have been collecting male and female monarchs at the overwintering sites and during the fall migration. When we compiled the numbers from these collections, along with the year they were made, the trend was obvious.”

At their wintering sites, monarchs cluster on trees and form massive colonies that can number in the millions. Illegal logging of these trees is a serious threat to their wintering stage, but the threats they face in their breeding range in the United States and Canada are just as important. Further, because the decline in females is also present in the fall migration, Davis says it means that whatever is causing this decrease is happening during the breeding season in the U.S. and Canada.

“That tells us we need to look here to see what the cause is,” he said. Whatever it is, Davis explained, “it must be something that affects females more so than males. This will be the challenge for future studies to sort out. We’ll also need to monitor the numbers of females in the population closely over the next few years, at all stages of their life cycle.

"This discovery just goes to show how new insights can be gained from critical re-examination of published studies, and more generally, how much we still need to learn about this amazing insect before it is too late.”

UGA researchers find no overall loss of vegetable diversity in the 20th century; correct math error in influential 1983 study

2009-09-15

Athens, Ga. – Two University of Georgia scholars argue against the conventional wisdom that the 20th century was a disaster for vegetable crop diversity by showing that there was no overall loss of vegetable diversity in that era.

Paul J. Heald, Post Professor at the School of Law, and Susannah Chapman, a Ph.D student in the anthropology department, have compared the availability of varieties in commercial seed catalogs in 1903 to those available in 2004.

The two UGA researchers report that in 1903, 7,262 varieties of 48 crop vegetables were available and, in 2004, only 2.2 percent fewer varieties were available, showing almost no loss of overall varietal diversity. However, they did find that 94 percent of the seed varieties listed in the 1903 USDA catalog were no longer available from the most common commercial sources, meaning a 6 percent survival rate from 1903.

“The lack of loss in the overall diversity of seeds can be explained by the fact that preservationists have identified and maintained some of the old seeds, importers have brought in new varieties, and farmers and enthusiastic gardeners have developed new varieties,” Heald said.

Today’s growers of garden beans, garlic, lettuce, peppers, squash and tomatoes have many more choices than they did 100 years ago, while growers of sugar beets, cabbage, field corn, radishes and rutabagas have vastly fewer selections available to them, according to the study.

Additionally, Heald and Chapman report that W.W. Tracy, author of the 1903 USDA inventory list, said at the time of his study, “Variety names of vegetables in this country are being greatly multiplied every year by the renaming of old varieties.”

According to Heald and Chapman, this means many of the reported seed varieties in 1903 were actually the same variety of seed but listed under different names. “Because of the past issue of multiple naming, consumers of seeds today may actually have even more choices than in 1903, even though many of the 1903 varieties no longer exist,” Heald said.

During the course of their research, Heald and Chapman discovered a math error in a widely accepted study on crop varieties. Carey Fowler and Pat Mooney reported that a 1983 study of seeds held in the National Seed Storage Laboratory conducted by the Plant Genetic Resources Project of the Rural Advancement Fund showed that 97 percent of the vegetable varieties listed on a 1903 USDA inventory of seeds were extinct, meaning there was only a 3 percent survival rate. However, Heald and Chapman found a calculation error and report the actual survival rate for seed varieties was 7.4 percent through 1983, more than double than what was previously thought.

The next phase of Heald and Chapman’s research will further examine patent activity for the crops that experienced the greatest diversity gains during the 20th century. Preliminary findings suggest no correlation between varietal replacement and patents in the six most diverse varieties.

Heald and Chapman’s paper can be downloaded for free from the Social Science Research Network at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1462917.

University of Georgia and University of Puerto Rico grant license for long-persistence glow materials, in any color

2009-08-18

Athens, Ga. –The University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. and the University of Puerto Rico have granted an international, non-exclusive license for a portfolio of glow-in-the-dark pigments that can be designed to emit light in any color of the visible spectrum for nearly a day. Performance Indicator, LLC, of Lowell, Mass., acquired the license.

Phosphorescence is a process in which energy absorbed by a substance is released relatively slowly in the form of light. Some materials release energy over long periods of time and are known as long-persistence phosphors. But scientists have puzzled over how to produce long-persistent phosphors that glow blue and green,red or other long-wave length colors, or white.

By exploiting the phenomenon of energy transfer, the UGARF/UPR technology can produce long-lasting glow in any color, including blue, green or red, and in tints and hues, such as pink—red with white—without extensive modification to the composition of the materials.

The seven phosphors included in this patent portfolio are simple to manufacture and environmentally safe. They do not contain sulfur, radioactive materials, lead or other materials. They can be used in a multitude of consumer and industrial applications, including signage, special paints, and in combination with polymers for the manufacture of many items, such as color-coded electric wiring, insulation, textiles, novelty-items and printing ink.

The license to Performance Indicator allows it to adapt, patent, and market color-change or indicator technologies for a variety of industrial and consumer applications, and to import, manufacture and sell the phosphors. Also licensed under the same agreement are methods to customize the wavelength of emitted light, white-emitting phosphors, methods to render hues and tints to emitted light and methods to blend such phosphors with a multitude of materials, such as polymers and resins.

Performance Indicator has pioneered development of a photoluminescent technology that provides unmatched vibrancy and persistence, as well as an unprecedented palette of colors that can be formulated into a variety of fluids, coating or printing applications. In addition, PI has also discovered how to shift the emission of the base phosphors, through chemistry, into the infrared spectrum, expanding the uses of this technology platform into applications for covert military use and for commercialized anti-counterfeiting/authentication indicators.

Until recently, PI had focused primarily upon developing technologies that merely enhance the performance of phosphor pigments. However, complementing its chemical engineering advancements in these photoluminescent technologies, PI is also now actively engaged in research and development and small-scale manufacturing infrastructure toward the development of next-generation high-persistence phosphors for application in the security, defense, and energy sectors and plans to launch the only domestic plant to manufacture, sell, and distribute long-persistence phosphorescence materials.

“Our work in inventing novel ways to make phosphors (solid state physics) coupled with the revolutionary patented methods that we have developed around formulating phosphors for uses in practical and functional applications (chemistry), is unparalleled,” said Robb J. Osinski, Performance Indicator co-founder. “It sets our technology platform far apart from any previous achievements in this field.”

“The license granted by UGARF and the University of Puerto Rico enhances our intellectual property portfolio and the capabilities to deliver proprietary and, in many cases, customized photoluminescent-based solutions for a broad array of industrial and consumer applications,” he added. “At the same time, it further enables Performance Indicator to import, manufacture, and sell phosphors.”

The phosphors were developed under the guidance of the late William Yen, professor of physics, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, University of Georgia, who was a pioneer in the field of long-persistence phosphorescence. Co-inventors are Weiya Jia, presently vice president of Performance Indicator, and Xiao-Jun Wang, associate professor of physics, Georgia Southern University. Yen and Jia pioneered the field of long-persistence phosphorescence and developed the first systematic approach to customize the color and duration of glow.

Yen held the Graham Perdue Chair in Physics at the University of Georgia from 1990 until his death in 2008. He was elected to the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the U.S. Electrochemical Society. Yen received numerous awards for his work, including the J. S. Guggenheim Fellowship and the A. von Humboldt Senior U.S. Scientist Award, as well as adjunct appointments at several universities. Yen was a principal editor of widely-used references on phosphors and phosphorescent technology, including Phosphor Handbook, Measurements of Phosphor Properties, Fundamentals of Phosphors and Practical Applications of Phosphors (all by CRC Press), as well as the Proceedings of Excon 98: Excitonic Processes.

Jia also is world-renowned in the creation of phosphorescent materials. Prior to joining the University of Puerto Rico, he held prominent positions at a variety of institutions, including the University of Georgia, the Chinese University of Science and Technology and the Chinese Institute of Physics.

Wang completed his graduate work at UGA under Yen. He is now an associate professor of physics at Georgia Southern University.

“Phosphorescent pigments are an important industrial segment. The U.S. color pigment industry was estimated to be around $2.5 billion in 2005 a year with projected growth around 6 percent until 2009. The phosphor segment may represent as much as 5 percent to 7 percent of this market,” said Gennaro Gama, a senior technology manager with UGARF in charge of licensing the portfolio. “We found in Performance Indicator the qualities of a dedicated business partner, and this agreement represents a completely new and untapped business opportunity for UGARF and UGA’s new generation of researchers working in this field.”

“We are very proud of Dr. Jia’s work at the University of Puerto Rico and his long-lasting and productive collaboration with UGARF,” said Mariluz Frontera-Fernandez, director of the Office of Intellectual Property, University of Puerto Rico. “This constitutes a distinctive example of how discoveries made during the course of collaborative research at the university are licensed to industry for commercialization.”

New cost-effective method of farming Siberian sturgeon for caviar could protect wild sturgeon, boost economy

2009-08-17

Athens, Ga. – Caviar is one of the world’s most prized delicacies, but overfishing has pushed wild sturgeon to the brink of extinction. A new, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable method for farming sturgeon pioneered by a University of Georgia professor has the potential to protect wild sturgeon populations while creating a lucrative agricultural commodity.

“Historically, farmed caviar has comprised two percent of the world’s market while 98 percent has come from wild sturgeon,” said Doug Peterson, associate professor of fisheries and aquaculture in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. “We’re trying to flip the market so that in 10 years it will be 98 percent farmed and two percent wild. That’ll be good for wild sturgeon populations and for farmers.”

Domestic white sturgeon have been successfully farmed in Northern California for decades, but attempts to farm Russian species in North America have been stifled by high start-up costs and the tendency of farmed caviar to have a muddy or “off” taste. Peterson has created a new method of raising Siberian sturgeon that combines readily available aquaculture technology with a highly efficient filtration system and fresh spring water from the mountains of Northwest Georgia. The result is environmentally sustainable caviar whose taste rivals that of wild-caught.

“It has a very clean beginning and a clean end, and that’s what a lot of people are looking for,” said Michel Emery, director of sales and purchasing for Petrossian, Inc., the world’s leading caviar distributor. “Overall, I was very happy with the first production; it’s a beautiful product.”

The UGA Premium Siberian Sturgeon Caviar will be sold by Inland Seafood of Atlanta in containers that bear the UGA Athletics Association logo beginning this month. All proceeds support sturgeon conservation and aquaculture research at UGA. “This really is a win-win for consumers and for wild sturgeon populations,” said Bill Demmond, chief operating officer at Inland Seafood and a 1973 UGA graduate. “Not only is this an excellent-tasting product, but it’s also sustainably raised on a farm.”

Peterson’s filtration system recaptures and recirculates approximately 90 percent of the water that the sturgeon live in during their seven-year growth phase. To simulate the portion of the sturgeon’s life in which it stops feeding and swims upstream to spawn, the fish are moved into a separate tank supplied with a gentle flow of cold, fresh spring water. Peterson said this “conditioning time” in the pristine spring water eliminates any off tastes and allows the eggs to mature slowly until they’re at their peak of flavor.

He added that the highly controlled environment that the fish are raised in means that farmed caviar can be of better quality than wild-caught. With the aid of a small endoscope, sturgeon farmers can examine the eggs as the fish are developing, harvest the caviar at peak ripeness and then immediately package and ship the product. But since farmed sturgeon lack the natural variability of wild-caught fish, which are harvested at various ages and eat a more diverse diet, Peterson anticipates that there will continue to be a small—and sustainable—market for wild-caught caviar.

This year, Peterson expects to produce about 50 kilograms of caviar with a retail value of approximately $120,000. Next year, he expects to double the inaugural yield for a total of approximately 100 kilograms. His long-term goal, however, is to lay the foundation for a viable Siberian sturgeon farming industry in North America. Already, he’s shown how startup costs for a commercial sturgeon farm can be greatly reduced by using simple construction materials and readily available water treatment technologies. Peterson is currently experimenting with various tank configurations and sturgeon feeds to bring costs down even further. He’s also screening potential investors who are interested in commercializing the venture.

The spring water from UGA’s 65-acre Cohutta Fisheries Center is responsible for the caviar’s nutty and clean taste, but Peterson is developing business models that don’t require farmers to have access to an on-site spring. In a model that mirrors the poultry industry, young sturgeon—known as fingerlings—can be sold to farmers who grow the sturgeon before selling them back to the producer, who conditions them with spring water before harvesting and selling the caviar.

Caviar has been traded for centuries and, despite the current economic downturn, Peterson says that the market for sustainable, high-quality farm-raised caviar will see tremendous growth over the next decade. The main challenge to the industry, Peterson said, has been the precipitous decline of wild sturgeon populations. He explained that longstanding problems such as the construction of dams that block migrations and environmental degradation have been exacerbated by the rampant overfishing that occurred following the abandonment of strict catch limits imposed by the former Soviet Union.

“My whole career has been focused on understanding the biology of these ancient animals—they were swimming the seas when the dinosaurs were roaming the Earth and even today, they remain largely unchanged,” Peterson said. “In just a flicker of geological time, we’ve nearly exterminated them. And one of the most important things we can do to help bring sturgeon back from the brink is to change the foundation of the caviar industry so that it relies on high-quality, sustainably farmed fish. The UGA caviar project has shown that there is no reason why we can’t save the sturgeon while spurring new economic opportunities in Georgia’s agricultural economy.”

Peterson’s research has been supported by the UGA Office of the Vice President for Research, the Georgia BioBusiness Center, and the Georgia Research Alliance.

For more information on UGA Premium Siberian Sturgeon Caviar, contact Inland Seafood at 404/350-5850 or 800/883-3474.

Researchers propose model for understanding chromosome disorders

2009-08-17

Athens, Ga. – Parents of healthy newborns often remark on the miracle of life. The joining of egg and sperm to create such delightful creatures can seem dazzlingly beautiful if the chromosome information from each parent has been translated properly into the embryo and newborn.

The darker side is that when extra copies of chromosomes or fewer than the normal 46 (23 from each parent) are present, tragic birth defects can occur. Now, scientists at the University of Georgia have developed a model system for plants and animals that shows the loss of a key structural protein can lead to the premature separation of one DNA copy called a chromatid.

The new model shows for the first time that the loss of this protein can lead to aneuploidy—the name given to birth disorders caused by extra or too few chromosomes.

Disorders caused by errors in the proper transmission of chromosomes from each parent are uncommon but tragic nonetheless. Best known may be Down Syndrome, which is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. Many errors in chromosome transmission are so severe that miscarriages usually occur.

“As we know, human females have all the eggs they will ever have from the time of birth, and so as they age, the protein structures on chromosomes also age,” said Kelly Dawe, a geneticist and plant biologist at UGA. “If an egg is fertilized late in life, the final stages of chromosome separation may not occur properly. The goal of the work, which was done in maize, is to find out which parts of the chromosomes are most sensitive to failure. We now believe that proteins in a structure called the kinetochore are among the most sensitive to degradation or mutation. That may be a clue as to why older women have more problems with these kinds of chromosomal disorders when giving birth than younger women.”

The research was published today in the journal Nature Cell Biology. Co-author on the paper is former University of Georgia graduate student Xuexian Li.

Irregularities in chromosome number are usually caused during a biological event called meiosis, in which the number of chromosomes per cell is halved and, in animals, results in the formation of gametes or sex cells. While the biology of meiosis has been known for more than a century, major questions remain about how all the constituent cell parts must coordinate to make the process successful.

During the two stages of meiosis, chromosomes are first separated by type, ensuring that only one of each gene is represented and then separated in half again in preparation for fertilization. The authors showed that the first stage is orchestrated in part by the kinetochore that attaches chromosomes to the rest of the cell. When they suppressed a kinetochore protein called MIS12, the chromosomes no longer separated by type and jumped to the second stage before completing the first. These failures closely mimic those seen in eggs from older women.

The cell division processes that Dawe and Li studied have implications for other diseases—such as cancer—as well. And yet a genuine payoff may come in the form of genetically improved lines of corn.

Dawe’s work opens the possibility of a more positive outcome: the ability to engineer so-called “artificial chromosomes” with useful genes into corn varieties. Though that may be years off, it could offer a way to create lines that could resist drought, disease and insect pests without harming the environment.

Researchers are racing to design artificial chromosomes that behave like natural ones. With such an engineered chromosome, the positive traits researchers could give to corn plants would be almost limitless.

“You could really put genes in there at will, stacking traits that would make the plants able to withstand problems that now limit production greatly all over the world,” said Dawe. “But to get from theory to practice, we will need a much clearer understanding of meiosis.”

Unfortunately, most early generation artificial chromosomes have failed at meiosis in a nearly identical manner as plants with reduced MIS12. By manipulating MIS12 or other similar proteins, Dawe hopes to correct these defects.