Undergraduate Research

On the Track of the Next Antibiotic

Last year, Florida Southern’s Department of Biology was one of a select number of schools invited to participate in Yale University’s Small World Initiative, a program that endeavors to discover new antibiotics needed to combat the growing problem of infections resistant to long-used antibiotics. FSC biology students cultivated bacteria from soil samples and noted which ones showed potential for producing compounds that would kill other bacteria.

A conversation between FSC Assistant Professor of Biology Brittany Gasper, who was overseeing the Small World research, and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Deborah Bromfield Lee prompted Dr. Lee to take the research to the next level. Why not try to isolate and identify the compounds that have antibacterial properties?

Dr. Lee is a specialist in organic chemistry, the branch that works on complex carbon-based compounds found in life forms, and she recruited students Lauren Harris and Suzanne Wilson to assist her in the research project. The task has not been simple or easy. The different compounds, known as metabolites, produced by the bacteria, first had to be purified.

“Purification takes a lot of effort and thought. Identification takes even more,” said Dr. Lee. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle where the picture is fuzzy.”

Wilson, a junior biochemistry and molecular biology major, worked on the project last summer. She spent most of that time just figuring out what purification protocols to use. Finally the procedure produced small samples of pink-colored liquid suspension that still showed antibacterial activity. But what was it?

Wilson and Lee have faced several problems trying to identify the compound. First, the gas chromatograph used to analyze the liquid requires a minimum amount of the sample, and the purification procedures sometimes did not yield enough.

“We have to try different methods and instruments and figure it out as we go along,” Dr. Lee said.

Another problem is that the samples decompose, especially if exposed to light, as Wilson discovered to her chagrin. “The compound is generally pink, but it turns red or orange after exposure. I left some samples out in the lab one day and the next they were all orange,” she said.

Wilson and Dr. Lee have not yet been able to identify the chemical structure of the compound. The project is still ongoing, but Dr. Lee thinks that the compound belongs to a class of metabolites known as prodigiosins, which have been used in antifungal, immunosuppressant, and antibacterial agents.

“It’s a very wide range of compounds. Our samples show the same response to ultraviolet light but with a different pattern,” she said.

For Wilson, it’s an opportunity to conduct research in her field of choice.

“I really wanted to do something related to biochemistry, and this has been a challenging project,” she said.

Using Social Media in Marketing

Small businesses traditionally have been at a disadvantage in marketing their products or services, lacking the money and personnel to mount massive ad campaigns like big corporations. Social media has been a powerful equalizer, with its do-it-yourself capacity to inexpensively produce marketing campaigns that can target large numbers of potential customers or clients.

Students of Assistant Professor of Marketing Jennifer Dapko wondered how effectively small businesses are taking advantage of social media as a marketing tool. With Dr. Dapko’s guidance, they applied for and received a grant from the Faculty Professional Interest Committee at FSC to conduct a summer research project.

Four undergraduate students—Sarah Kahn, Matthew Lalli, Breanna Wilson, and Sam Parsons—plus MBA student Nicholas Palmerton carried out two studies and a portion of a third. In a sign of how the digital world has made long-distance collaboration possible, Lalli conducted his portion of the research from his home out of state and communicated with the rest of the team via Skype.

“The project focused on best practices on Facebook,” Dapko explained. “We looked into what businesses should do on Facebook to increase their engagement with their customers. The students had to design the study, administer the surveys, and analyze the data.”

The students examined literature from academics and practitioners to identify best Facebook marketing practices, then investigated consumers’ expectations about the information they want to see on a business’s Facebook page as a measure of attracting new customers and retaining existing ones.

The students documented more than 1,000 practices businesses should or should not do and categorized them. The study showed that businesses make best use of Facebook as a marketing tool when they post photos, ask customers questions, and include a variety of content, links, and sales incentives to keep them interested.

Breanna Wilson, who used a research tool in the Roux Library to help track down existing literature, said she learned that research is not just an academic exercise.

“A lot of people are interested in the results of research projects like these. Many people in the course of the study asked what kind of patterns we uncovered and what kind of impact this could have on how they were using social media,” she said. “The impact of the findings are more far-reaching that just what we learned here at FSC.”

Finding Lessons from Salt and Oranges

The lessons of history are often gleaned from times of crisis, and that was the case for two students of Assistant Professor of History Erika Vause. Analyzing commodities in two very different places—salt in Northwest England and citrus in Central Florida—yielded insights about the nature of capitalism and human behavior.

Dr. Vause teaches a course on capitalism and commodities in world history, and she requires her students to pursue independent research on a related topic.

Junior history major Michael Davidson’s interest was peaked by problems in the salt mining region of Cheshire County, England, in the late 1800s. Over-mining of salt caused cave-ins, resulting in destruction of homes and businesses. An act of Parliament compensated the miners.

“That fueled the salt union, and its power grew. What started as a family-owned business became a monopoly,” Davidson said.

Davidson had to find archive websites containing primary documents of the time and books that explained the effects of Parliament’s act.

“Being able to turn the research into a valid argument and a paper increased my research and writing skills,” said Davidson, who is planning to attend graduate school at George Washington University.

Junior history major Michael Leake found a topic closer to home—the freeze of 1895 that had a disastrous effect on the burgeoning Florida citrus industry.

“Something that so many people relied on was wiped out. I found it fascinating because it represented such a dramatic reversal of fortune,” he said.

Leake primarily used newspaper accounts of the freeze and found secondary sources of the number of oranges picked and sold. He concluded that natural disasters aren’t the end of aspirations.

“In the agriculture industry, even if the worst happens, if there is a spark of hope, people will try to rekindle the fire,” said Leake, who is considering attending law school.

The papers Davidson and Leake wrote on their respective topics were accepted for presentation at the Richard Robinson Business History Conference at Portland (Ore.) State College in April.

“It’s important for undergraduates to have these opportunities to present their research. They had strong arguments and use of primary sources, but they also explored the intersection between business and the environment,” Dr. Vause said. “This demonstrates the humanities have real-world implications.”