cadaver dissection Archives - 91��Ƶ News

Royals recyclers top all Virginia schools to become two-time Recylemania champ

Walt Wiltschek — Mon, 09 May 2016 12:59:31 +0000

For the second straight year, 91��Ƶ (91��Ƶ) finished first among Virginia colleges and universities entered in the Competition Division of . 91��Ƶ’s recycling rate of 45.35% also placed it 13th nationally among schools with 2,500 students or fewer and 53rd overall out of 208 participants.

91��Ƶ recycling coordinator says the annual nationwide event provides an opportunity to “engage with the campus and community in more creative and enjoyable ways.”

“Encouraging participation helps us increase awareness about the recycling program,” Freed says, “and it helps remind people of the best recycling practices, as well as serving as a general reminder of the recycling resources available. “

Recycling coordinator David Brennan explains his artwork on the walls of the winning residence hall: “This mural’s arrows delight in their communion, the touching of tips in the center a symbolic gesture toward the eco-prescience of Steven Spielberg’s classic film ‘E.T.,’ a reminder that we might ourselves ‘phone home’ and better tend to the one true home we all share.” (Courtesy photo)

This year’s RecycleMania also featured a competition within the campus, as Freed and crew member David Brennan conducted a weekly “waste audit” of each residence hall over a two-month period to see which one was keeping the most recyclables out of the trash. Brennan, who holds an MFA in creative writing, used a variety of prose and poetry in weekly emails to encourage student investment in the project.

The announcement of the winner, for example, stated that “Cedarwood has been officially named the cream of the giant jug of milk that is 91��Ƶ dorm life” because, of course, it rose to the top. Cedarwood received a creative mural to “liven up the wall” of its recycling room as a prize.

“Ever since I stepped foot on campus, I’ve wanted to do a waste audit,” Freed says. “RecycleMania presented an opportunity to do so and to add a fun competition between dorms at the same time. I wanted a clearer picture of what type and percentage of recyclables, compostables and re-usables were being thrown out in an effort to better evaluate our own effectiveness in capturing items that could be diverted from the landfill.”

Freed says that despite 91��Ƶ’s respectable numbers, he would like to see the campus improve in future years. He and Brennan were especially surprised by the amount of compostable food scraps they found in trash cans.

In all, about 350 schools competed this year in 13 categories of RecycleMania, which began in 2001. Richland College of Dallas, Texas, finished first in the 2016 competitive division with a recycling rate of 81.774 percent. The University of Missouri-Kansas City, New Mexico State University-Main Campus, Loyola Marymount University and Berkshire Community College rounded out the top five.

Matthew Freed, 91��Ƶ recycling coordinator, handles recyclables at the physical plant. (Photo by Andrew Strack)

In Virginia, 91��Ƶ was followed by the College of William and Mary (37.1% recycling rate), James Madison University (35.3%), the University of Virginia main campus (27.2%) and Virginia Tech (19.3%).

RecycleMania says the participating schools recycled or composted a combined 79.3 million pounds of recyclables and organic materials.

“RecycleMania provides us with an opportunity to heighten awareness about the importance of recycling among college students, and help make recycling participation a core component of the college experience,” said Brenda Pulley, senior vice president/recycling for Keep America Beautiful, which manages the competition. “Our hope is that these recycling behaviors stick with them throughout their life, creating a new generation of community stewards.”

Prior to its and 2016 finishes, 91��Ƶ finished twice as state runner-up.

Jeffress Trust grant of $100,000 kickstarts hypertension research with new equipment and student assistants

Steve Shenk — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 20:48:01 +0000

If you are among the one in three Americans who suffer from high blood pressure, you know to stay away from salty foods. On the no-go list from your doctor: processed foods such as lunch meat, canned soups or vegetables, or ready-to-eat meals. Yet scientists don’t know why a salty diet causes problems with hypertension.

, assistant professor of biology at 91��Ƶ, intends to learn more with the help of a $100,000 grant from the . The grant, awarded to full-time faculty members hired within the past seven years at Virginia colleges and universities, supports “one-year pilot studies that encourage the development of innovative interdisciplinary strategies.” Ten projects received funding during the 2014 grant cycle.

Halterman joined the 91��Ƶ faculty in 2012 after earning a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Virginia. She teaches in the undergraduate and in the .

Halterman’s research, which focuses on the effects of a salty diet on organ function at the molecular level, will begin in the spring. She is specifically interested in a protein called NFAT5.

“When salt is applied to cells in a dish, a protein known as NFAT5 is activated to turn on genes that protect cells from damage,” Halterman said. “However, this protein is also known to turn on genes involved in disease.”

Halterman wants to know more about how this effect occurs in living animals rather than cells. She will put rats on different levels of salt diets for six weeks, monitor blood pressure, and measure changes in NFAT5 levels in different organs of the body.

The goal is to “provide insight for future drug development and treatment of hypertension,” she said.

Grant funding will be used to purchase several pieces of high-tech equipment to conduct molecular biology research. The equipment includes a quantitative, real-time PCR (polymerase chain reaction) machine, spectrophotometer, and a special non-invasive device to measure rat blood pressure, all of which will also be used by students in upper-level courses at 91��Ƶ.

Other grant funds are designated to hire student assistants. This summer, senior biology majors Rachel King and Jason Spicher will receive stipends to work alongside Halterman. “In future semesters, both undergraduate biology students and graduate biomedicine students will be recruited to continue the research with the samples generated this summer,” Halterman said.

The research project will take advantage of 91��Ƶ’s newly renovated labs and animal facilities. Suter Science Center, built in 1968, is currently undergoing the final phase of a $7.3-million lab renovation project, with efforts underway to raise an additional $3.3 million for renovations to the western wing of the building.

The renovated building includes state-of-the-art facilities for 91��Ƶ’s three-year-old graduate program in biomedicine. A member of the program’s leadership team, Halterman instructs many of graduate-level courses, including “Human Gross and Microscopic Anatomy,” held in the .

Halterman earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Texas A&M University in 2006 and a master’s in biological and physical sciences from the University of Virginia in 2008.

One of first grads with MA in biomedicine savored whole-person approach, emphasis on faith and ethics

Andrew Jenner — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 19:37:22 +0000

After double-majoring in pharmacology and toxicology as well as biological sciences at the University of Buffalo in New York, Ghassan “Gus” Mohsin began looking for a graduate program that would further prepare him for medical school. Browsing the listings on the Association for American Medical Colleges website, he stumbled across 91��Ƶ’s brand-new that appealed in several ways.

Similar costs of living in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Buffalo, New York? Nice. Major big-city-to-small-town change of pace? Good. Two-year program culminating in a master’s degree? Handy to have that extra credential in case med school doesn’t happen.

Mohsin also liked that the university and program advertised their Christian foundations, even though he himself was a Muslim. (Born in Yemen, Mohsin moved with his family to the United States as a young child.) During his two years studying at 91��Ƶ, he felt encouraged to explore the relationship between his own faith and medicine, and found himself connecting more strongly with his own religious background.

As one of the first eight to undertake the MA in biomedicine program – he completed his final course project in early fall 2014 – Mohsin appreciated the program’s strong focus on treating whole people, not isolated pathologies.

“It’s broadened my horizons. [Medicine] is not just about drugs and hospitals,” says Mohsin.

Regular bioethics seminars that examined controversial medical topics such as euthanasia and abortion from different standpoints were another highlight of Mohsin’s experience.

Mohsin is applying to medical schools in the hope of one day being a pediatric neurologist – an interest he traces to his love of “the mystery of the brain” and his younger sister, who suffered from seizures as a child.

Mohsin hopes to teach at a community college until he is admitted to medical school. He got the chance to practice that skill as a graduate assistant for 91��Ƶ’s unique anatomy and physiology course, in which students – . After taking the course himself, and then helping to teach it twice, Mohsin says he developed a very good grasp of human anatomy that will give him “such an advantage over so many aspiring medical students.”

Mohsin says he feels well prepared to handle the workload and material he’ll encounter in medical school. And in a broader sense, the whole-patient perspective of health emphasized by 91��Ƶ’s program has equipped him to heal people instead of just treating illness – something, he says, that our current healthcare system needs plenty more of.

MA in biomedicine: A good thing in a small package, just right for this Californian from a huge state school

Andrew Jenner — Sun, 20 Jul 2014 19:09:30 +0000

Kristie Nguyen knew that 91��Ƶ would be smaller than the University of California-Los Angeles, where she’d studied as an undergraduate, and figured that life in Harrisonburg, Virginia, would be considerably different from Orange County in Southern California, where she’d grown up.

“[But] I didn’t realize how small it was until I got here,” she said, laughing. “I actually feel like I know all my profs, which is a first.”

Kristie Nguyen (Photo by Michael Sheeler)

Nguyen was a part of the first class to enter 91��Ƶ’s new . She graduated in the summer of 2014, after finishing up an independent study requirement. While she had always planned to become a doctor, Nguyen consciously chose a non-traditional route by majoring in anthropology at UCLA.

The MA in biomedicine program at 91��Ƶ, which Nguyen discovered through an online search, offered her the opportunity to retake some undergraduate-level science classes and lay a good academic foundation for med school, she said. in anatomy class – an opportunity very few aspiring doctors have before their first year in med school – was one of her highlights from the two-year program.

Nguyen, who wants to be a pediatrician, began applying to medical school after finishing her coursework at 91��Ƶ.

She said the prospect of moving across the country from California was both intimidating and exciting. It was also important to her to study at a Christian university, although she’d never heard of Mennonites and did wonder whether Mennonite beliefs – whatever they turned out to be – would be imposed on her.

At the end of her two-year experience at 91��Ƶ, she said the worry was unfounded: “It’s welcoming and it’s very open.”

Spending a few years in a small Virginia city provided a little extra enrichment. During her time at 91��Ƶ, Nguyen notched her first visit to a pumpkin patch, stretched herself by living far away from friends and family – allowing her to focus on studying – and expanded her horizons simply by experiencing life in another part of the country.

Before she chose 91��Ƶ, Nguyen had been accepted to four MA programs. She chose the newest one (91��Ƶ’s), which meant she benefited from the attention given to the first set of students, but also experienced those organizational bumps typical of a newly opened program. But looking back, she says she would definitely pick 91��Ƶ again.

91��Ƶ’s Cadaver Dissection Gives Pre-Med Students Big Advantage

Andrew Jenner — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 20:56:52 +0000

After some preliminary classroom lectures and PowerPoints, it was time for Jason Hostetter ’07 and a handful of other upper-level 91��Ƶ biology students to get down to business in a laboratory in the bottom floor of the science center.

Studying human anatomy with colorful charts is one thing. Using a scalpel and an actual, recently living person is an entirely different matter.

“It was nerve-wracking, honestly,” said Hostetter, now a general medicine intern at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., who plans to become a radiologist. “You don’t really understand what that means until you walk into that room and you smell the formaldehyde and you see this human-sized lump in a bag on the table.”

Under the instruction of Dr. Greta Ann Herin, Hostetter and his classmates in 91��Ƶ’s Mammalian Anatomy class made their first incision down the cadaver’s back and began working their way down through the muscles and into the spine. By semester’s end they had performed a detailed dissection of most of the body, giving each student an extremely uncommon opportunity for up-close, hands-on study of human anatomy.

Few U.S. Undergrads Do Human Dissection

Herin, an associate professor of biology, said that for various reasons, including class size, expense, tradition and handling of hazardous materials, very few undergraduate students in the United States have the opportunity to dissect human cadavers. That meant Hostetter was one of just a few first-year medical students who entered his University of Maryland School of Medicine class with prior experience dissecting a cadaver.

“A lot of my classmates were coming from very prestigious schools with far more resources that 91��Ƶ has, and they were surprised that I’d actually gotten to spend a whole semester dissecting a cadaver,” Hostetter said. “It’s just not something that’s available most places.”

Faculty at several medical schools in Virginia said no more than 5 to 10 percent of incoming medical students have actually dissected a cadaver.

And a recent article published by Colorado State University noted that its own undergraduate anatomy course was one of the few in the nation in which students dissect cadavers. 91��Ƶ has offered its students the opportunity to dissect cadavers since at least the mid-‘70s, according to biology professor Dr. Roman Miller.

Dr. Greta Ann Herin leads Mammalian Anatomy class. By semester’s end students have performed a detailed dissection of most of the body, giving each student an extremely uncommon opportunity for up-close, hands-on study of human anatomy. Photo by Travis Duerksen

Put Ahead in Med School

Because dissection of human cadavers is so uncommon for an undergraduate pre-medical program, the opportunity gives 91��Ƶ students who go on to graduate study in medicine and related fields an advantage among their classmates.

“At 91��Ƶ we had as good, if not better, hands-on experience than in grad school,” said Jackson Maust ’09, now in his final year of physical therapy school at Ohio State University. “Compared to the rest of my classmates in PT school, I was really, really comfortable just stepping in.”

Debbie Boese ’07 Horst said her gross anatomy class in dental school at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was very similar to the course she’d taken at 91��Ƶ and made it easier for her to earn an A in the VCU class.

“I was one of the few people in my class who had actually gone through the whole process, so it was basically like a review,” said Horst, now a practicing dentist in Harrisonburg, Va.

Dr. Richard Krieg, director of the first-year gross and developmental anatomy course at VCU’s School of Medicine, said that undergraduate experience with dissection, like Horst’s, almost always bodes well for a student’s performance in the course.

Krieg, who once visited 91��Ƶ as an anatomy guest instructor at the invitation of professor Melvin Ching (at 91��Ƶ 1996-97), said only a few of his program’s 200 incoming first-year medical students have dissected cadavers as undergrads.

“Kids do very well if they’ve had experience with cadavers, so it’s a really good thing,” Krieg said.

Staff at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine estimate that less than 10 percent of each year’s 156-student incoming medical class have prior human dissection experience.

And at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, Dr. Craig Goodmurphy, director of the human anatomy program, guessed that about 20 percent of the 235 students entering the school’s medical and physician’s assistant programs have worked with cadavers. Most of them however, have been limited to cadaver “prosection” – either observing a dissection in process or studying an already-dissected cadaver.

Fewer than 5 percent of incoming students have actually participated in a dissection, he said.

“It’s the difference between reading a book and writing a book,” Goodmurphy said. “Anybody can read a book, but to actually write a book takes a whole different thought process.”

Two or Three Cadavers Per Year

Herin offers the anatomy course to undergraduate biology majors in the fall, sometimes with the help of her laboratory co-instructor, John Spicher, 91��Ƶ’s chemical hygiene officer. In the undergraduate course, students work in groups of four or five per cadaver. That group size is smaller, Herin said, than in classes at some medical schools.

She and Spicher typically work with two to three cadavers each year in the anatomy class, required for biology majors in the pre-physical therapy track, and taken by many in the pre-professional health sciences track. (Beginning this spring, 91��Ƶ’s new MA in Biomedicine program will also offer a cadaver dissection course, taught by Dr. Julia Halterman.)

Most 91��Ƶ nursing and kinesiology students also benefit from Herrin’s course by observing the dissected specimens for part of their anatomy study. She said that several local high school anatomy classes also usually visit her lab to see the cadavers each year.

91��Ƶ receives the cadavers from the Virginia Department of Health’s State Anatomical Program. They cost about $1,500 each to cover the state’s cost of preserving and transporting the cadavers. That expense, and the fact that dissection is not well-suited to large classes, are two factors that make actual dissection very uncommon at the undergraduate level. The hazardous chemicals involved – phenol and formaldehyde in particular – are also a factor.

Maust said he benefitted greatly at Ohio State both from his experience with cadavers at 91��Ƶ and the instruction he received from Herin and her colleagues in the biology department.

“The quality of our professors is really unlike anything you get at a larger school,” said Maust. “We don’t get teaching assistants. We learn from really high-quality faculty.”

Calling his dissection experience as an undergraduate at 91��Ƶ “invaluable,” Hostetter said he hopes the course will continue, despite – and because of – the fact that it’s so uncommon.

“I really hope that 91��Ƶ continues to offer that because I think that it’s invaluable, especially for people who want to go into medicine or other health sciences,” he said.

More info

Learn more online about 91��Ƶ’s undergraduate majors in biology, chemistry, nursing and pre-professional health sciences, and the new MA in biomedicine graduate degree.

cadaver dissection Archives - 91����Ƶ News