Author: iharrell

Students Win Awards at Microbiology Conference

In March 2021, Halmos College of Arts and Sciences biology faculty member Julie Torruellas Garcia, Ph.D. co-organized the 2021 Florida and Southeastern Branches of the American Society for Microbiology Joint Virtual Meeting. This meeting was well attended by microbiology researchers from across the southeastern region of the United States.  Garcia and fellow biology faculty member Robert Smith, Ph.D. attended the virtual conference to support their research students who gave presentations.

Garcia mentored Chloe Barreto-Massad, a ninth grade student at the American Heritage School, in her research project entitled, “Using antiSMASH to Compare Antimicrobial Genes of Commensal E. coli (Normal Flora) to Pathogenic E. coli” who was awarded second place for Outstanding Undergraduate Oral Presentation. Garcia also mentored NSU undergraduate biology major, Sukriti Prashar, who was awarded third place for Outstanding Undergraduate Oral Presentation for her presentation entitled, “Characterizing the mechanism of inhibition displayed by imidocarb dipropionate on Yersinia pestis.”

Smith mentored graduate students Laura Garcia-Dieguez who gave an oral presentation entitled, “Periodic spatial disturbance of biofilms modulates expression of quorum sensing virulence genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa” and Ivana Barraza who gave an oral presentation entitled, “Increasing the frequency of periodic spatial disturbance decreases surface attachment protein expression in Staphylococcus aureus.” Smith also mentored undergraduate students Camryn Pajon, Taniya Mariah and Brandon Toscan in their research poster presentation entitled, “Periodically disturbing the spatial structure of a microbial community composed of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus affects its composition” and undergraduate students Estefania Marin Meneses and Gabriela Diaz Tang who won second place for their poster presentation entitled, “Growth efficiency as a determinant of the inoculum effect.”

This year’s meeting included a Microbiology Art Contest with the theme “Microbes Shape our World”.  NSU graduate student in the Masters in Biological Sciences program, Laura Garcia-Dieguez, won First Runner Up for her artwork entitled, “Our World.”

Faculty Members Hold Discussion on Healthcare Management

Ben Mulvey, Ph.D.

Mark Jaffe, M.D.

With the COVID-19 pandemic showcasing disparities in our health care delivery system, a timely discussion titled “Who Should Manage Healthcare? A Conversation with
a Philosopher, a Clinician, and You” was presented on May 5, 2021 via Zoom to the members of the Lifelong Learning Institute by two Halmos College of Arts and Sciences Faculty.

Ben Mulvey, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Humanities and Politics who has been a member of the NSU faculty since 1988, and Mark Jaffe, M.D. associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who has been a member of the NSU faculty since 2004, presented their respective viewpoints and members of the audience weighed in with their own perspectives as the pair tackled the cost, quality and access of health care in the U.S. today.

NSU’s Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) was founded in 1977 and serves lifelong learning passions of retired adults. The LLI, a center within the College of Osteopathic Medicine, is located on NSU’s Fort Lauderdale East Campus. older-adult learning.

NSU College of Dental Medicine Partners with Care Resource

Under the leadership of the new Assistant Dean of Community Programs and Public Health, Mark Schweizer, DDS MPH, the College of Dental Medicine is joining forces with Care Resource. Senior student dentists will provide oral health care to underserved populations in Broward County through the collaboration.

In addition to providing dental care, students will experience in an interprofessional health care environment, including working alongside case managers and physicians providing care to their patients.

Care Resource is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization and a Federally Qualified Health Center with four locations: Midtown Miami, Little Havana, Miami Beach, and Fort Lauderdale. It provides comprehensive health and support services to address the full health care needs of pediatric, adolescent, and adult populations.

Care Resource’s mission is to spread their mission through education, prevention, research, care and treatment, and support services. It serves more 125,000 clients yearly.

NSF Grant Funds Dental Research Project

Project CHOMPER principal investigators Cecil Lewis (top left) and Tanvi Honap (top right), with co-investigators (below from left) Cara Monroe, Marc Levine, Anne Stone, Brenda Baker, Andrew Ozga, and Keith Prufer.

Andrew Ozga, Ph.D., a Halmos College of Arts and Sciences faculty member, and project leading University of Oklahoma researchers Drs. Cecil Lewis and Tanvi Honap were awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant or their project “CHOMPER: Calculus and Hominid Oral Metagenomes for Pathogen Evolution Research.”

Oral diseases, such as dental caries and periodontitis, affect nearly 3.5 billion people worldwide, and are often referred to as the “silent epidemic.” These diseases are caused by bacteria found in the normal oral cavity and can cause disease in an opportunistic manner. The core aims of the CHOMPER project are to study how the genomes of these oral disease-causing bacteria differ depending on host species, geographic location, and dietary lifestyle, as well as how these genomes have evolved over time.

The CHOMPER team has collected dental calculus (calcified dental plaque) samples from nonhuman primates, such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, housed in museums in the U.S., and from archaeological human remains from archaeological sites in the Americas and Africa. These ancient human populations span a period of nearly 10,000 years and encompass the transition of humans from a forager to agricultural lifestyle. Using cutting-edge ancient DNA techniques, the team will reconstruct the genomes of oral pathogens from the dental calculus samples to answer questions regarding strain diversity, biogeography, genome structure, and the presence of genes associated with virulence and antibiotic resistance.

The CHOMPER team also includes researchers Drs. Cara Monroe and Marc Levine (University of Oklahoma), Drs. Anne Stone and Brenda Baker (Arizona State University), and Keith Prufer, Ph.D., (University of New Mexico). The CHOMPER project aims to encourage positive oral health outcomes through public presentations focused on the impact of oral disease and the role of the microbiome in oral health.

NSU Student-Athletes Continue Academic Record Streak

 

The past year of adversity and new challenges in society and competition has done little to slow down the Sharks in the classroom. In fact, Nova Southeastern University’s student-athletes have taken those challenges in the complete opposite direction, again setting semester program bests to round out the fourth consecutive year with an annual departmental Grade Point Average record. For the 2021 Winter semester, NSU’s Sharks earned a 3.44 department-wide GPA for the best semester on record, combining with the 3.41 GPA from the Fall to deliver a new program-record 3.42 GPA for the 2020-21 academic year.

Driving the best semester to date for the NSU program, an impressive 80 percent of all student-athletes individually exceeded a 3.00 GPA for the Winter semester, led by 199 Sharks who were above a 3.25 to be named Scholar Student-Athletes. Of that group of academic standouts, 84 were named to the Director’s List with a GPA over 3.80 and 32 produced a perfect 4.0 on the semester. In addition, 91 student-athletes earned their NSU degree this academic year.

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Free First Thursday Sunny Days at the Art Museum, June 3

You can now enjoy FREE admission to NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale on the first Thursday of every month from 11 AM to 5 PM during Free First Thursday Sunny Days, beginning June 3.

Exhibitions now on view: The World of Anna Sui; Eric N. Mack: Lemme Walk Across the Room; Iké Udé: Select Portraits; I Paint My Reality: Surrealism in Latin America; Transitions and Transformations; and William J. Glackens from Pencil to Paint.

To view NSU Art Museum’s new health and safety guidelines click here.

Sunny Days is presented by AutoNation.

Air Show Camera Crew May Have Damaged Sea Oat Sanctuary

Air show camera crew

Sea oats

Two years ago, Fort Lauderdale used a $5,000 dune grant from Broward County to plant 6,500 sea oats along a five-block section of State Road A1A in front of Hugh Taylor Birch State Park. The weekend of May 8-9, this protected area was trampled by several TV cameramen and reporters covering the Fort Lauderdale Air Show.

Halmos College of Arts and Sciences environmental faculty member J. Matthew Hoch, Ph.D. was interviewed by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel about the potential damage to the sea oats.

“Even if the stems are not damaged, you can still damage the root network,” he said. “I think a lot of people do ignorantly walk on them and think they are not going to do any harm. Maybe the [camera crews] thought that getting a shot from a certain angle outweighed protecting the sea oats.”

An onlooker took pictures all day on Saturday of camera crews standing on the roped-off sand dunes potentially damaging the protected plants. Sea oats are protected under regulations of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). Their seeds cannot be collected without a permit and the plants cannot be cut back or removed. It was unknown if the air show incident damaged the sea oats. If it did, the damage might not be visible.

A Fort Lauderdale official said the city plans to send an expert out to check on whether the sea oats were damaged. Hoch stated that, “New sea oats can be planted but it takes them about two years to get back to where they can do what they need to do with shoreline protection.”

Alumna Thanks NSU for Helping Her Find the Right Career Path

Safiyah Muhammad

This May, Safiyah Muhammad graduated with her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Graduating from NSU’s Halmos Colleges of Arts and Sciences in 2016 with a chemistry major, Muhammad’s Ph.D. thesis was entitled, “Cobalt Catalyst for Parahydrogen Induced Hyperpolarization of Olefins.” She has accepted a job at Dow.

Safiyah says her time here at NSU was foundational.

“I am truly grateful that I had the opportunity to attend Nova Southeastern University; the Trustee Scholarship that I received allowed me to complete my coursework without any financial stress. It was during my time at NSU that I attended my first chemistry course and fell in love with it. The structure of the classes at NSU really allowed me to fully immerse myself in the material I was studying and to get to know the faculty,” she said. “Without the amazing mentoring of the faculty members, I never would have switched my major from marine biology to chemistry, nor would I have known about the opportunities that are available to chemists after completion of their degree. I owe a great deal of my success to my time at NSU and will forever be proud to call NSU my Alma Mater. Fins up!”

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