Gustavus Adolphus College

Adjunct Instructor Download curriculum vitæ
Biology

B.S. University of Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K.; PhD, CASE Bath University, U.K.

My fundamental training in basic biology using insect model systems during my academic fellowships (enzyme and binding kinetics, computational biology, biophysics) enabled me to apply this knowledge in cancer therapy and anti-HIV drug development programs. My statistical understanding of noise in data proved to be useful in cancer patient survival outcome analysis; assisting the drug development teams in IND preparations for a promising anti-HIV compound (Stampidine); Internal Review Board evaluations of toxicity and efficacy, studies; and in the research realm I tackled the statistical issues that arose from measuring thousands of variables from high-throughput technologies using relatively small sample sizes.

At Gustavus, I want to pursue a more holistic vision for therapeutics that will integrate the power of genomics into whole body experiences. Both my neurochemistry and clinical biomedical backgrounds have provided me with tools to incorporate a systems approach to both theory and practice of my research. Under this more collaborative and team oriented scientific investigations, I want to gain a deeper understanding of gene switches and how they operate to better describe a whole range of complimentary approaches to human therapeutics. I am open to collaborate with anyone from the arts and humanities in my research.

This past January I taught a course titled, Shakespeare on my mind. I developed a research driven course whereby students from both arts and sciences backgrounds were guided to generate hypotheses to study emotional states and responses in the brain using Shakespearean works. Through the study of Shakespeare's plays, they gained understanding of how emotional themes develop and how people may react to a play. The students read, acted, watched video and live performances, and critically analyzed the works using the hypotheses and techniques they generated as a group in the first week of class. I enjoyed the interdisciplinary approach and multi-discipline constituency, and the student reaction was very positive. The students reported that they loved both the independence and the ability to explore their own questions in diverse modes. Students ranging from Music, English, Psychology, Biology and Communication departments all learned how to state and test a hypothesis. Emotional reactions; both from observing facial expressions and writing down feelings, were recorded for subconscious and conscious processing while the students performed poetry readings, dance, watching music videos and acting scenes from Shakespeare's Richard III. I introduced some sophisticated statistical techniques adapted from information theory to analyze emotional content in the play.

I have a research collaboration with a Biology/Philosophy senior, Jason Pitt, who will look into the ethics of the use of Genetic Information in the new generation of therapeutics utilizing the human gene sequence.

I am setting up a Clinical Bioinformatic research program here at Gustavus with some of my collaborations from outside Gustavus.

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