Biological Sciences Researcher Seeks Heart Answers With Burmese Pythons

Python snakes feed only two or three times a year.  When they feed their heart enlarges rapidly.  The mechanism for this heart response could hold clues to human cardiac hypertrophy.

Secor and Dr. Leslie Leinwand, professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at The University of Colorado, have teamed together to study the mechanisms by which the python heart can grow so rapidly after feeding.

Combining expertise, Secor’s on python physiology and Leinwald’s on cardiac hypertrophy, they hope to discover how the python heart can rapidly increase in size.  “This is the first step to eventually better understanding the means by which human hearts grow in response to cardiovascular disease.”
Burmese pythons are large, non-venomous constricting snakes native to Southeast Asia.

“We have found these snakes to literally shut down their digestive tracts during fasting, and then rapidly turn them back on again with feeding,” Secor said.  “Given the very dramatic changes that occur in the digestive tract of pythons each time they eat, it is much easier to study their digestive system rather than those of mammals that experience only subtle changes in digestive function with fasting and feeding.”

The work in Secor’s lab researches the metabolic and physiological responses associated with long periods of fasting and with subsequent python re-feeding.

Fulbright Scholars-in-residence in American Studies and Anthropology

The Department of American Studies is hosting Fulbright scholar Dr. Gulnara Zakirova.  She is vice rector in the Department of International Relations at the Ablai Khan Kazakh University of International Relations and World Languages in Almaty, Kazakhstan.Zakirova is one of six Fulbright Scholars presently associated in the United States with American Studies departments or programs.  She is conducting research on educational and scientific approaches to American studies and plans to establish an American Studies program at her institution in Kazakhstan.

The Department of Anthropology is hosting Dr. M.V. Krishnayya,  professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies in Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, India. His primary research interests include history of religions, existentialism, comparative approaches to religion and culture, and peace and non-violence in Indian traditions. 

Krishnayya recently gave a presentation in Tuscaloosa on Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.’s backgrounds and the ways in which they used religion and culture for the promotion of nonviolence last month.  He presented the lecture as part of the MLK Distinguished Lecture Series.

Krishnayya is the recipient of the Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishna Prize in Philosophy and the Gopalakrishnayya Prize in Philosophy, among other awards and honors.  He is a joint Fulbright scholar-in-residence at Shelton State Community College and UA.

Smithsonian Looks at Rural South Through the Work of William Christenberry

Drawing upon his formal training, family traditions and a lasting relationship with his native home in Hale County, Ala., William Christenberry has spent the last 50 years creating a body of work that is an exploration of all aspects of life and experience. Although Christenberry left Alabama in 1961, he has always related much of his work to his experiences growing up in the South.  Now that work is featured in a major, 60 piece exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

“Though his work is inspired by the American South, Christenberry’s overall themes are universal touching on family, culture, nature and the spiritual,” said Elizabeth Brown, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the museum. “His artworks are poetic assessments of a sense of place, landscape, aging, memory, and the passing of time.”

“Alabama Wall I,” a metal construction, includes bits of collected tin signage patched together to echo his mother’s quilting while “Sprott Church,” reflects the handcrafted objects and vernacular architecture of rural Alabama.

Christenberry lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife Sandra and teaches at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. He  selected the works for the Smithsonian exhibit including  some of which will be seen for the first time.  The exhibition complements an  adjoining installation of folk art, also selected by Christenberry, from the museum's permanent collection.  By July 8, the exhibition will have been on display for a year. 

Christenberry received both a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Arts degree in art  from The University of Alabama in 1958 and 1959, respectively.  He also received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from UA in 1998.

Quality of Life for Caregivers Can Be Improved

Research results which were published in a recent issue of Annals of Internal Medicine indicate that intervention strategies can significantly lighten the load and improve the quality of life for the caregiver of patients with Alzheimer’s.

“Caring for a loved one with dementia presents a number of challenges that can seriously compromise the caregiver’s quality of life,” said Burgio. “For the millions of Americans who care for a loved one at home, an intervention that can improve their quality of life and lessen the burden of caregiving can make meaningful differences in their ability to better care both for themselves and their loved ones,” he said.

The findings are significant, according to Burgio and his fellow researchers, because the stressful caregiving experience can contribute to the development of psychiatric and physical illnesses and increased risk for death among the caregivers.

The study focused on an ethnically diverse and evenly represented population in six cities across the nation.  The researchers found that, overall, the intervention was effective across racial and ethnic groups, with the most significant improvements among Hispanic and white caregivers. In African-Americans, the intervention was effective among spouse-caregivers, but relatively ineffective among caregivers who were caring for a relative other than their husband or wife.

The intervention strategies including role playing, problem solving, skills training, stress management and telephone support groups to address five areas in which caregivers commonly experience problems and that are central to caregiver quality of life: depression; caregiver burden and stress; attention to personal health needs; social support; and problem behaviors exhibited by the care recipient, such as aggressive outbursts or feelings of hopelessness.

“Medicine doesn’t work in the same way across all races and ethnicities, or even from person-to-person,” said Burgio.  “Health professionals need to identify caregivers whose quality of life has been compromised and help them to get the help they need, for their sake and the sake of their loved ones.”

STAR Graduate Fellow Is College’s First Student To Receive Honor

Daniel McGarvey, a doctoral student in the Department of Biological Sciences, was one of only 40 students chosen nationwide for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science to Achieve Results, or STAR, fellowships.  Only four STAR fellowships have been awarded to students from the state of Alabama since the program’s inception in 1995.

The fellowship awarded an annual stipend of $22,000, plus tuition, plus $5,000 for operational supplies and travel for McGarvey’s research. He is studying within UA’s National Science Foundation-funded Freshwater Sciences Interdisciplinary doctoral pogram and is in the second year of his three-year award.

In his research, McGarvey analyzes fish diversity and distribution in three parts of the country-the Southeast, the Southwest and the Northwest- with an emphasis on river management and restoration. The amount of diversity Alabama’s rivers can support almost appears limitless, in comparison to that supported in river basins in others parts of the country, he says.

“His findings will definitely have implications in terms of river management and restoration,” said Dr. Amy Ward, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences who founded and directs UA’s Center for Freshwater Studies and heads the Freshwater Sciences Interdisciplinary program.

Mother and sister of Amy Lynn Petersen Establish Support Fund

The Amy Lynn Petersen Memorial Endowed Support Fund for Books in the College of Arts and Sciences has been established with the agreement and assistance of Petersen’s mother and sister.  It honors Amy Lynn Petersen who died October 26, 2003, while a student at The University of Alabama. 

The fund will supply books for undergraduate students in financial need majoring in the Department of Religious Studies.  It will also provide textbook funding for each student participating in the Department of Religious Studies’ Capstone senior seminar.

Petersen began her college career at UA in 1998 but later took a break until she was ready to return in 2002.  She was accepted into New College with a depth study focus on religious studies and was especially interested in topics regarding Eastern religions and women in religion.  She studied under Dr. Russ McCutcheon of the Department of Religious Studies. Her mother Josephine Peterson recalls Amy praising McCutcheon because, she said, “He made me think.”

 “Amy’s future goal was to help make a difference in other people’s lives.  She was a very peaceful and non-judgmental person.  She would make a friend at age three and keep them for life,” said Josephine Petersen. Her friends remember her as an incredible spirit and a source of positive energy.

Petersen was born in Kansas City, Missouri on December 27, 1978, and grew up in Huntsville.  Petersen was buried in Gates, Nebraska at the foot of her great-grandmother’s grave.

Please send comments and news suggestions to:

Rebecca Florence
Director of College Relations
College of Arts and Sciences
The University of Alabama
(205) 348-8663

rflorenc@as.ua.edu