Karen L. Hinkle, Ph.D.

Yes, that’s a “shout out” to the 2012 Olympic Games which will be held this summer in London.  But really, it’s in celebration of the beginning of an exciting summer of research with Norwich University students Zac Fulton and Liz Chapdelaine!  Zac, a Norwich rising junior who is also a member of the men’s ice hockey team, won a highly competitive NIH-INBRE-funded Vermont Genetics Network Fellowship for work titled ”Functional investigation of novel SFK phosphotyrosines in src-1 mutant worms”.  Zac will be working for most of the summer in the laboratory of Dr. Bryan Ballif, Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Vermont, in whose lab I recently completed a year-long sabbatical.  Zac will become the “resident expert” in functional studies in worms, and will help me transition this model system back to Norwich University where we can continue these experiments. 

Liz Chapdelaine, also a rising junior Biology major and herself a standout on the women’s lacrosse team, won a prestigious Weintz Fellowship to support her work in my laboratory this summer.  Liz’s project, titled “Functional investigation of novel phosphotyrosine residues in the Src family kinase Fyn”, also represents work stemming from my sabbatical studies in Dr. Ballif’s lab this year.  Liz will be primarily working in human cell culture for her studies, in which she will be conducting sophisticated biochemical experiments to study Fyn, an enzyme that has implications in development and cancer.  Liz will also be traveling up to UVM this summer to learn valuable techniques and to help me establish this new project at Norwich University where we all will continue this work.

Speaking of the Olympics, rumor has it that up at UVM there will be a “Ballif Olympics”, to which I’m hoping to bring my star athletes Zac and Liz to crush the competition.  (I of course will be on hand to bring orange slices.)  Here’s to a wonderful, productive summer of research!  And to my colleagues who happen to pass by the VGN lab at Norwich this summer and hear us grooving to really good hip-hop while we’re performing our experiments, come on in and groove with us!

I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to be spending my 2011-2012 Independent Study Leave (a.k.a. sabbatical) in the laboratory of Dr. Bryan Ballif in the Department of Biology at the University of Vermont!  I am spending the year in Dr. Ballif’s lab studying post-translational modification of the Src family kinase, Fyn, an enzyme important in a host of biological processes including neuronal migration.  Using large-scale proteomic approaches, Dr. Ballif previously identified novel phosphorylation sites on this protein that may play a functional role in the development of the nervous system.  I’m having a blast learning new techniques (immunoprecipitation, Western blotting, site directed mutagenesis) and working with extremely talented faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates on this project.     

While I miss my daily interactions with students and colleagues at Norwich University, I am completely stoked about this work in Dr. Ballif’s lab!  I look forward to continuing my collaboration with Dr. Ballif’s lab when I’m back at Norwich next year as well as in the future.  And despite the fact that on most days I can be found up at UVM in the lab, my family and I still religiously attend the NU hockey games.   Go Wick!

I’m fortunate to be working with four awesome students this summer:  3 Norwich undergraduates (Blake Forkey, Sarianne Lynn, and Patrick McGrath), and 1 Montpelier High School Student (Carl Vitzthum).  The students are CRANKING in their projects and generating a lot of exciting data!  One of the most exciting developments is the new addition of Xenopus laevis (African clawed frog) cell culture in our lab.  Sarianne Lynn is now “The Master” of cell culture in our lab; after acquiring this cell line from the lab of Dr. Jacques Robert at the University of Rochester, she set up this cell culture system at Norwich and is using the cells to analyze the effects of the lampricide in these amphibian cells.  Carl Vitzthum is assisting Sari in her Xenopus experiments and will be taking over her project when she leaves the lab at the end of June.  Meanwhile, Blake Forkey is analyzing gene expression alterations in yeast that have been exposed to lampricide, while Patrick McGrath is analyzing lampricide-induced reactive oxygen species production, also in yeast. 

I’m so proud of the work that these students are performing in my lab!  They are all so motivated and committed to their projects, and it is so great for me to watch the development of these young scientists!

Today was the start of an exciting summer of research in my laboratory.  I have three students working with me:  Patrick McGrath (Junior Bio major), Sarianne Lynn (Senior Bio major) and Blake Forkey (Junior Bio major).  Each of them won competitive Norwich University Student Research Fellowships, and they started their work today.  Patrick is investigating reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in lampricide-treated yeast.  Sari is analyzing gene expression changes in Xenopus (African clawed frog) cells exposed to lampricide.  And last but not least, Blake is studying DNA repair mechanisms in lampricide-treated yeast.  We have our work cut out for us, but as of this afternoon, the lab is clean, organized, and open for business!

I’m thrilled to have received the news that I was awarded Independent Study Leave (sabbatical) for Fall 2011!  Although I’ll miss the students while I’m gone, I’m so excited to have the chance to commit uninterrupted time to my research questions.  One of the things that is challenging for us profs at small institutions is not having enough time to sit down and THINK about our research.  We scramble to find time during the academic year to write grant proposals, and then during the summer we rush to generate as much data as we can before all the craziness starts again in the fall.  However, there is little time to fully dive into the literature, to examine new avenues to explore, or to think deeply about new questions and hypotheses to test in the lab.  So, I’m excited to get into my lab for full days to run experiments!  I’m also excited to travel to some hot laboratories around the country to learn some new techniques that I can bring back to my own lab.  And mostly, I’m excited to get the chance to THINK!