Trent Professor Fighting Water Contamination
by Cara Kromptich (for SPARK)
Campers and hikers may have a lot to thank Janet Yee for. One of the newest additions to Trent University's line-up of professors, Yee has been researching Giardia lamblia, better known as "beaver fever" in the hope of finding a way to fight the parasite, thanks in part to a grant from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (nserc).
Giardia is found in lakes and streams across the world, and has even been reported in drinking water supplies. Ingesting contaminated water can lead to severe and infectious diarrhea. Giardia contamination comes from mammals including humans, dogs, raccoons, beavers and larger animals like cattle.
Since the parasite is highly resistant to chemical disinfectants, Yee's research seeks to fight Giardia at the genetic level. By understanding the genetics of Giardia, Yee believes Giardia treatment can be improved, the spread of infection reduced, and our ability to detect the parasite in water supplies heightened.
Many different processes control how genes are expressed. Yee focuses on transcription, when dna (the genetic template) is copied to make rna (the genetic copy). More specifically, her research tries to find the genetic sequence that needs to be present if Giardia's dna is to "express" itself properly when it is copied as rna. With the help of summer students, who are
getting first-hand experience, Yee's lab is set up to carry out a full range of activities focused on Giardia.Students use proteins from fireflies to help them find specific genetic sequences in Giardia. The protein, luciferase, is what makes fireflies glow. In the lab they can add luciferase to Giardia and look for a glow in the Giardia dna. The glow indicates the presence of a specific region of dna.
Of course, the process is not nearly that simple. Yee's students are busy extracting rna from Giardia, cutting and growing Giardia dna, electrically shocking samples to let materials move in and out of cells, and running numerous tests to ensure accurate results.
Yee is expanding her research to other proteins such as histones that package DNA within the nucleus of a cell. "If you were to stretch out the dna in a cell," reports Yee, "it would be three metres long. Those three metres of dna are packed into an area less than one-tenth of a millimetre." The tight packaging of dna effects its ability to reproduce and be expressed. Yee sees the possibility for finding even more strategies to tackle Giardia by studying how the histones pack the dna. Although much work remains, one day soon Yee's study of biological contaminants may make our water much safer to drink. And that is refreshing news.
SPARK is a program that helps raise awareness of research activities at the University through articles written by Trent students for the general public. Trent's spark mentor is Professor Magda Havas of Environmental & Resource Science/Studies. SPARK is funded by NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada).
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Last updated May 1, 2002