Browsing by Author "Ross, Julia M."
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- 2018 State of the College (transcript)Ross, Julia M. (Virginia Tech. College of Engineering, 2018-05-02)A transcript from the State of the College of Engineering address, presented by Dean Julia Ross at The Inn at Virginia Tech on May 2, 2018.
- Blood Serum Affects Polysaccharide Production and Surface Protein Expression in S. AureusIslam, Nazrul; Hossain, Khwaja G.; Ross, Julia M.; Marten, Mark R. (Juniper Publishers, 2017-01)S. aureus biofilm serves a major role in pathogenesis. Two of the major components of bacterial biofilm are Polysaccharides intercellular adhesions (PIA) and surface proteins. It is not known how PIA and surface proteins expressions are affected in presence of blood serum. Analyses of surface proteins expressions will provide more effective biomarker discovery that might lead to development of antimicrobial therapeutics to meet the challenges of biofilm-related infections.Secondary cultures of S. aureus Philips, a biofilm-forming bacterium, were generated by inoculating 1 ml of overnight culture into 50 ml of TSB. Bacteria were cultured at several concentrations of blood serum and found that 12.5% supplemented blood serum provide s similar growth curve as normal TSB (100%). One and 2 D SASPAGE were used to separate proteins and the differentially expressed proteins were identified by nano-LC/MS.Polysaccharide intercellular adhesions production was significantly increased due to the addition of blood serum in the media. We also identified two serum proteins, apolipoprotein and globulin (Fc and Fab), that remained attached with the membrane fraction of bacterial proteins.These results have strongly demonstrated that blood serum influences the exopolysaccharide expression in S. aureus.
- Exposing chemical engineering students to real world problems: health care and renewable energy systemsAu, Nichole; Bayles, Taryn; Ross, Julia M. (ASEE, 2008)High school and entry level engineering students seldom have a good understanding of the types of problems that chemical engineers solve. Two design projects have been developed to introduce high school and entry level engineering students to real world problems related to health care and energy systems. We have found that through these design projects our students begin to understand the breadth of chemical engineering. For our Engineering in Health Care design project, students are introduced to a patient suffering from kidney disease, who explains her experience with dialysis in a professional produced video segment. The students then go through a number of hands-on activities, demonstrations and computer simulation where they learn about the factors that influence dialysis. The patient and her doctor then challenge the students to design, build and test a hemodialysis system. The hemodialysis system must remove a minimum amount of ‘impurities’ from simulated blood, while minimizing both the cost of the dialysate (water) and the hemodialysis system. The teams subsequently evaluate the performance of the prototype that they create. The second design project, Engineering Energy Solutions, focuses on the world’s energy crisis. As the world moves further into the 21st century, the need for development in the field of renewable energy is becoming more apparent. The amount of fossil fuels available continues to decline and statistics show that only one barrel of oil is discovered for every six that are utilized. In fact, if the current rate of consumption is maintained, worldwide oil reserves are slated to last only for the next forty years. Therefore it is essential that renewable energy technology must continue to grow. The next generation of students represents those engineers who will struggle with energy issues over the ensuing century. In our Engineering Energy Solutions design project, students are asked to design, construct, test, and evaluate a system for collecting, storing, transporting, converting, and utilizing renewable energy from a water, wind, or solar source. The overall goal of the project is to light a 1 cell AAA Maglite® light bulb after being allowed to collect energy for 45 minutes and up to two hours. As part of the INSPIRES (INcreasing Student Participation, Interest and Recruitment in Engineering and Science) Curriculum (funded by the NSF), the design projects have been tested with a wide range of students who include: high school pre-engineering students, freshmen engineering students and sophomore and junior chemical engineering students. In conjunction with the design projects a series of hands-on activities and mini design challenges have been developed to enhance the understanding of the fundamental principles related to the design challenge. A web based tutorial features interactive animations and design simulations that allow students to adjust parameters to investigate the effect that each has on the efficiency of their simulated design. In addition, an on-line tutorial features pre and post assessments on content knowledge of the design process and underlying concepts. The results of these assessments will be compiled and presented; as well as details of the design projects and their solutions.
- High school outreach program: Attracting young ladies with “engineering in health care.”Monterastelli, Tania; Bayles, Taryn; Ross, Julia M. (ASEE, 2008)YESS (Young Engineers and Scientists Seminars) is an enrichment program for gifted and talented high school students from the Baltimore/Washington areas who have a strong aptitude in mathematics and science fields. The program, founded in 2002, is funded by the Historical Electronics Museum with a grant from Northrop Grumman. Previous YESS speakers have addressed diverse topics such as plasma physics, stealth radar, biomedical imagery, super computers/micro technology, aeronautical engineering, astrophysics and satellite reconnaissance. In recent years, the program has been revised from a strictly seminar series to a hands-on program designed to help students understand the engineering design process. Since revising the format of the program, average attendance has more than tripled to a 2006-7 level of 107 students. Two-hour sessions are held biweekly and students learn how to go from brainstorming to designing, building, and testing. In an attempt to attract more young ladies to the program (as well as to encourage them to pursue engineering as a career), the 2007-8 program focuses on “Engineering in Health Care”. The percent of females attending the program in recent years has ranged from 10 – 28%. Each week, a presentation is made on a topic related to engineering in health care. New this year, the featured speakers are young ladies who are studying engineering (as undergraduate or graduate students) or are medical students who have undergraduate engineering degrees. One of the presenters has also worked in the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health. At the conclusion of each presentation, students participate in mini hands-on design challenges, which require the utilization of newlylearned concepts as well as general engineering methods. Following the sessions of seminars and mini challenges, the students must combine concepts they have learned to design, construct and test an efficient and cost effective hemodialysis system which removes ‘impurities’ from simulated blood. The overall effectiveness of the YESS program is determined based on observation of an improvement in implementation of engineering concepts and methods as the program progresses. To assist with this analysis, each team is required to keep a design notebook to document the evolution of the final design. In addition, participants complete pre- and post-surveys measuring interest, attitude and content knowledge of the engineering design process and the underlying principles associated with a successful hemodialysis design solution. The results of these findings are documented, compiled, and presented. Since this is the fourth year of this revised program, comparisons are made to examine the evolution and the success of this high school outreach program; as well as to determine if the “Engineering in Health Care” topic is successful in attracting more young ladies to this high school enrichment program.
- Proteome Analyses of Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm at Elevated Levels of NaClIslam, Nazrul; Ross, Julia M.; Marten, Mark R. (OMICS Publishing Group, 2015-10)Our studies demonstrate that sodium chloride (NaCl) induces changes in biofilm, mediated by increased production of polysaccharides intercellular adhesion (PIA). We identified 12 proteins that showed higher abundance in increased level of NaCl. This includes one important protein (IsaA) known to be associated with biofilm stability. In addition, we also found higher abundance of a cold shock protein, CspA, at higher NaCl. We have also identified several other proteins that are differentially expressed to the elevated levels of NaCl and mapped them in the regulatory pathways of PIA. The majority of proteins are involved with various aspects bacterial metabolic function. Our results demonstrated that NaCl influences gene regulatory networks controlling exopolysaccharide expression.
- Proteomic analysis of Staphylococcus aureus biofilm cells grown under physiologically relevant fluid shear stress conditionsIslam, Nazrul; Kim, Yonghyun; Ross, Julia M.; Marten, Mark R. (BMC, 2014-04-30)Background: The biofilm forming bacterium Staphylococcus aureus is responsible for maladies ranging from severe skin infection to major diseases such as bacteremia, endocarditis and osteomyelitis. A flow displacement system was used to grow S. aureus biofilms in four physiologically relevant fluid shear rates (50, 100, 500 and 1000 s-1) to identify proteins that are associated with biofilm.Results: Global protein expressions from the membrane and cytosolic fractions of S. aureus biofilm cells grown under the above shear rate conditions are reported. Sixteen proteins in the membrane-enriched fraction and eight proteins in the cytosolic fraction showed significantly altered expression (p < 0.05) under increasing fluid shear. These 24 proteins were identified using nano-LC-ESI-MS/MS. They were found to be associated with various metabolic functions such as glycolysis / TCA pathways, protein synthesis and stress tolerance. Increased fluid shear stress did not influence the expression of two important surface binding proteins: fibronectin-binding and collagen-binding proteins.Conclusions: The reported data suggest that while the general metabolic function of the sessile bacteria is minimal under high fluid shear stress conditions, they seem to retain the binding capacity to initiate new infections. © 2014 Islam et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.