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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Advertisement Email Story to a Friend June 6, 2002 Southern Oregon University Assistant Professor David K. Oline installs a capillary between electrodes in the school�s new DNA sequencer, one of several pieces of new equipment to be used for teaching biotechnology at the school. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Endangered plant subject of tests Mission Bells, a local plant on the endangered species list, may benefit from work done at the new SOU biotechnology center. Research by students and professor Steve Jessup will determine if the plant, also called Gentner’s fritillaria, is a hybrid. If it were a simple hybrid, the plant potentially could be delisted. "I will sequence little bits of DNA to ... see if there are three distinct species, or just two or one," said student Jesse Steinman, who received a scholarship to conduct the research next year. Studies also will help determine how the plant got here and why it is restricted to a relatively small area as well as help develop a recovery plan. Some of the plants are in the Jacksonville Cemetery. Others are found in the foothills near Jacksonville, Ashland, Williams, the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument and other sites north of California but south of Medford and Grants Pass. Housing and road construction have caused decline of the plant. The Bureau of Land Management funds SOU’s fritillaria research. The agency is developing the recovery plan in conjunction with private landowners, the Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon State University and SOU. Biotechnology gives SOU students big, little pictures New research center puts emphasis on on a growing field of study — and jobs By TONY BOOM Mail Tribune ASHLAND — Research that may lead to new pain killers, cleaner streams or better-growing peas got a boost at Southern Oregon University with the opening of a biotechnology center. Professors and students will use new molecular biology instrumentation to study both plant and animal materials. While most lab projects fall into the pure research category, data generated may lead to practical applications. "I think this (center) will really get students into biotechnology," said biology Professor Kathleen Page. "It’s a field that’s mushroomed. It will help them get jobs." The National Science Foundation granted $158,000 for the lab. The chemistry and biology departments share the grant and the center. Equipment from an earlier $67,000 NSF grant was also used. An open house was held Tuesday. The lab’s centerpiece is a $60,000 DNA sequencer, which arrived two weeks ago. The sequencer, like those that crime labs use, develops genetic information on both plants and animals. "If you know something about the genetic sequence of an organism, it will help you identify things," said Greg Miller, lab co-director. The DNA sequencer cost $60,000, but came with a free computer. What looks like a washing machine is actually a $28,000 high-speed centrifuge. Other equipment includes an incubation chamber, water filtration system and a DNA synthesizer. An ultra-low-temperature freezer can keep materials chilled at negative 80 degrees centigrade — more than 200 degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale. Tissue samples for DNA extraction and bacteria for cloning are kept in the freezer. There’s also a chromatography cabinet — an overgrown freezer with glass doors that allows experiments to be conducted at lower temperatures. "At higher temperatures these things tend to fall apart," said Miller. Miller and his students will create peptides — chains of amino acids — by cloning toxic materials from cone snails found in the ocean. The method should be easier than collecting snails or attempting to synthesize the peptides. The peptides will be studied to see how chemicals in them cause paralysis in victims the snails intend to eat. Models from the studies might be used to develop drugs that could reduce pain. Page will investigate micro-organisms in mine tailings from an abandoned site near Joe’s Creek above Applegate reservoir. The organisms produce acid that has killed normal stream life. Biology Professor John Sollinger will study how mutant materials alter the development of garden peas. His research could lead to cloning of a master regulatory gene. "Once we understand how these genes affect the plant body shape and form, they could be used by farmers to alter when and where (the plants) flower," said Sollinger. Other center research projects will include learning whether martens (small members of the weasel family) that reappeared in Humboldt County, Calif., migrated there or are indigenous; determining if fir trees on Mount Shasta are hybrids; and examining how organisms exist on serpentine soils, which have high concentrations of heavy metals and few nutrients. SOU’s molecular research capabilities have been upgraded with more than $700,000 in grants to the chemistry and biology departments during the last three years, said Miller. He and co- director Karen Stone are seeking another $300,000. 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