{"id":15700,"date":"2016-11-11T01:26:37","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T01:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2016\/11\/10\/student-uses-the-power-of-math-and-chemistry-to-understand-biology\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T09:55:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T13:55:30","slug":"student-uses-the-power-of-math-and-chemistry-to-understand-biology","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2016\/11\/10\/student-uses-the-power-of-math-and-chemistry-to-understand-biology\/","title":{"rendered":"Student uses the power of math and chemistry to understand biology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

How working in a lab at Clark has taught Rachel Orlomoski '17 to persevere<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When Rachel Orlomoski ’17 entered Clark University in 2013 with the goal of studying biology<\/a>, she was a little dubious about chemistry<\/a> and math<\/a>. You could say those weren’t exactly her favorite subjects at Woodstock Academy in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

But after three years of studying and conducting research at Clark, Orlomoski has learned to appreciate both disciplines. She applies them to her biology research, and she has added a chemistry minor to her biology major.<\/p>\n

Now a senior, the Traina Scholar<\/a> is one of six undergraduates and three graduate students working closely with Robert Drewell<\/a>, an associate professor of biology who is affiliated with the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Program<\/a>. They are members of an interdisciplinary team with Drewell’s research collaborator, Jacqueline Dresch<\/a>, assistant professor of mathematics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Picture
Professors Robert Drewell and Jacqueline
Dresch, along with Rachel Orlomoski and other
students on their research team, study
Drosophila, or the fruit fly, because its
cellular development echoes that of humans.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Orlomoski is working on Drewell and Dresch’s three-year developmental biology research project, which is funded by a $450,900 National Institutes of Health<\/a> Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA R15) program grant<\/a>. The two professors are investigating how genes regulate the cellular development of animals, from a single cell to billions of cells. They study the process in fruit flies, Drosophila, <\/em>because it echoes human development.<\/p>\n

Recently, Orlomoski’s research project has broadened to include work in the chemistry lab of Donald Spratt<\/a>, assistant professor of chemistry<\/a> and biochemistry<\/a> and Carl J. and Anna Carlson Endowed Chair in Chemistry. Orlomoski’s research deals with the FTZ protein, which binds to the DNA of Hox<\/em> genes. Such genes, which are also found in humans, control the embryo’s development from head to tail. FTZ helps promote, or activate, the process through which genetic information is transcribed into the RNA copy. These RNA molecules are translated into proteins, the building blocks for almost everything in the living organism.<\/p>\n

Because Spratt’s research also deals with proteins, his lab includes special equipment<\/a> that allows Clark faculty and student researchers to purify and analyze these molecules. The equipment includes a high-speed centrifuge, fast-performance liquid chromatography (FPLC) and a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer.<\/p>\n

Read more about the research happening in
\nProfessors Drewell and Dresch’s labs.<\/p>\n