On this week's SciFiles, your hosts Chelsie and Daniel interview Jenna Beffel, a 4th-year doctoral student in MSU's Department of Human Development and Family Studies and the lab manager of the Family Stress Lab . Jenna's research through the Family Stress Lab focuses on families with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)- specifically, the outcomes and experiences of the typically developing siblings (TDS) in these families. A lot of the past research on TDS focuses on negative outcomes ...
Oct 04, 2021•16 min•Season 7Ep. 2
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Kylie Smith. Our brains are protected by a tight-knit biological wall called the blood-brain barrier. This barrier prevents potentially dangerous substances in our blood from accessing sensitive brain tissue but also restricts access to therapeutics or imaging agents intended for brain delivery. Kylie's research focuses on how to deliver material to the brain via a direct transport pathway in the nose, bypassing the blood-brain...
Sep 27, 2021•23 min•Season 7Ep. 1
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Andrew Kearney. Andrew is a student in the MSU Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering . Due to the low water activity (aw) and high osmotic pressure, sugar is generally recognized as a low microbiological risk source to human health. As a low moisture commodity sugar may receive little to no additional processing in a home environment. Other low-moisture commodities, such as flour, were once also generally recogn...
Sep 20, 2021•13 min•Season 6Ep. 18
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Ti'Air Riggins. Have you ever wondered what it's like to wake up one day and realize that you can move anything below your neck? For some people who have a stroke or have been in major accidents, this is a reality for them. Fortunately, there has been a recently developed technology called implantable probes also known as microelectrode arrays which are little metal or polymer sticks you can implant into the brain. They receive...
Sep 13, 2021•19 min•Season 6Ep. 17
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Abdo Korayem, Daniel Maldanado, Max Manz, and Maria Milan about their research projects. This episode took place live at the COGS Fall Welcome Back event. If you’re interested in talking about your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at scifiles@impact89fm.org . You can ask questions about future episodes here. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , and YouTube ...
Sep 06, 2021•22 min•Season 6Ep. 16
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Yoni Lewis Israeli. Heart disease is a leading cause of death around the world, and heart defects at birth are the most common of all birth defects in humans. Modeling the developing human heart in the lab using 3D heart organoids (or miniature hearts) allows access to developmental stages that cannot be studied in humans. Yoni's research focus is on creating heart organoids from human stem cells. Unlike previous models of the ...
Aug 30, 2021•22 min•Season 6Ep. 15
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Isabel John and Lauren Wiklund. Mental health stigma is a significant barrier to receiving mental health care. The two primary approaches to reducing mental health stigma are normalcy and solidarity. Normalcy refers to efforts to reduce stigma by increasing understanding of the frequency and prevalence of mental illness and the similarities between those with and without mental illness. This method aims to normalize the experie...
Aug 23, 2021•19 min•Season 6Ep. 14
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Conor Bertucci. With the projected population growth of over 2 billion people in the next 30 years, food and energy production will have to increase drastically to keep up with our demands. Fresh water and arable land are finite resources that are constantly diminishing due to environmental stresses. The cultivation of microalgae shows much promise as it does not require arable land or freshwater. Unfortunately, harvesting cost...
Aug 16, 2021•15 min•Season 6Ep. 13
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Cameron Bennett. Cameron is a recent graduate from Lyman Briggs College who majored in genomics and molecular genetics and human biology. Since her sophomore year at MSU, Cameron has done research with the Braasch lab in the Department of Integrative Biology studying the function of duplicated endothelin genes unique to a group of fish called teleosts. The endothelin gene family she studies has an important role in controlling ...
Aug 09, 2021•18 min•Season 6Ep. 12
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Kewalin Samart. Drug discovery takes a significant amount of time and fundings due to its complicated clinical process to get new drugs approved. Computational drug repurposing is an efficient alternative that is more cost- and time-effective in discovering new drug indications from existing drugs. One important concept of drug repurposing is that we need to find efficacious drugs that can reverse the disease signature. Kewalin...
Aug 02, 2021•17 min•Season 6Ep. 11
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Nick Ivanov. Information technology is ubiquitous, but it is not equally available to everyone - this phenomenon is known as the technological divide. One aspect of the technological divide is the ability to have a quality Internet connection in certain regions. Specifically, billions of people on Earth have no access to a reliable Internet connection or do not have access to any Internet connection at all. Unfortunately, most ...
Jul 26, 2021•20 min•Season 6Ep. 10
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Moh Alhaj and Nicole Mancina. Led by Dr. Ramani Narayan, the Biobased Materials Research Group (BMRG) design and engineer new biobased and biodegradable, compostable polymer materials and bioprocesses using agricultural crops and residues (i.e.: soybean, corn), lignocellulosic biomass, and algae. Bioplastics developed from these processes find commercial applications in films for plastic bags, thermoformed products, protective ...
Jul 19, 2021•25 min•Season 6Ep. 9
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Avery Tilley from the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife . Avery's interest in conservation medicine, wildlife disease, and public health spurred him to investigate if white-tailed deer could be used to predict West Nile virus risk to humans. With recent studies discussing how certain species can act as a warning or monitoring system for various diseases, Avery's research is investigating if white-tailed deer might be able to...
Jul 12, 2021•23 min•Season 6Ep. 8
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Gia Haddock. Gia is a senior Fisheries and Wildlife student at MSU. Having an interest in disease, amphibians, and sociology, Gia combined the three with their undergraduate research. They study the current behaviors, knowledge, and opinions of those involved in the amphibian pet trade through the lens of disease spread. Currently, we are in a sixth mass extinction, with amphibians one of the most imperiled groups. One of these...
Jul 05, 2021•21 min•Season 6Ep. 7
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Alex J. Roy. Alex is a dual-enrolled BS/MS student in Lyman Briggs and the Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics . He works in the Neubig Lab in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology . Alex studies the mechanisms of an ultra-rare genetic disorder called GNAO1 Encephalopathy. Patients, of which there about 200 known, begin showing combinations of developmental delay, movement disorders, and epilepsy in ea...
Jun 28, 2021•20 min•Season 6Ep. 6
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Stavros Vakalis. Stavros' research is about advancing millimeter-wave imaging. Millimeter-wave imaging is used in many applications that require "see-through" capabilities. The most famous example is the airport security screening, which cannot take place using a traditional camera. Millimeter-waves can easily pass through clothing and detect weapons and contraband. However, current millimeter-wave imaging systems are quite exp...
Jun 21, 2021•16 min•Season 6Ep. 5
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Thilani Jayakody and Jacob Jensen. Thilani is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Plant Breeding, Genetics and Biotechnology program working on applications of genome editing for crop improvement in cultivated potato in Dr. Dave Douches’ Potato Breeding and Genetics Program. Jacob is a recent graduate of the Genomics and Molecular Genetics BS program and has assisted with research in the potato breeding program for over two years...
Jun 14, 2021•15 min•Season 6Ep. 4
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Erika Buhk. Due to the current COVID-19 Pandemic, many Americans are wearing masks in public to slow the spread. Many people question whether the masks actually do anything. Erika researched how the fabric of disposable masks breaks down with use by placing them under a high-level microscope (scanning electron microscope). She used the pictures taken on the microscope and research on how face masks work to show how important it...
Jun 07, 2021•20 min•Season 6Ep. 3
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Geeta Kumari. Geeta is a joint doctoral program student in the department of chemical engineering and materials science. Her research focuses on metals and a mixture of metals (alloy). She is working on a particular type of alloy called superalloy, which comprises eighteen different elements together. “Superman is fiction, but superalloy is for real,” she says. Superalloy can survive an extreme environment such as high temperat...
May 31, 2021•13 min•Season 6Ep. 2
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Varshini Perumal. Varshini is a 2nd-year undergraduate student studying neuroscience at the College of Natural Science . She has been doing Alzheimer's research at the Department of Translational Neuroscience in the MSU College of Human Medicine for around 1.5 years, assisting Dr. Gordon's research. For the past year, Varshini Perumal has been working to investigate the presence of specific proteins present in the brain of indi...
May 24, 2021•15 min•Season 6Ep. 1
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Qian Bates. Qian is a first-year student at MSU studying mechanical engineering. She recently did a project that analyzed the reasons behind the materials used to make paintbrushes. Oil brushes are made of natural fibers like hog or sable hair while acrylic brushes are all synthetically made from nylon or polyester and watercolor can be made of either but rarely both natural and synthetic. Qian, being an avid painter as well, t...
May 17, 2021•18 min•Season 5Ep. 18
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Sukhwindar Ajimal. Heart disease accounts for one of every four deaths in America and heart attacks are a major contributor to this. A heart attack or acute myocardial infarction (AMI) occurs when the blood supply to the heart is cut off. Survivors of a heart attack are usually put on several medications to help improve their heart function, blood pressure, and other metabolic functions. Additionally, they are advised on lifest...
May 10, 2021•20 min•Season 5Ep. 17
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Jasmine Jordan. One of the projects that Jasmine has worked on was about housing segregation in the dorms at MSU. Basically, Black and Latinx students are hyper concentrated in dorms on the edge of campus. This may contribute to feelings of isolation and alienation among them. While other universities have gone above and beyond to address students of color and housing, MSU has not. Studies show that students can spend up to 70%...
May 03, 2021•18 min•Season 5Ep. 16
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Megan Carrillo. Megan is a 4th-year medical student at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine with the goal of pursuing a career in radiology. As someone interested in imaging modalities, she has authored several case reports concerning unique disease states and processes discovered through different imaging studies. One aspect of her research also raises the question of the stigmas surrounding mental illness...
Apr 26, 2021•21 min•Season 5Ep. 15
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Emma Dester and Saad Sharief. Emma is a dual-enrolled BS/MD student in the MSU Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Department (BAE). She has been doing research in the Nano-Biosensors Laboratory for almost four years. Saad is a Ph.D. student, also in BAE, and is currently in his 4th year of the graduate program. His research interests lie in the synthesis and applications of nanomaterials, biosensors for pathogen detection,...
Apr 19, 2021•18 min•Season 5Ep. 14
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Hayden Stoub. Hayden is a graduate student in Kathleen Gallo's lab in the Department of Physiology . He studies lung cancer physiology and potential therapies targeted at both tumor and immune cells. Over the years, many advances have been made in how lung cancer is treated, improving both the effectiveness of the treatments, as well as diminishing the harmful side effects. In certain types of lung cancer, however, it’s been mo...
Apr 12, 2021•23 min•Season 5Ep. 13
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Sarah Jacobson. Sarah examines housing occupations in Italy and West Germany in the 1970s. Although most researchers look at political activists who squatted, she instead looks at southern Italian migrants who occupied out of social need. She views migrants' involvement in occupations as an embodied form of collective action, or how migrants used the right to a home as means to push back on both social and political exclusion. ...
Apr 05, 2021•19 min•Season 5Ep. 12
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Dr. Raisa Glabman. Dr. Glabman is a veterinarian and fellow in the NIH Comparative Biomedical Research Program (CBSTP) in partnership with MSU. As a veterinary pathology resident and Ph.D. student, she is interested in how disease pathogenesis translates across species, and in assessing the validity of specific animal models of human disease, particularly cancer immunology. Her research at NIH is centered on the stromal compone...
Mar 29, 2021•14 min•Season 5Ep. 11
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Jen Zavalnitskaya. Jen is a second-year master's student in the Department of Entomology in the Vegetable Entomology lab . She studies insect ecology throughout agricultural landscapes and how more sustainable pest management strategies can be created in commercial agriculture. Most commercial vegetable cropping systems rely on chemical insecticides to suppress insect pests which can often be detrimental both economically and e...
Mar 22, 2021•20 min•Season 5Ep. 10
On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Hannah Jeffery. The focus of her project is dry beans, the kind used to make refried beans or Bush's baked beans. When prepared fresh, beans are a very nutritious food (high protein, iron, zinc, and fiber), and consuming beans is linked to a lower risk of malnutrition and diseases like type II diabetes and cancer. However, they have a long cooking time (an average of 90 minutes). This may explain why many home cooks in wealthy ...
Mar 15, 2021•18 min•Season 5Ep. 9
