Monmouth College faculty research appearing in professional journals Their work didn’t all wind up on the cover like associate professor of mathematics and computer science Michael Sostarecz (left), but several Monmouth College professors added to the growing list of faculty members whose research has drawn the attention of peerreviewed journals. Other recent examples include chemistry faculty Audra Goach Sostarecz and Brad Sturgeon, biology professor James Godde and sociology and anthropology professor Petra Kuppinger. Throwing darts at a water balloon
gave Michael Sostarecz an opportunity to be represented on the cover of a leading peer-reviewed scientific journal. An explosive image captured by Sostarecz with MC’s high-speed camera was used on the cover of the June 22 issue of Cell, the leading research journal for cell biology. It symbolizes a mitochondrial rupture, a research focus that is part of a larger project on the gene p53 led by Ute M. Moll, professor of pathology at Stony Brook University School of Medicine. “While I was a graduate student, I took images of exploding water balloons for fun with Penn State’s high-speed camera,” said Sostarecz. “I put one of the images on my website, where it has sat for about 10 years.” In early May, Sostarecz was contacted by Moll, who was looking for potential cover art to accompany her soon-to-be published research. “She thought the image on my website represented her scientific findings of a protein destroying a mitochondria cell,” said Sostarecz. “The journal liked the idea but wanted a color image. I mentioned that our high-speed camera was a color camera with better resolution.” He added, “I am excited and honored to have one of my images appear on the cover of such a prestigious research journal.” It wasn’t the first time Michael Sostarecz had been in the news in 2012. He and his wife, assistant professor of chemistry Audra Goach Sostarecz , co-authored a peer-reviewed article accepted by the Journal of Chemical Education. Titled “A Conceptual Approach to Limiting Reagent Problems,” the paper was presented by Michael at the national American Chemical Society (ACS) conference in San Diego. Interdisciplinary cooperation was the key to the project, the professors said. The content of the talk was tested in Audra’s Analytical Chemistry class and “was very well-received by the students,” reported Michael. Audra also had independent research published, collaborating with Colorado State University’s Debbie Crans on an article in the December 2011 issue of Chemistry and Biodiversity. Titled “Gel Formulation Containing Mixed Surfactant and Lipids,” the article’s byline includes several of the professors’ students. The research findings concerned the synthesis and analysis of a drug-delivery system for a cancer drug. “This collaboration has led to one of our students, Noah Hendricks ’10, doing summer research at Colorado State and attending grad school there,” said Sostarecz. The other MC student involved was Mitch Johnson ’12.
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BRAD Sturgeon also involved students in his research, which was published in Chemical Research in Toxicology and the Journal of Physical Chemistry. The articles are an outcome of the Research Corporation Grant that Sturgeon received. Benjamin Battenburg ’12 and Blake Lyon ’11 were cited on both articles— “Nonphoto-chemical Base-Catalyzed Hydroxylation of 2,6-Dichloroquinone by H2O2 Occurs by a Radical Mechanism” and “Revisiting the Peroxidase Oxidation of 2,4,6-Trihalophenols: ESR Detection of Radical Intermediates.” JAMES Godde was published in Cell and Bioscience, a weekly online journal. Titled “Breaking Through a Phylogenetic Impasse: A Pair of Associated Archaea Might Have Played Host in the Endosymbiotic Origin of Eukaryotes,” his article attempts to answer a question about the origin of eukaryotes, which has been a topic of intense debate among scientists. “I originally set out to write a review paper about chromosomal proteins (histones) in archaea,” said Godde. “A review paper basically summarizes the opinions of other authors. But as I read about the impasse on this issue among scientists, my paper morphed into a new hypothesis. Nobody else had made these connections.”
monmouth | winter 2013