Issuu

Spring 2021

TEST AHEAD OF THE REST

How fast action, leadership and COLSA’s biomedical expertise is helping UNH fight COVID-19

FROM THE DEAN’S DESK

WELCOME TO OUR INAUGURAL ISSUE OF THRIVE! During my first six months as dean of the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, I’ve witnessed the groundbreaking work of our researchers, the thoughtful and dedicated progress of our students and the importance of our collective efforts to use science to support and sustain economies and ecosystems. THRIVE is a new way of bringing you, as a friend of the college, into the heart of our activity. For me, 2020 brought two important lessons. First is the need to empower scientists and support a broader public understanding of the critical role science must play in everyday

THRIVE is a new way of bringing you, as a friend of the college, into the heart of our activity.

decision-making. Ecosystem health and the security of meaningful jobs for future generations of Granite Staters depend on science-based solutions to current issues such as ocean warming, prolonged drought, food insecurity and vaccine development. Second is the need to deepen our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in academia, which is elemental not just to our success but to our survival. Becoming a more inclusive and equitable place of work and study will bring exciting opportunities for our students, staff, faculty and stakeholders to lead positive change in academia and our communities. This issue of THRIVE looks at some of the ways that the college has navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, supported the university and made contributions toward the sustained health of the wider population. Each issue will be organized around a theme and bring you compelling stories about the research, discoveries and scholarship of our faculty, the successes of our alumni and the experiences of our students. The world needs scientists, and with a focus on student success, engaged and empowered faculty and staff and a dedication to science discovery and communication, we aim to

ON THE COVER Julia Dusseault ’23, a biomedical sciences: medical laboratory science major and a clinical lab assistant in UNH’s COVID lab, switches racks of tests to be pipetted onto one plate.

support New Hampshire and help our world thrive.

Sincerely,

ANTHONY S. DAVIS Dean, College of Life Sciences and Agriculture

UPCOMING WEBINAR:

Innovations in New Drug and Therapeutics Development Learn from four accomplished UNH alumni about pharmaceutical breakthroughs in an environment that’s becoming increasingly adept at transforming research and scientific insight into safe and effective treatments that protect and improve human health.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2021 Noon to 1 p.m.

THRIVE CONTENTS COVID Collaborations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Faculty Honors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Points of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Charles and Wilise Walker Gift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 COLSA Food Drive Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Blue Bloods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Quick Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Test Ahead of the Rest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Outbreak Insider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Station Science at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Faculty Find Silver Linings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 COLSA Students Answer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

FEATURING (clockwise from top left):

Christine Carberry ’82, Chair, UNH Foundation Board Christine Brennan ’90, Partner, MRL Ventures Fund David Hallal ’88, CEO & Chairman, ElevateBio Arthur Tzianabos ’89G, President & CEO, Homology Medicines

unhconnect.unh.edu/innovations

Engineering antibodies to neutralize COVID-19

COVID COLLABORATIONS In addition to vaccine development and deployment, controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and future SARS outbreaks will depend on a better understanding of the mechanisms behind the spread and treatment of symptoms. As part of the Collaborative Research Excellence (CoRE) initiative, UNH’s Office of Research, Economic Engagement and Outreach and Office of the Provost are supporting research to address a range of public health and welfare challenges related to COVID-19. Two of the six interdisciplinary research projects are being led by COLSA faculty and engaging graduate and undergraduate students.

Sherine Elsawa, associate professor, molecular, cellular & biomedical sciences; Jeff Halpern, associate professor, chemical engineering; Robert Pantazes, Auburn University; Eva Rose Balog, University of New England Sherine Elsawa and her team are studying how to engineer antibodies that neutralize the ability of SARS-CoV (the virus that causes SARS) to bind to SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19. If the team is successful, these antibodies can be used to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients. Graduate students Stephan Matissek ’20G, Mona Karbalivand ’22G and Storm May ’22G and undergraduate Travis Fischer ’21 are assisting with the research.

Inhibiting an enzyme that causes COVID-19 Krisztina Varga, associate professor, molecular, cellular & biomedical sciences; Harish Vashisth, associate professor, chemical engineering; Doug E. Frantz, University of Texas, San Antonio Krisztina Varga and her team are investigating one of the viral proteins essential for the replication of the COVID-19 virus. Using interdisciplinary computational and experimental tools, Varga’s team is studying the interaction of this protein with small molecules that inhibit its activity and, as a result, have the potential to be developed as therapeutics to treat COVID-19. Three graduate students, Katarina Jovic ’22G, Logan M. Brown ’24G and Jacob Andrzejczyk ’25G, and undergraduate Valerie G. Pascetta ’21 are assisting with the research.

FACULTY HONORS Serita Frey, professor of natural resources and the environment and a leading researcher on soil microbial ecology, has been selected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. Frey’s research focuses on how human activities — climate change, agricultural management, invasive species — affect ecosystems, with an emphasis on soil microorganisms and nutrient cycling. Her research team maintains five long-term global change experiments at the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research site and a statewide distributed soil sensor network in New Hampshire. Frey is also a fellow of the Ecological Society of America, and, in 2019, the Web of Science group named her to its highly cited researchers list, a distinction earned by fewer than 0.1 percent of scientists globally.

Bill McDowell, professor of natural resources and the environment and a leading biogeochemist, is among 62 prominent scientists who were elected to the 2020 Class of Fellows of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). AGU fellows serve as global leaders and experts who have propelled the understanding of geosciences; fewer than 0.1 percent of the AGU’s membership are fellows. McDowell’s research focuses on the role of streams in global carbon and nitrogen cycles. His work spans the globe, from long-term studies on the Lamprey River watershed in New Hampshire’s Seacoast to the Luquillo Experimental Forest in Puerto Rico and forested watersheds in Siberia. At UNH, McDowell directs the New Hampshire Water Resources Research Center and the Water Quality Analysis Lab. He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2018.

SARAH PROCTOR, clinical associate professor and veterinary technology program coordinator

UNH was the first university federally and state licensed to sell student-made beer, produced at COLSA’s brewing science laboratory. In non-COVID times, beer made by UNH students is sold to local restaurants and growlers are sold right from the brewery a couple times a month (location and dates posted at @UNHbrewlab on Facebook). The money goes back into ingredients for the next student-generated idea. Three of the most popular brews to date are Irish Upon A Maple, an Irish stout with maple syrup from a student’s farm; Harvest Thyme, a brown ale that included upcycled bread ends from the UNH dining halls; and Arguta Sour, an ale with kiwiberries and strawberries from UNH’s Woodman Farm.

Points of Interest

Despite the pandemic, in 2020 the UNH PAWS Veterinary Clinic served 81 low-income pet owners with 120 pets, including dogs, cats, rabbits and even a couple of birds. UNH veterinary technology students participate in this service-learning opportunity to develop important hands-on skills.

CHERYL PARKER ’00, UNH Brewing Science Laboratory manager and brewing science instructor

In 2021, the UNH equine program celebrates the 50th anniversary of the UNH Horse Trials, the only licensed eventing competition held on a college campus in the country and one of the oldest eventing competitions on record. With COVID suspending external activities, students in the equine program hosted the first ever UNH Virtual Dressage Show this fall. Nearly 100 riders from North Carolina to Colorado entered the virtual competition, submitting videos of rides that were compiled into playlists and shared with the judge. Coordinating the virtual show gave students an opportunity to gain practical skills in competition management despite the pandemic. CHRISTINA KEIM, senior lecturer in equine program and coach of the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association hunt seat team

UNH, home to the first organic dairy research farm at a land-grant university, also has the only commercial-scale, heat-generating, aerated, static-composting system. JOHN ABER, professor of environmental sciences with a focus on sustainable ecosystem management

Of the four new hagfish species research partner Doug Fudge from Chapman University and I discovered in the Galapagos last year, one is completely albino. It was named Eptatretus phantasma. Hagfish slime, which is used to clog predators’ gills, might be one of the most unique biomaterials in existence, and understanding how the slime is produced could provide valuable information for efforts to develop bio-inspired textiles. DAVID PLACHETZKI, associate professor of molecular, cellular and biomedical sciences with focus on evolutionary biology 4

A GIFT FROM A CELEBRATED EDUCATOR AND SCHOLAR COLSA is honored to announce that Charles (Chuck) and Wilise Walker recently established The COLSA Community of Teaching and Research Scholars Award. The award is intended to promote and preserve the unique style of teaching that can change the course of a student’s life — the kind of teaching for which Chuck Walker, professor emeritus of molecular, cellular and biomedical sciences, is known. The annual award will be given to a tenured or tenuretrack COLSA assistant, associate or full professor who demonstrates excellence in molecular and cellular life sciences, marine biology and/or biomedical sciences and a commitment to peer mentoring and community building through their teaching. The award includes stipends for outstanding students who work with the selected recipient. The first award will be announced in May 2021 during COLSA’s college awards ceremony. Walker taught and conducted research at UNH for 41 years before retiring in 2016. To many of his students, he was not just a professor; he was also a mentor, a role

Wilise and Chuck Walker in the 1970s

model and a friend. With this award, COLSA will continue to promote the level of excellence he brought to his job every single day. If you wish to contribute to this award in Chuck Walker’s honor, you may do so by making a gift online at unh.edu/give/walker or by contacting Riane Metcalfe, COLSA’s director of development, at riane.metcalfe@unh.edu.

COLSA FOOD DRIVE CHALLENGE DELIVERS In response to increased food insecurity in New Hampshire due to COVID-19, COLSA organized its first ever interdepartmental food drive challenge during the first three weeks of November. COLSA students, faculty and staff donated the equivalent of 12,685.25 meals. That translated into 3,167 pounds of food, including squash from the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, which was donated to the Waysmeet Center and the St. Thomas More Catholic Church food pantries, as well as $5,155 raised for the New Hampshire Food Bank. “As a college that seeks to advance the sustainability of communities and ecosystems, we study and inform healthy production of food and the nutritional needs of those across New Hampshire,” says Dean

Anthony S. Davis. “It is important to us in COLSA that we find a way to support those in the state who are unsure of where their next meal comes from. I’m truly inspired by the giving nature of our college community and look forward to growing the impact next year!” The department of natural resources and the environment, which collected food and money donations that were the equivalent of 4,931 meals, triumphed over the other college departments to win the competition and earn the coveted golden gourd.

BLUE BLOODS

An ancient species and modern human health

Each year, roughly 600,000 horseshoe crabs are plucked from local beaches and transported to biomedical laboratories, where researchers extract some 30-40 percent of their unique blue blood before returning them to the ocean. Horseshoe crab blood is the only known source of Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), a distinctive substance used to test all FDA-certified medical implants and pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines — including those being developed for COVID-19 — for dangerous endotoxins. Now, as pharmaceutical companies race to manufacture millions of doses of the new COVID-19 vaccines, they are looking to LAL to make sure the injections are safe. The question is: Will this put added pressure on the horseshoe crab population? The impact of blood harvesting on horseshoe crabs has been studied for decades by Win Watson, UNH professor emeritus of zoology. Most recently, in 2019, Watson, Meghan Owings ’17G and Chris Chabot from Plymouth State University published research that found the crabs spawn less often immediately after being returned to the water and remain in deeper water months after being bled instead of moving into shallow water to spawn. As it is, approximately 10 to 25 percent of the crabs that are bled do not survive. But Watson’s spawning data suggests that harvesting the crabs’ blood has farther-reaching and longer-term impacts on the crab population than had been previously known.

photo: Steve De Neef

It is tough to get a definitive answer from the pharmaceutical industry about whether or not the global demand for COVID-19 vaccines will mean an increase in the number of

BLUE BLOODS...

horseshoe crabs harvested for blue blood, but one fact about how LAL is used to test vaccines indicates that vaccine-related harvest increases, if they occur, might be minimal. Vaccines are tested in batches, not by doses, which means very little LAL is needed to test the safety of hundreds of thousands of vaccines at a time. Even so, that’s not necessarily good news for these special arthropods. “Even without the vaccine, LAL demand is increasing. We see this across the industry as biologics become more prevalent,” says Dave Peterson ’14, a scientist at Lonza — one of the manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccine — and a Navy veteran, as well as a former student of Watson’s. “LAL remains the industry standard across the globe for bacterial endotoxin detection.”

Watson says that even without reducing the number of crabs bled each year, changes could be made to improve their chances for survival and reproduction. Watson says that the crabs should be kept cool and moist and that the entire bleeding cycle should be completed as quickly as possible. He also recommends feeding them before and/ or after they are bled to help replenish their hemocyanin — copper-containing proteins that, like our hemoglobin, are used to transport oxygen in the crustaceans’ blood. Not too much to ask to protect an ancient species so essential to modern human health.

To date, efforts to gain FDA approval for a synthetic alternative that would replace LAL has been unsuccessful. So, at least for the time being, the U.S. biomedical industry is reliant on horseshoe crabs’ precious blue blood. But Watson says that even without reducing the number of crabs bled each year, changes could be made to improve their chances for survival and reproduction. In a 2020 paper, he, Owings and Chabot reported that other aspects of the bleeding process — including removing the crabs from water for as long as 72 hours and keeping them in warmerthan-normal conditions — were more deleterious than the actual loss of blood.

photos: Steve De Neef

Professor Win Watson (left) and Meghan Owings collect horseshoe crabs in the Great Bay Estuary as part of their study on the impacts of the biomedical bleeding process on horseshoe crabs.

QUICK CONNECTIONS When Study Abroad Becomes Study at Home In March 2020, the 31 students participating in COLSA’s two study abroad programs in New Zealand, Ecology in Action and Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Aotearoa (SAFSA), boarded planes back to the United States. They had been in the country for only a few weeks of the 15-week semester when COVID-19 upended study abroad programs across the globe, cutting short an experience that for many students is the highlight of college. It was heartbreaking for both the students and the staff at the EcoQuest Education Foundation Te Rarangahau Taiao, COLSA’s partner and the organization responsible for the programs. But COLSA Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Kim Babbitt ’84, EcoQuest Academic Director Ria Brejaart and the rest of the EcoQuest team were determined to make sure that finishing the semester remotely would not mean the end of students’ connection to the ecologically and culturally diverse country in the farthest corner of the Pacific. “We got to work immediately with our colleagues in New Zealand to make sure that our students would be well served,” says Babbitt. “It was a lot of work, but it was important to find a way for students to complete their semester, and I knew the EcoQuest team would put their all into the effort.” In New Zealand, the SAFSA education team worked with their collaborators, guest speakers and hosts to quickly put together a creative line-up of live and pre-recorded sessions, special guest appearances, peer-teaching, generative exercises and even shared online meals. The Ecology in Action students were about to begin their fourand-a-half-week field projects exploring aspects of ecology and resource management when they had to return home.

Their transition to online learning, says Brejaart, created a unique opportunity for students to delve into data sets related to their projects, analyze the findings, and refine and answer relevant research questions. Although students missed the hands-on components of the program, says Brejaart, all found ways to flourish within the new reality, resulting in creative ideas and good insights — and a tight bond. “Our first Zoom call was not about classes, it was staff checking up on each of us to see how we were doing both physically and emotionally,” recalls Nate Wunderlich ’21, a double major in environmental sciences and environmental engineering, and a participant in the Ecology in Action program. “With the way the staff managed the remote learning it still felt as if we were all together.” “In the end, despite the pandemic, I fell in love with a place, gained a new perspective and found a new family,” says Carol Blum ’20, a sustainable agriculture and food systems major and participant in the SAFSA program. Both programs culminated with celebratory end-of-semester virtual events that brought each team together to reflect on all they accomplished. “It was a moving tribute to what people can make happen in extraordinary circumstances when given the space to act and to step up,” says Brejaart. “I am proud to be part of our amazing team at EcoQuest, and I speak for all of us when I say that it remains a joy and a privilege to work with our students, whose motivation, enthusiasm and ability to apply themselves is inspiring.”

FEATURE STORY

TEST AHEAD OF THE REST How fast action, leadership and COLSA’s biomedical expertise is helping UNH fight COVID-19 Six months later, Hubbard Chair of Biological Sciences and Professor Kelley Thomas says there are still no words to describe how he felt the first time he flipped the lights on in UNH’s proprietary COVID-19 testing lab last fall. After months of working around the clock with his team to establish the facility, the director of the Hubbard Center for Genome Studies looked around at the PCR instruments and the high throughput robotic pipetting stations. Students were back on campus. Samples were coming in to be tested. What they’d set out to do was working. “There’s no practicing this,” says Thomas, who serves as the lab’s scientific director. “You can’t say, ‘send me 4,000 samples so we can try this out.’”

NUMBER OF COLSA STUDENTS AND ALUMNI WORKING IN LAB

That meant starting off the semester by going from zero to 4,000. As in zero actual tests over the summer months to processing up to 4,000 in a day. But nothing less than that incredible velocity would suffice. Rick Cote, director of the Center of Integrated Biomedical and Bioengineering Research, professor and COLSA faculty fellow for research and graduate education, is a member of the university planning team responsible for building out the facility. He says that the lab’s capacity to test with scale, precision and efficiency — right from the get-go — was crucial, in large part because it provides the data that makes effective contact tracing possible in the first place. “Safety, quality, efficiency,” Thomas explains, is the lab’s motto for being able to test everyone on campus — often. Early on in the process of developing the lab’s design and protocols, Thomas, Cote and their cohort of experts made the decision to move forward with a specific type of test: RT-PCR, which is short for reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Thomas says that this test is the gold standard in molecular diagnostics because it’s both sensitive and robust. Probes swiftly identify the virus’s fingerprint in a small test sample by binding and copying its unique strands of genetic material. Since the RNA of COVID-19 continues to adapt and shift, the test actually looks for three different genes, bolstering its accuracy. “It’s like a fingerprint test that uniquely identifies not just the thumb, but also the first and second finger,” Cote explains. Throughout the in-person part of the fall semester, which ran from August 31 to November 20, all students on campus tested themselves twice a week using a self-swabbing kit created by UNH. They then placed their barcoded test samples in drop boxes around campus that were

3 alumni 2 grad students 15 undergrads AVERAGE TURNAROUND TIME OF TESTS PROCESSED IN LAB

collected and delivered to the testing lab, which is located on the second floor of UNH’s Health and Wellness Center. “Have you ever seen 600–800 test samples dumped out of a biohazard bag?” Thomas says. “That’s what was delivered to the lab six times daily all semester.” For that reason, automating as much of the process as possible was a goal from the very beginning. Computational scientist Anthony Westbrook ’02, ’17G, ’24G in the UNH Hubbard Center for Genome Studies created the software to scan each test’s barcode and track it all the way through. Even with thousands of samples being tested every day, the tracking system allows them to pinpoint a single positive sample. There are also robots, which remove samples from tubes and place them on trays for testing. Twenty COLSA alumni and current students are working in the lab, including Cassandra (Cassy) Amarello ’18, who graduated from UNH with a bachelor’s degree in genetics and is one of the lab’s technicians. “I want to make a significant impact in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and help keep the general population of UNH safe,” says Amarello. “I have learned how a lab

LESS THAN

24 hours TOTAL NUMBER OF TESTS PROCESSED

304,799* TESTING CAPACITY

PER DAY

4,000

AVERAGE DAILY TESTS PROCESSED DURING IN-PERSON FALL SEMESTER

3,264**

* Data as of 12/22/20. Includes tests processed externally by ConvenientMD. ** 9/9–11/20

TEST AHEAD OF THE REST...

gets started from the bottom up and all the details that go into making a high-throughput diagnostic lab successful, and I have been able to use some of the newest, state-of-theart equipment involving sample processing. I am a part of an amazing team that is making an impact on the history of UNH.” As of November 20, when most students headed home for Thanksgiving break and to finish their classes and take finals remotely, the UNH lab had completed nearly 273,000 tests for COVID-19. Combined with the weekly testing of faculty and staff by ConvenientMD, the university was able to quickly identify positive cases, isolate infected individuals and use contact tracing to quarantine those exposed. UNH’s COVID-19 testing and tracing program received national attention for its success in keeping on-campus instruction safe for the UNH community. In December, the lab began providing testing for 30 long-term care facilities and shelters throughout New Hampshire. Along with the thousands of tests handled daily for the UNH community, the lab expects to process up to 1,000 tests a day for the state. With the acquisition of a state-of-the-art sequencer, the lab has also expanded its testing capabilities to identify newly emerging variants of the virus. “Looking back, it’s amazing how the dedication and expertise of COLSA faculty and staff, as well as the exuberant participation of COLSA students and alumni, came together so quickly to help create this world-class molecular diagnostics lab,” Thomas says.

NEW ALUM JOINS EFFORT TO KEEP CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SAFE Isabelle Banker graduated in 2019 with a degree in biomedical science: medical microbiology and a Spanish minor. She is from Lee, New Hampshire.

COLSA: What is your role in UNH’s COVID-19 diagnostic lab, and what are your responsibilities?

Isabelle: As a medical laboratory technician, I work alongside fellow technicians and clinical laboratory assistants to ensure timely and organized processing of nasal swab samples, which are dropped off every two hours each day.

COLSA: How has this experience been valuable for you?

Isabelle: I have improved my ability to work productively with a diverse group of people, and I am grateful that I can apply my knowledge and skills to help manage the spread of SARSCoV-2 and serve the public health needs of my community.

COLSA: Has living though a pandemic changed your perspective regarding the future of human health?

Isabelle: I believe this pandemic has reminded us all that personal decisions about our health can have long-lasting effects that impact others as well. I’m optimistic about the future of human health as our society continues to learn and grow from this experience, and I’m looking forward to continuing to promote health in my community and around the world.

COLSA: What role do you think having an on-campus lab has played in UNH’s ability to manage the spread of COVID-19?

Isabelle: The on-campus lab can quickly identify positive cases and initiate an immediate quarantine and treatment of infected and associated individuals, which has been instrumental in limiting the spread of COVID-19 and keeping campus safe and open.

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

OUTBREAK INSIDER Pandemic gives steady-at-the-helm public health leader Christine Bean ’82, ’03G her biggest test yet When Christine Kenney Bean was an undergraduate at UNH, she considered majors and careers that included accounting and journalism. But she enjoyed her twosemester internship in clinical laboratory science training at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center so much that she chose to pursue laboratory science as her career. Accounting’s and journalism’s loss proved to be the state of New Hampshire’s public health gain. From her position as laboratory director at the New Hampshire Public Health Laboratories, Bean and her staff serve as the hub of the state’s COVID-19 response team, coordinating the laboratory surveillance and testing of new outbreaks of the pandemic. “Most people don’t know that state labs are actually a part of the Centers for Disease Control and receive federal funding to apply CDC protocols at the state level,” says Bean, part of whose job entails keeping the federal grants flowing in from Washington.

A typical project might involve testing 5,000 mosquitoes a summer for the presence of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) or West Nile viruses. “The outcome of finding positive mosquito batches in the city of Manchester might be to recommend that the community cancels Little League games for a day or two,” Bean explains. In another widely reported case, Bean’s lab tested 6,000 people in order to trace a hospital outbreak of hepatitis C back to its origin in a single shared needle used by an infected staffer at a New Hampshire hospital.

Unlike hospital labs that do diagnostic testing on individuals, Bean’s lab conducts surveillance on population health.

OUTBREAK INSIDER...

Bean’s lab thrives on complex epidemiological puzzles, but in February 2020, she and her colleagues got their biggest challenge to date when the CDC sent its test methods and protocols for the coronavirus to all state public health laboratories with instructions to start testing, and fast. In the beginning of the pandemic, Bean’s lab did all of New Hampshire’s COVID-19 testing, which amounted to some 1,000 tests a day. “We had to add 10 more people to our staff of 65 to work exclusively on COVID-19,” Bean recalls. “Even 10 months into the pandemic, we’re still testing as many as 1,800 specimens in a day.” That’s how Michael Harhen, administrative director of pathology and laboratory medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, got involved. Early on in the pandemic, Harhen and Bean both knew the pandemic was going to strain the state’s healthcare system in unprecedented ways. “We talked constantly about what she was doing and how to get the CDC method of assay to our lab,” Harhen recalls. What began as two leaders talking each other “down off the ledge” turned into a collaboration between two whole labs on the issues related to fighting the pandemic, managing testing overflow and comparing notes on methodologies and workflows. Harhen says Bean’s collaborative skills are not only helping the state face down a pandemic, they are also forging a powerful new partnership that will benefit the state for years to come. “If I can say anything good came out of this pandemic, it was a closer relationship in collaboration between Dartmouth Hitchcock and the New Hampshire Public Health Laboratory,” Harhen says. “I’ve never seen Christine get rattled,” he adds. “She’s as cool as a cucumber no matter what happens.” Stephanie Payeur ’95, laboratory supervisor at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, describes Bean as a true rarity — a “double threat” equally at home with the science and business of health care. (Bean earned an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University in 1993.) Payeur met Bean when Payeur was an undergraduate trying to decide how to go into medicine without becoming a doctor or nurse. At the time, Bean was earning a doctorate in microbiology at UNH and teaching medical laboratory science at her alma mater. “Christine helped me discover med lab science. It was the best move I ever made,” Payeur says.

Bean says that in today’s high-tech world of laboratory science, she values the human factor most of all.

Bean and her staff serve as the hub of the state’s COVID-19 response team.

Now, as Bean’s colleague, Payeur appreciates the broad skill set her former professor brings to the table as a state public health leader. “Healthcare is a business right now,” says Payeur. “There are big management and financial pieces to managing a busy lab. The medical laboratory community is lucky to have a leader who understands financial issues like compliance, insurance and reimbursement, and who can also switch on a dime to go deep on the science.” Bean says that in today’s high-tech world of laboratory science, she values the human factor most of all. “I got into public health because I thrive on teamwork,” she says. “When I look at what we’ve done in this laboratory, testing something in the neighborhood of 175,000 samples for COVID-19 and having had no exposures to our team, I feel like we are doing amazing work under stressful conditions. I’m proud.”

Spoken like a quintessential cool cucumber.

STATION SCIENCE AT WORK The New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station (NHAES) at the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture serves as a cornerstone for developing locally inspired, globally important research. From the lab to the field, forest and sea, our researchers push scientific frontiers to ensure resilient food production and natural resource management across New Hampshire and beyond. “As New Hampshire’s complex modern food system continues to face new challenges, such as the supply chain disruption and demand declines caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, NHAES’s research serves as the frontline of data-driven, objective solutions for the economic, environmental and societal good,” says Anton Bekkerman, COLSA associate dean and NHAES director.

NHAES SUPPORTS

52 50+ 38 304 810

SCIENTISTS

RESEARCH PROGRAMS GRADUATE STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS CONVENTIONAL AND ORGANIC DAIRY COWS FOR RESEARCH ACRES OF RESEARCH FARMS AND FORESTS

1,359,711

GRANITE STATERS BENEFITING FROM NHAES RESEARCH

RESEARCH-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS DRIVE GROWTH & INDUSTRY RESURGENCE

700

increase since 2013 in the number of commercial oyster operations on Great Bay commercial mollusk operations generate more than $419,000 in annual sales

NHAES ROI

$23.8 MILLION Competitive grants and industry partnerships awarded to our scientists based on their current NHAES-funded projects, a nearly

400%

RETURN ON OUR INITIAL INVESTMENT

HIGH-VALUE CROPS BENEFIT GROWERS, CONSUMERS & UNH

new varieties of squash, pumpkins, gourds and melons funded by NHAES and grown in commercial operations in New England and around the world

119

active licensed varieties of squash, pumpkins, gourds and melons from NHAES research generate revenues that support research at UNH

NHAES supports the ONLY public program for sourcing genetically verified high-value kiwiberry plants recommended to commercial growers in New England

LEADING-EDGE RESOURCES SERVE UNH AND THE STATE

NHAES funds the first organic research dairy at a land-grant university and the development of new techniques for increasing milk productivity, product quality and economic profits 14

FACULTY FIND

SILVER LININGS IN A

COVID-19 CLOUD When Gregg Moore and his students returned from spring break in March 2020, the University of New Hampshire had switched to remote learning. This posed an acute problem for the research associate professor of biological sciences, who was right in the middle of teaching a plant systematics class that was entirely field-based.

Moore did what any researcher of his generation might do: He enlisted his 14-year-old son to serve as videographer and muddled through the semester, using an iPhone to explain plant taxonomy and root systems. “If you had asked me five minutes before the pandemic hit whether I’d ever thought of teaching an online course, I’d have said, ‘no,’” Moore recalls. “Today, I just can’t say enough about the new approaches I’m developing for different types of learning styles.” Case in point: During the summer, Moore taught a remote course on field methods that enrolled students from around the world. Without student access to the facilities at Shoals Marine Laboratory, Moore redesigned his course to teach students techniques that could be applied

“Instead of taking the class to Shoals or Jackson Estuarine Lab in Durham, I asked everybody to find their own little corner of nature,” Moore says.

in geographical settings as diverse as a backyard or a beach, a city sidewalk with weeds poking through its cracks or a public park. “The students were very happy with the class,” says Moore. “I innovated because I had to, but I plan to use 100 percent of what I learned about video and remote teaching in the future.” Not everybody has access to a trusty 14-year-old videographer, so different faculty members found other ways of developing new technical and teaching skills. Jesse Stabile Morrell ’99, ’04G, ’13G, principal lecturer and program coordinator for the nutrition major, recalls an impromptu meeting her department faculty held in Kendall Hall on the Friday before spring break. The topic, remembers Morrell, was, “How do we stop panicking and figure out how to use new teaching tools by the time the students return to a remote curriculum?”

Serita Frey and her Studio Soils class in the James Hall Noonan Outdoor Classroom

That meeting quickly morphed into sustained, peer-to-peer teaching and collaboration that continues to help faculty master new tools such as using breakout rooms on Zoom, managing discussion boards in Canvas (the university’s online learning management system), operating classroom “owls” (which look like lava lamps with video cameras that turn an owl-like 360 degrees for remote participants) and administering quizzes and exams online. Morrell says that remote learning has put new tools in her teaching toolbelt. “A regular feature of my classes involves bringing guest scholars to campus,” Morrell explains. “In place of this, I’m finding it much easier and less expensive to host them on Zoom. This semester, for example, I asked graduate students in my research methods class to read an article by a professor in Florida. Instead of dissecting it ourselves, we invited the author into the classroom via Zoom to lead a fascinating discussion.” Students love to have class outside, right? This fall, Serita Frey, professor of natural resources and the environment, took the call to the next level by holding all her classes outside until it became too cold. In a twist on the “hybrid” format of mixed live and virtual content, she had students watch lectures remotely and do their lab work outside. What better place to study soil properties than an actual farm? “Every day we hauled out our equipment and tables, and at the end of the day hauled them back in,” says Frey. “For many students, it was their only in-person experience that semester.”

“This semester, for example, I asked graduate students in my research methods class to read an article by a professor in Florida. Instead of dissecting it ourselves, we invited the author into the classroom via Zoom to lead a fascinating discussion,” Morrell says. Juan Rojo, clinical assistant professor of biomedical sciences, is busily figuring out how he will teach his spring mycology and parasitology class without the use of a five-headed microscope he has relied on in the past. He has seen many students struggle with the added discipline required for remote learning but takes a philosophical view of the challenging times. “University work is designed to teach students how to become independent learners,” he avers. “This year, students got to learn that the hard way. My hope for them is that when they graduate, they will know they can learn anything that they want by themselves.”

Olivia Jackman

Soleha Patel

Diya Anand

Ian Ayer

“It brings me great satisfaction to know I am helping humanity...” — Ian Ayer Grace Hurni

Maegan Mannes

Alyssa Stinson

STUDENTS INVOLVED IN ConvenientMD’s ON-CAMPUS TESTING ANSWER: What does it mean to you to be on the front lines to help manage the spread of COVID-19? Diya Anand ’21, biology major from Andover, MA: It’s so fascinating to learn about how the testing process works, how tests are handled and why PPE and sanitization are so important. Ian Ayer ’22, biomedical science: medical and veterinary sciences major from Nashua, NH: As an aspiring doctor, there is no other place for me than being on the front lines of the pandemic. It brings me great satisfaction to know I am helping humanity curb the spread of COVID-19 and protecting my fellow Granite Staters.

Grace Hurni ’24, biomedical science: medical and veterinary sciences major from Atkinson, NH: It can be an extremely grueling job, especially with 10+ hour workdays. However…we enjoy each other’s company and the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Olivia Jackman ’21, biomedical science: medical microbiology major from Newton, NH: It means absolutely everything to me to be working on the front lines. My mother falls under multiple high-risk categories, and I cannot wait until it is safe again for her to live a normal life and go back to more enjoyable times.

Maegan Mannes ’22, biomedical science: medical laboratory science major from Torrance, CA: It means everything to me. It is so important for me to be here on campus with all my fellow Wildcats and to be able to gain clinical exposure and experience while helping the community stay healthy and present. Soleha Patel ’21, biomedical science: medical and veterinary sciences major from Mumbai, India: This made me realize the amount of effort essential workers all over the world are putting in to make sure we are safe! I’m so grateful to be a part of such an amazing and noble community.

Alyssa Stinson ’21, biomedical science: medical and veterinary sciences major from Groveton, NH: It is more about the bigger picture. It helps keep me healthy, my family healthy, my community healthy and, in the larger scheme of things, the world healthy.

Meet Pixio, the robot cameraman purchased by the equine program thanks to the generosity of donors during The (603) Challenge in 2020. With the auto-follow camera system, our equine faculty have significantly improved their students’ remote learning experience during COVID-19.

Show your Wildcat pride by supporting the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture during UNH’s annual online fundraising campaign, The (603) Challenge!

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THRIVE is published by the UNH College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. Our goal is to inspire and inform our alumni, friends, faculty, staff and partners by sharing college news and celebrating faculty, alumni and student achievements as we work to continuously strengthen our commitment to research, teaching and public service. We appreciate the generosity of alumni and friends who have funded this publication. Interested in receiving the digital version of THRIVE? If so, send your current email address to colsa.thrive@unh.edu.

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LEADERSHIP ATTRACTS LEADERS UNH’s COVID lab has received attention and praise from both state and federal officials. On October 12, Deborah Birx (pictured above right), then the coordinator of the U.S. coronavirus response, and Gov. Chris Sununu (pictured above left) toured the lab with Marc Sedam ’93, UNH vice provost for innovation and new ventures; Kelley Thomas (pictured above center), professor of molecular, cellular and biomedical sciences and scientific director of the lab; and Marian McCord, senior vice provost for research, economic engagement and outreach. Birx praised UNH for “answering the call” and safely opening campus for in-person learning. New Hampshire senators Jeanne Shaheen ’97H and Maggie Hassan ’93H also applauded UNH’s achievement. Shaheen toured the lab in the fall and called it a “great model” for the country. Hassan took a virtual tour and said she was both proud and impressed.

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