Each year, more than a hundred and thirty students majoring in the sciences collaborate with their professors on research projects. This research enables students to make key scientific discoveries and/or potentially help solve a wide range of real-world problems. In so doing, they carry out Calvin’s mission, becoming Christ’s agents of renewal. 

Human health is on everyone’s minds due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. The students spotlighted below are working hard to investigate and/or find a cure for various illnesses. They are the doctors and scientists of tomorrow.

Rare Disease Research 

Nine students are currently researching mutations to a certain protein that cause several rare diseases, including GRACILE syndrome and Björnstad syndrome. They are led by biochemistry professors Amy Wilstermann and Rachael Baker, who started the project five years ago. It turns out that Calvin is an institution which is especially suited for this crucial work.

“Rare diseases are really an area of unmet need,” Baker said. “It's not always the most exciting things that the biggest lab is going to pick, so at a smaller place like Calvin, we're going to pay attention to the smaller projects. We have relationships with families who have been affected by rare diseases. Students get to meet those families, and get a sense of the value of what they're doing.”

Although the research isn’t primarily for or about them, the students are also experiencing a lot of personal growth throughout the research process: it’s helped them develop resilience and persistence through problem solving, teamwork skills, and knowledge about where God is—or isn’t—calling them.

Isabel Johnson ’21, a recent graduate and Beckman scholar who’s worked on this research since the summer of 2019, says that she has learned to embrace and even enjoy the “troubleshooting” process. “Either the experiment goes wrong, or you don't get what you expect to get. And that's where things get really interesting. When it doesn't work; I want it to work. I like trying to figure out how I can tell what's not working and make it work.”

Daniel Sculley ’22, a biochemistry and psychology double major on the pre-med track, says that his “favorite” part about the research is how they all work together. “I didn't realize that science is not done individually; it is very much done in teams. And you're almost always doing things in an interdependent fashion where your task directly feeds into someone else's task. And you teach each other throughout.”

Kyrian Carley ’23, a biology major on the pre-vet track, says that this experience has helped her realize that she doesn’t want her future career to be all about research. “In the future, I might dip my toes into research a little bit. But I don't want that to be my whole career. I do want to actually have hands-on medical work.”

Meanwhile, one of her fellow researchers, biology major Emma Pastoor ’24, drew the opposite conclusion. “I'm hoping to be a medical geneticist. It's made me realize more that I do love genetics, and that I'd maybe want to do some research alongside my work as a geneticist.” 

Endoplasmic Reticulum Research 

In January, the National Science Foundation awarded to study protein transport in the endoplasmic reticulum. According to Westrate, this research is important because disruptions to this process can be detrimental to people’s health.

“Our cells have to make millions and millions of proteins, and these proteins have to get delivered to specific areas in order for the cell to maintain life and function. And so when you start to disrupt the ability for proteins to traffic through the cell, you start to wreak havoc on various aspects of cell biology. There's a lot of diseases that have been linked to that— neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, and cancer,” she said.

Westrate has four students working on grant-related projects right now. Similar to most scientific research, they’ve had to deal with many challenges during their first five weeks. They’ve had difficulty getting good DNA yields and determining the experimental conditions required to view the endoplasmic reticulum on the microscope. 

“When I interviewed students for the lab, one of the things I asked them is how they deal with challenges,” Westrate said. 

Despite the initial setbacks, Westrate and the students say that this time wasn’t wasted. The student researchers are still learning to do techniques that they never got to see in their class labs and acquiring knowledge about the complexity of the cellular environment. And they’ve gained other benefits outside of science as well.

Biochemistry major Leslie Park ’22 says that she’s learned to look to her peers for guidance. 

“It's been helpful to get information from other people because I haven't taken biochemistry yet,” she said. “A lot of this is about chemistry, but I ask other people about things that I don't know that they do.”

Teamwork is therefore an important part of the research process. Together, Westrate's lab was able to accomplish some significant milestones by the end of their 10 week research period. 

“The excitement in the microscope room when the students were able to see the endoplasmic reticulum in living cells was palpable,” Westrate said. “They had finally optimized the correct experimental conditions and were ecstatic to see all of that hard work come to fruition.” 

Looking back on the past ten weeks, biochemistry major Eyram Adjei ’22 had the following to say about her summer experience. “After two months of research, I felt fulfilled. Several projects were successful. We were able to image the ER in live cells on the microscope after optimizing our transfections. I gained the skills needed to thoroughly understand relevant research articles in this field and connect them to areas of commonality in our research project."

Clean Water Institute Research 

During the January interim, biology and public health professor Kelly Dubois selected biology major and recent graduate Ryan German ’20 for a short-term research project for Sawyer, a company that manufactures outdoor products such as sunscreen, insect repellant, and water filters. Calvin has a relationship with Sawyer through the Clean Water Institute.

German said that his assigned task involved testing some of their water filters to see if they were still just as effective after “an extended period of use” after they’ve “become clogged with bacteria and plaque and sediment.” German needed to verify if it would be possible to use dirty water to backwash and get rid of the build-up of filth. In doing so, he performed an “essential service” for Sawyer. He found the experience meaningful, partially due to his upbringing in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The tap water there isn’t safe to drink, so his family used a community water filter.

“Both of my parents work for a nonprofit in Southeast Asia that distributes water filters to rural communities that don't have access to clean water,” he said. “Hearing some of their experiences, it was really cool to be a part of the same effort and movement, because clean water is such an essential need. I could definitely see in the community around me how access to clean water would change people's lives, because you don't have to spend quite as much time being sick, or you don't lose as many children to disease. It really revitalizes the community to have clean water.”

The Clean Water Institute’s partnership with Sawyer “works on a number of levels,” according to its director, chemistry professor Douglas Vander Griend. Calvin does research for their water filters, and Sawyer supports “various educational opportunities” for Calvin students, such as German’s water filter project. But the Clean Water Institute does many other projects and research as well. This summer, chemical engineering major Carly Bogdajewicz ’22 and civil engineering major Derek Ten Pas ’22 took part in water disinfection research in Ecuador. They worked with Calvin engineering professors and an Ecuadorian organization called CODEINSE. Bogdajewicz tested different electrolysis systems while Ten Pas tested a new method of spring capture developed by CODEINSE. They not only learned even more about their respective fields, they also learned how to navigate a different culture. 

“Power structures and things like that are all different in different cultures and even how you accept or assign blame to people that do something wrong is different. So it was a good experience, being put in a place where you have to be thinking about that,” Ten Pas said.

“Values of hygiene are very different,” Bogdajewicz added. “A lot of times people don't like chlorine because it tastes bad—even though it's good for you—so they lower the chlorine. Very interesting stuff you wouldn't think about just doing science research.”

Plaster Creek Microbial Research 

Oula Salih ’23, a biology major and biochemistry minor on the pre-med track, has spent her summer taking water samples at Plaster Creek and looking at the phage levels within the samples to see if the floodplain that was installed a few years ago is having an effect on the water flow rate or not, which in turn can contribute to higher water quality. By comparing phage levels between two sites, she’s discovered that the floodplain does seem to reduce water contamination in Shadyside Park. But arriving at this conclusion wasn’t easy. It involved lots of late nights and some mistakes along the way. Nevertheless, Salih cherishes the experience.

“You become a better person, a better student, and a better researcher. That's the big takeaway,” she said.

But, as a Caledonia native, her work at Plaster Creek is also about serving the health needs of her own community.

“Plaster Creek is one of the most contaminated waterways in West Michigan,” she said. “When I go there to sample, I see children running in the water; I see adults putting their feet in. It's so contaminated that it is very unhealthy to put your body in there.”

Throughout this experience, Salih has come to expand her understanding of how humans and the environment are intertwined—a concept she first learned in one of her recent classes at Calvin.

“You have soil erosion and salt on the roads when it's winter, and that all falls into the creek. It's affecting the environment in a terrible way which then also has an effect on humans. The environment, the animals, and humans all are affected by one another. What's important is to protect the environment and to help mankind prevent negative health effects,” she said.

To learn more about scientific research at Calvin, visit calvin.edu/academics/stem-division/.