Dr. Jeff Edwards, Department of Physiology & Developmental Biology

Evaluation of academic objectives of the proposal

The objectives of this award were met, especially in regard to the mentoring focus of the award. The students have been mentored and trained in an effective manner as outlined below. Using this mentoring environment and the experiences gained by it has allowed all but one of the students graduating in the last two years from my lab to this point, to be accepted into the professional school of their choice (see students listed below). Research, especially where the students are actually involved in all aspects of it and publishing can play a major role in their acceptance to professional schools and set them apart form other candidates.

Regarding the research, which this MEG provided most of the funds, for we were able to publish our research in a peer reviewed journal last year with another in press to be published this year. We were also able to published three abstracts last year and ten this year. There were 16 authors on these manuscripts and abstracts.

Student research presentations given include at the international Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, CA and Washington, DC; the Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research, the Intermountain Society for Neuroscience Conference and the Intermountain Graduate Student Research Symposium. Data was also used to submit three grant proposals. Several manuscripts are in the process of being written with one ready for submission next week. While the specific research project carried out changed somewhat from what I proposed, I took the research in a new direction with great success. We were able to identify a novel, yet to be characterized receptor involved in synaptic plasticity and identify the expression of endocannabinoid synthesizing enzymes in inhibitory cells for the first time.

Overall, we have made excellent progress with the time and money that we have had to work with on this project, and in student mentoring. I am happy with the progress, which in no way could have happened without this MEG award to provide the needed supplies and student support over the last two years. This project normally would be predicted to cost much more by NIH standards. We have really provided a successful and meaningful mentoring experience for the students involved, and at the same time produced a lot of meaningful and compelling data.

Evaluation of the Mentoring environment

The following is my philosophy of mentoring: 1) Teach the fundamental elements of hypothesis driven research. 2) Allow students to explore their own interests within the realm of the laboratory umbrella. 3) Provide students with the time, personal supervision and overall training they need to be successful individuals in the lab and in their futures, professionally and academically. 4) Use laboratory meetings, journal clubs, attendance at professional meetings, presenting posters as an essential way to train students to develop critical analyzing and thinking skills as well as presentation skills. 5) Encourage student development through grant writing, training experiences by allowing students to teach each other and collaborate through group work. 6) Encourage positive interactions with myself and others in the lab. 7) Prepare students with the professional skills required beyond the undergraduate degree in their schooling and professions by accomplishing the aforementioned aims.

To help accomplish this general goal of mentoring as listed above I have several evaluation endpoints for the students to accomplish and tools to do it. 1) Initially, I use an undergraduate training program as a tool to teach students. All undergraduates go through a training program before they can enter the lab to perform experiments. The training is a collaborative effort between my lab and four others with the overall goal of providing consistent, general laboratory training to all new students. This training includes safety, animal handling, and a variety of laboratory skills. All of this is done under the supervision of a trained assistant and the faculty. 2) New students entering the lab also receive 3-4 hours of background training together with me the first month they are in the lab. This background training is designed to update their basic understanding of learning and memory science and to get them excited about the research by explaining what the experiments are and what they will be doing in the lab and why. 3) All students are expected to acquire good, publishable data. This is ensured by weekly lab meetings where the students present their data and we review it together. I also watch students in the lab doing the experiments at least weekly to ensure the experiments are performed properly, that they are learning from the experience, and that they have a better mentored experience than undergraduates who are left to work on their own with little or no guidance. 4) They must learn to present, not just their data, but scientific information to others. Initially this is practiced at laboratory meetings with their own data, then students present at journal clubs and finally at conferences. Through this process they learn good oral communication skills, how to present data to others and get to know and discuss science with researchers from around the world. I had two graduate students and 10 undergraduates travel to different meetings to present their data in the last two years (department funds also helped with the travel costs for this many students). 5) I have my students apply for internal competitive research grants and my graduate students for NIH pre-doctoral grants. Two undergraduates were awarded ORCA grants in 2009 and four more in 2011. This has given them the opportunity to research different project ideas, search scientific databases and write their own grants with minor editing help from me. I attempt to make this process as independent as possible, yet guided, providing an overview for how to write a successful grant application. 6) I want the students to publish. While I discussed this above I think it worth mentioning that I have 10 undergraduates who will be an author on a manuscript that will be submitted next week.

The research experience students received in my lab was a key for most getting acceptance into professional school. Most all my students who have finished have been accepted into the graduate or professional school of their choice (see section III below). In conclusion, the students in my lab are getting excellent mentoring and training. This experience is going to be useful in their future and in getting excepted and succeeding in the professional school of their choice, which I think is one of the main overall purposes of the MEG award.

List of students who participated

Group 1

• Tyron Jensen (current graduate student) Corrine Badgley (current graduate student) Douglas Bennion (medical school)
• Curtis Walther (medical school)
• John Hamblin (medical school)
• Lauren Dean (applying to medical schools)
• Julie Hulet (mission)
• Matt Mors (medical school)
• Jacob Blickenstaff (accepted to medical schools) Jeremy Morris (dental school)
• Sam Beckstead (Podiatry school)
• Teresa St. Pierre
• Casey Muir

Group 2

• Collin Merrill (current graduate student)
• Andy Martin (dental school)
• Blake Nelson (medical school)
• Michael McNeil (accepted to medical school)
• Kelsey Philips (accepted to medical school)
• Ryan Williamson

Group 1 was involved in electrophysiology. Group 2 was involved in molecular biology and immunocytochemistry. These students represent those who were mentored in my lab and acquired the data used for the grant applications, abstracts, publications and presentations listed above. They also collectively were awarded 6 ORCA grants. The students also won 5 awards for their presentations at conferences in the last two years. I have had some fantastic undergraduates who have done a great job with these projects.

Description of results/findings

Again, we have published two manuscripts, 13 abstracts and used this data for three grant proposals to either the NIH or Epilepsy Foundation. We are currently writing an additional manuscript as well.

One of our goals was to investigate endocannabinoid enzyme expression in the hippocampus (see figure below) and investigate a novel receptor in the hippocampus (first article reference below) along with the role TRPV1 plays in plasticity of hippocampal interneuron (see figure below). The following figure includes just some of the data acquired using this MEG award. Published data can be found as a pdf file using PubMed to search for the following references. Data in these publications was acquired using the MEG awards:

Edwards JG*, Gibson HE, Jensen T, Nugent F, Walther C, Blickenstaff J, Kauer JA. 2010. A novel non-CB1/TRPV1 endocannabinoid-mediated mechanism depresses excitatory synapses on hippocampal CA1 interneurons. Hippocampus. DOI: 10.1002/hipo.20884. *corresponding author

Bradley KD, Hansen DM, Wilcox JD, Yorgason JT, Merrill CB, Edwards JG, Steffensen SC. The role of Connexin-36 GAP junctions in alcohol intoxication and reward. Synapse. In Press.

Description of how the budget was spent

The following is a list of approximately how much in each major category was
spent using the MEG funds awarded.

Supplies: chemicals, salts, drugs, glassware, oxygen, etc.	$2,200
Physiological equipment (electrodes, pipette glass, etc.)	$1,500
PCR supplies (RT-mix, tubes, primers, probes)	$4,200
Animals (rats)	$5,000
Manipulator	$600
Student Salaries	$4,000
Student Travel	$2,500
Total	$20,000