Maryville College Ledford Scholars report on the fruits of their labor

The Maryville College Division of Natural Sciences is proud to once again announce that two of its students have been named 2024 Ledford Scholars by the Appalachian College Association.

Ledford recipients Jaklyn Rutter (’25) and Hannah Phillips (’25) are working diligently this semester in the Sutton Science Center conducting scientific research financed by this scholarship. 

The Ledford Scholarship program provides students at ACA-affiliated institutions with financial assistance for research projects. The application process involves a written research proposal, as well as endorsements from a faculty mentor and the dean of the institution, followed by an extensive review of the proposal conducted by a committee of faculty and deans from various ACA schools.

“When I was dean, I was so pleased every year to see Maryville College students applying for and getting the Ledford Scholarship. Ledfords are competitive and not easy to get,” said history professor Dr. Dan Klingensmith, who stepped down as vice president and dean of the College over the summer, but under whose tenure Rutter and Phillips applied for the Ledford Scholarship.

“Every year for the last several years, at least two Maryville College students have received a Ledford. They reflect the excellent work our students do with faculty mentors,” Klingensmith added. 

“A lot of these have been in science-related disciplines, and I’m very proud of the work our students and faculty do to get them. I also know that there’s room for students in non-science disciplines, and I hope that more of them will apply in the future, because I’m confident that we can do well across the board.”

Rutter, a Biochemistry major and Fermentation Science minor from Knoxville, was awarded $4,600 for analysis of the chemical composition of the hops growing on campus, a project she started working on in 2023 when members of the Fermentation Science program first planted the hops.

Hops are where the flavor in beer comes from, and the chemical composition of different hop strains determines the exact taste. Rutter’s analysis involves high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), a technique that separates and measures the different components of a given mixture.

“Inside the hops, there’s a sticky yellow substance, and that’s where all of the acids and terpenes and things like that are,” Rutter explained. “I do a simple extraction using methanol and ethyl acetate, and it makes a green substance that I throw through the HPLC for analysis.

“There’s a lot of different components that go into growing hops. Even things like the temperature can change the composition, so I’m looking into differences between different hop strains.”

She also explained that there are differences in juvenile plants compared to mature plants. Since hops take about a year to mature, she says she’s looking forward to seeing the change in composition and taste compared to last year’s extractions. 

Rutter’s interest in fermentation science is one of the biggest reasons she chose to study at Maryville College.

“My step-dad owns a brewery, and I was always interested in that, so I did a quick Google search and found the fermentation class at Maryville College,” she said. “I emailed Dr. (Nathan) Duncan and said ‘I’m interested in this, what should I do?,’ and he said I should go into Biochemistry, and I went from there.”

Luckily for Rutter, the singular fermentation class offered at MC when she first enrolled has since grown into a fully-fledged program of study, making her hops analysis project possible and helping her be well-prepared for a future career in brewing.

Phillips, a Maryville native majoring in Biology with minors in Statistics and Developmental Psychology, received funding toward her Senior Study: testing local waters for the presence of naegleria fowleri, also known as the brain-eating amoeba. Phillips’ award includes $1,000 for the College to put towards equipment and supplies, as well as funding to pay her a $12 hourly wage for up to 150 hours of work.

Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba that lives in freshwater and can infect a human host by entering through the nose and moving up into the brain cavity, where it eats the brain, as the colloquial nomenclature suggests. Luckily, it is extremely rare, but cases are about 97% fatal, which makes Phillips’ project potentially an extremely important public health service.

“It’s mixed emotions,” said Phillips. “You kind of don’t want to find it because it could be dangerous, but it would also be cool to find it and be able to alert the public to be careful in these areas. It’d be really cool to be able to draw attention to it, because it is becoming more prevalent as temperatures are rising. The amoeba thrive in warm freshwater, so with climate change, as these waters are getting warmer it is, I think, becoming more of an issue.”

Phillips has collected water samples from several freshwater sources near Maryville and Knoxville, including the Little River in Townsend, the lake at Louisville Point Park, creeks in Knoxville near UT Gardens, Meads Quarry, and The Cove at Concord Park in Knoxville.

Now that she’s collected all her samples, her work days are spent testing for naegleria fowleri by running the samples on agar plates coated with E. coli bacteria.

“They eat E. coli, so if they’ve made little trails in the plate where they’ve eaten, I know that it might be what I’m looking for,” Phillips explained. “Then I isolate the DNA from that plate and run it to see if it matches the naegleria fowleri, but sometimes it might just be another, harmless amoeba.”

For Phillips, the Natural Sciences division at MC has become like a home to her. She says she has had an interest in STEM since high school, and being accepted into the Scots Science Scholars program solidified for her that MC was where she is meant to be. 

“I love that it’s super small, and that I can get involved in multiple things. Everyone knows everyone a little bit, and I love that community aspect.”

Rutter and Phillips will present their research on campus later this fall, create a video presentation of their findings to be featured on the ACA website, and submit a written report of their projects to the ACA. In addition, both scholars are hoping that their research will have larger implications for the Maryville community.