New waves lab offers students a hands-on learning opportunity

The Waves Lab is an experiment being run by Assistant Professor of Neuroscience Dr. Jeff Kelly for two reasons; one is to discover the side effects certain environmental stressors cause in zebrafish, and the second is to find answers to what can be done to mediate these side effects. 

Dr. Kelly is a new addition to MC, having started teaching in the Fall of 2023 while finishing up his Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Behavior at the University of Tennessee. Kelly currently teaches most of Maryville College’s neuroscience courses, along with Intro to Psychology and Drugs and Behavior. 

He explained that he wanted to go in more of a teaching direction than a research direction with his degree. What led him to start the Waves Lab experiment was interest in the effects of environmental stressors on the nervous system. Specifically, environmental stressors in local waterways. He planned an experiment in two parts, one contained within a controlled lab setting and the other a survey of the local conditions. 

Zebrafish were chosen for this experiment for multiple reasons, including their fully sequenced genome that makes them both an easily controlled factor in an experiment and a base where the results can more easily be applied to other species. They are also relatively easy to acquire at a low price. 

The only downside to using zebrafish is that they are not a fish native to the area, or even to the Americas, and therefore their data may be less applicable locally. 

So, what is the specific goal of this experiment and why will Kelly be completing it? 

There are several specific goals, the first being to identify how environmental stressors found locally would affect the zebrafish, and from there, how to mitigate that effect. A further goal is to begin testing fish populations in local bodies of water to have more specific data. 

As Kelly said, “What we know is that the water quality around here is not great. There’s some areas that aren’t too bad, but there’s some areas that are very imperiled and there’s a lot of species going extinct as a result.” 

The importance of water quality cannot be overstated for fish, plants, animals, and humans. Water affects us all, and we can do better. 

Dr. Kelly also explained plans for the second stage of the Waves Lab.

 “Sampling fish from different communities and streams around the local area and trying to get in a bit of a community engaged direction, getting local folks involved and agriculture areas and things like that involved as well, to try to just understand what’s going on and then what we can do to help that,” Kelly said.

The idea is to get directly involved and to give the community a say in their own environment, specifically water and what the contaminants in it do to the fish who live there. The Waves Lab in its second stage will give an opportunity for science majors who need fieldwork experience and hours to get knee deep in the water and start working in our local environment. 

The best place to start saving the world is right here in our own backyard. As for the current students involved with the first section of the experiment, Michael Bailey (’25) and Maria Sidihi (’25) are two seniors working with Dr. Kelly on the Waves Lab as part of their senior study projects.

Bailey’s senior project is on common herbicides and how their runoff in water affects growth and development, motor function, anxiety and behavior in planarian flatworms. 

Sidihi’s project is looking at serotonin signaling in muscle fibers in response to the stressor. 

In the first part of the Waves Lab, participants are looking  at a neurotransmitter called kisspeptin to analyse the stress response to the environment. The research angle is, “Can kisspeptin be used as an anti-anxiety kind of tool?” according to Kelly. 

Despite the exciting ideas, there is rarely science without setbacks. Currently, a machine that is integral to many environmental research projects on our campus is out of commission. 

“We’ve applied for a grant for a new mass spec machine because ours is currently non-functional and they cost close to a million dollars. So we’re waiting to hear back about that grant to see if we can get a new one. So that’s kind of the contingency holding a lot of the environmental things at the moment.” Kelly confirmed. 

This important machine is causing delays for Maryville College research. We as students should stand by our environmental science majors and ask what we can do to help them move forward. 

In these rapidly changing times, it is the opportunities provided by fieldwork and experiments that will help us long after we’ve gotten our bachelor degrees. It’s time to start focusing on what we can do here, in Maryville, on campus, in our local environment, to succeed. It’s time to ask our staff, our professors, where we can speak up to get help and funding for our college, to get the equipment for our students to do their senior projects, to get experience with fieldwork, and to learn in hands-on ways.