Susan Kenney, Dr. Lisa Webb and Terri Kaminsky, participants in the

Faculty and Student Team (FaST) program, conducted research to determine the

baseline phenotypes of mice at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Mutant rodents might sound like something out of a science fiction movie or children’s cartoon. But for Dr. Lisa Webb and two of her students, it’s just another day at the office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). As participants in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Faculty and Student Team (FaST) program, Dr. Webb and her team are trying to determine the baseline phenotypes of mutated mice by studying characteristics such as their organ weights, blood chemistry and response to cold stress.

An assistant professor in biology at Christopher Newport University (CNU) in Virginia, Dr. Webb and two of her undergraduate students were selected to conduct research at ORNL this summer. Joining Dr. Webb on the project are Susie Kenney and Terri Kaminsky, two biology students at CNU. The trio has been working with their mentor Dr. Dabney K. Johnson, a senior staff scientist and group leader in the Mouse Genetics and Genomic group at ORNL.

To determine the mice’s genetic traits, Dr. Webb and her team must measure the animals’ physical and biochemical characteristics, Ms. Kaminsky said.

According to Ms. Kenney, one of the characteristics mice usually have is the ability to maintain their core body temperature when put into a cold environment. However, some of the mice being used in the experiments lack this trait. To find out why, the team exposes the subjects to cold temperatures and compares the results. Through these experiments and other tests, Dr. Webb and her team hope to have a better understanding of energy balance in mice and the role of dietary fat in energy-balance control—information that can be used to help comprehend the physical make-up of humans.

“We use the mouse as a model organism to study human diseases, so the primary objective of our summer’s work is to apply the results of our research to solve biomedical questions pertaining to humans,” Dr. Webb said.

A veteran of ORNL, Dr. Webb earned her Ph.D. from nearby University of Tennessee and did her dissertation research at ORNL’s “mouse house”. Last summer she returned to ORNL and worked with Dr. Johnson on a guest assignment. Now a FaST participant, Dr. Webb said she got involved with the program to complete biomedical research that she normally could not do at CNU and to involve her students in world-class research. When she resumes teaching in the fall, Dr. Webb plans to take what’s she’s learned at ORNL and incorporate it into her classroom for the next generation of scientists.

“I will be teaching a senior seminar on mouse models of human diseases this fall, and my summer experience here will definitely affect how I teach that class,” she said.  “I will hopefully have a wealth of information from my summer experience that I can use to facilitate that seminar.”