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Immersed in Research
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 Kristy Henscheid, a graduate student in chemistry, recently returned from a fieldwork excursion on the ocean floor. Why travel to the deepest depths of the ocean? To study the Pompeii worm, one of the world’s most heat resistant animals.
Henscheid said the trip was a unique research opportunity: “I got to learn quite a bit about a sort of research I don’t normally do... Making do with what you have, pulling late nights because of limited time, trying to work with several other groups with different goals but using the same instruments. . . . It was an amazing experience.”
Henscheid’s fieldwork took place 1,000 miles off the coast of Costa Rica in a small research submarine named Alvin. UO chemistry professor Andy Berglund has made two trips to the ocean floor, where he’s tried to uncover the mysteries of how a small, fuzzy, grey creature can survive in near boiling water at the bottom of the ocean. Henscheid said that she’d been looking forward diving in Alvin in since she began working in Berglund’s lab.
But Henscheid is not a marine biologist. Her work focuses on RNA splicing, “a step of extra processing in the pathway between the information in DNA coding.”
“Our lab looks at the molecules involved in RNA splicing from a number of organisms—human, yeast, and fruit fly,” she said. “I’m working on (the RNA molecules) from the Pompeii worm in the hopes that they’ll be more stable and easier to work with because they come from a critter that’s adapted to extremes.”
Henscheid also said that by studying the Pompeii worm, scientists like she and Berglund can learn more about how certain animals adapt to harsh conditions.
There’s also a larger evolutionary question being asked: Some scientists believe that life originated in ocean vents. If that theory proves to be true, the study of the Pompeii worm could begin to answer questions about the origin of life.
The Pompeii worm may also be instructive to scientists seeking proof of life far from planet earth. “If we’re ever to find life outside of Earth, say on Mars, it’s likely that it’s going to be more like the weird critters that live at hydrothermal vents than what we think of as ‘mainstream’ life, up here where the sun shines,” said Henscheid.
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1245 University of Oregon • Eugene, OR • 97403-1245
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Copyright © 2004 University of Oregon
Updated June 1, 2004
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