An award from the Cottrell College Science Program of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement is supporting an HMC interdisciplinary team of researchers who seek to differentiate closely related coral species common to the Indo-Pacific reef. Although the species are morphologically indistinguishable, each produces a different suite of potentially significant natural products.

 

Professors Catherine McFadden (biology) and Katherine Maloney (chemistry), specialists in the molecular biology of corals and natural product chemistry, respectively, are studying Sarcophyton glaucum (pictured right), the source of at least 90 reported natural products including several of pharmacological importance. Past attempts to harvest these pharmaceutical agents for further study have been confounded by inconsistency in the kinds and relative amounts of chemicals found in the samples. In recent research using molecular phylogenetic analysis, McFadden has found that populations of S. glaucum do not constitute a single species but rather a complex of at least seven “cryptic” species, which can coexist in the same location. Together, Maloney and McFadden will try to establish whether the variability in natural products can be explained by these species differences. 

 

The two researchers will collect coral specimens in the Republic of Palau, using the facilities of the Coral Reef Research Foundation, and return samples of the coral tissues to HMC for analysis. Students are expected to make significant contributions at each stage of the project. Biology students in the McFadden lab will extract DNA from the tissue, sequence the mitochondrial msh1gene and use these gene sequences to identify the cryptic species. Chemistry students in the Maloney lab will extract organic molecules, perform solvent partitioning of the extracts and analyze them using the college’s new liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer to obtain chemical profiles. 

 

The Research Corporation for Science Advancement, created in 1912, is America’s second-oldest foundation and the first dedicated solely to science. Through its various programs RCSA funds innovative research by early career scientists, both individually and in teams crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries. The Cottrell College Science Award has the added goal of promoting the opportunity for undergraduate students to participate in cutting-edge research, an experience that gives them a head start in learning to think like scientists. The Foundation’s goal is to build and improve the scientific workforce to ensure 21st-century America’s prosperity and security.