Undergraduate, faculty research published in Biochemistry

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—As the scientific world ebbs, changes and flows with new findings, Western Michigan University students are serving as key contributors to new discoveries. Six undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of Chemistry recently published their research findings in Biochemistry, a prestigious journal of the American Chemical Society. Their project, led by Dr. Frederick Stull, expands on the Stull research group’s prior work, which focused on investigating fundamental chemistry that may lead to novel nicotine cessation therapies.

But what sets this achievement apart is the fact that four undergraduate students—Elizabeth Mumby, Jamin Willoughby, Christopher Clark and Cristian Vasquez—are listed as primary authors of the article, alongside graduate students Niusha Delavari and Zhiyao Zhang.

“Having undergraduates as lead authors on a scientific research article is quite rare,” says Stull. “Research faculty will sometimes involve undergraduates in their research programs, but normally their involvement is pretty small. To have them work on it and get published so early on is really cool.” The students became involved after contacting Stull, inquiring about the opportunity to do research in his lab. Stull, having just received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was willing and eager to give these undergraduates a chance to join his research group.

“Honestly, they just emailed me out of the blue, asking to get involved,” says Stull. “The research we were doing was really interesting, and people were excited about it, and that’s why we were given funding by the NIH to engage undergraduate students.”

The students worked with Stull to determine how a nicotine degrading enzyme (called NicA2), which Stull’s lab has been studying, interacts and works with another protein, cytochrome c. This research is primarily intended to develop better nicotine cessation therapies and help individuals stop smoking. “It helped me feel like a real scientist,” says Vasquez, who is still in his undergraduate program. “I feel like I can finally consider myself one now that my name is on a publication.” 

In addition to NIH funding, both Mumby and Willoughby received additional support for their work from the Lee Honors College Research and Creative Scholarship fund, with Mumby using the project as the basis of her honors thesis. In fact, it was Mumby’s honors thesis paper that served as the first draft for the published article in Biochemistry. 

For Mumby, Willoughby, Clark and Vasquez, participating in this experience was an essential aspect of their undergraduate education. Today, Mumby and Willoughby are pursuing their doctorates in biochemistry at the University of Utah, while Vasquez is on the brink of completing his undergraduate program at Western. According to Stull, the success of these students demonstrates the value of undergraduate research opportunities, and he encourages students to engage in them whenever possible.

“I think that if students are interested in getting some undergraduate research experience, the best course of action is to send an email to faculty, and just ask,” says Stull. “Research experience is really important, especially in the sciences, because a lot of the careers within the field are research related.” 

This won’t be the last time that Stull includes undergraduate students in his research. His undergraduate research group recently collaborated on another project with scientists at the University of Michigan. The resulting work is currently under review for publication in the journal Nature Chemical Biology. “I think this is a good example of how undergraduates at WMU have the opportunity to do real research that gets published in scientific journals,” says Stull. “I can speak to how incredibly valuable this experience is.”  

“The research was very interesting and unique, and I’m so grateful to Dr. Stull for allowing me to be a part of the team,” says Vasquez. “I can already tell that this will help me obtain future roles in the industry or academia. I learned so much from this experience.” 

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