Scientific paper distills five years of undergraduate and graduate research led by Mathiowitz in her lab
Edith Mathiowitz's several-chambered lab on the eastern side of the third floor of the Bio-Medical Building swarms with activity. Under large windows that flood bright light into the work space, undergraduates toil on independent projects, guided by graduate students, who pursue whole avenues of research. Moving from chamber to chamber amid the beakers, computer terminals and four-foot-tall cylinders of argon and hydrogen are postdoctoral students, research associates and professors.
The lab accepts students from all disciplines, allowing them the freedom to work on a range of research dedicated to improving the oral delivery of drugs or other therapeutic compounds. This blend of liberty and opportunity leads to exciting findings.
Mathiowitz and 10 others from the lab are authors of a paper in this week's Nature that describes their work on tiny, drug-filled beads. When fed to rats, the biodegradable plastic beads attach to the intestinal wall and then erode into the body, suggesting a new delivery system for drugs, such as insulin, which until now could not be delivered orally.
The paper's other authors include senior research associate Jules Jacob, postdoc Yong Jong, graduate students Gerardo Carino and Camilla Santos, former graduate student Donald Chickering, and former undergrads Kavita Vijayaraghavan, Sean Montgomery, Michael Bassett and Craig Morrell.
"A 11/2-page paper in the journal Nature distills five years of work by graduate students and others," Jacob says. "It's an important accomplishment, but it doesn't get to the essence of what went on in the lab."
The Nature paper describes a range of experiments, from creating the polymers to timing the release of their contents in rats. The experiments reflect the efforts of many people over several years, Jacob said. "It took three years of work just to make a micro-sphere do what you wanted," he said. "During that time, people moved on."
Students who get the chance to work in the lab gain invaluable hands-on experience, said Ben Hertzog, a graduate student who manages the efforts of the lab's undergrads. "Once here, undergraduates find they can take on small projects of their own and pick up the skills to work on several different projects," he said. The efforts can range from helping create a new polymer to helping profile the fate of micro-spheres fed to rats.
Graduate students also learn new skills. Camilla Santos, who characterizes the polymers, "never did organic chemistry work before joining the lab, but she performs experiments as if she was a born organic chemist," Mathiowitz said.
The lab makes its own polymers. These biodegradable plastics become more adhesive to body tissues as they degrade in water. Backlit by the morning sun, graduate student Wendy Webber checks the status of thin polymers that look like large versions of clear soft contact lenses. "My work is with polymer films that modulate the release of drugs to fight periodontal diseases," she said. On the lab bench, the films float in liquid-filled vials, part of an experiment to test how the materials degrade in watery conditions.
Peering at figures on a computer screen is graduate student Mark Kreitz. He studies the use of synthetic vascular grafts to control the release of the anticoagulant heparin. Working in the lab has sharpened his business sense, Kreitz said. "I learned the theories behind drug delivery and how to make polymers, and received a great foundation in early coursework that prepared me well for what I do in the lab. But Edith also teaches you about the world of medical devices, federal guidelines and patent regulations."
Working in the Mathiowitz lab helps students for the rest of their lives, Kreitz said. "Edith takes as many undergraduates as she can. And it's really true that she is here for her students. You see that every day here."