08/14/2009
The assistant professor of biological sciences, who joined SUNY Cortland in 2007, figures it’s easier and cheaper for the U.S. Army and the guardians of America’s municipal reservoirs to use fragile cell cultures grown on electronic sensors as biological red flags for water impurities than to maintain and test large aquariums of fish, a system currently used to detect chemical-contaminated H2O supplies.
Curtis and other researchers across the country are developing new ways to test drinking water for poisons, whether natural or made by terrorists, with support from the U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research. They’re all looking for “the canary in the coal mine.”
Curtis was awarded $80,000 in August 2008 from the Fort Detrick, Md.-based center for her participation in the two-year project, which started in September 2008.
“The problem with our water treatment facilities right now is that they have a certain test for arsenic, they have a certain test for mercury, they have a test for copper, but they don’t have a general test for some designed chemical that a terrorist could come up with,” Curtis said.
The U.S. Army developed a live fish system to monitor drinking water, but is now focusing on developing a living system that is more portable, Curtis said.
“The Army worked with a small company that developed this in-line fish system where water that you drink will be passed by these fish in containers that have membranes on the sides so the fish can’t swim away,” said Curtis. “A camera then monitors the fish ventilation rate and the fish ‘hiccupping’ rate.” The system, now in use in New York City and Maryland, requires an animal facility, she added. By comparison Curtis, in collaboration with the Army, is developing a water testing system composed of isolated cells that is fairly stable and can be mailed around the country.
“We need to have a living organism that is in line with our drinking water before we drink it, because if that living organism is going to die, then we are going to die.”
The U.S. military envisions sending soldiers into the field equipped with portable kits to sample from whatever aqueous bodies they find to drink from along the way
“They’re just trying to get some really simple system into which they can inject the water and see if it’s OK to drink,” Curtis said. “It’s not practical for a soldier to carry 20 different tests for arsenic and other chemicals in the field. They just need to have one quick test to say, ‘Is this going to kill me or not.’”
With year-round assistance from four dedicated undergraduate biology majors, she tests three different cell lines over two-week periods, developing protocols for the most efficient cultivation of the different mammalian cell lines. Her team screens each variety of cells for chemical toxicant sensitivity and for its ability to serve in a portable, electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) system. The ECIS system tests cell changes that would indicate deterioration from exposure to agricultural or industrial chemicals.
The cells are purchased from companies that have isolated animal and human cells from different parts of the body for use by researchers, she explained.
She conducted research along similar lines as a staff scientist and later a senior scientist with Agave BioSystems in Ithaca, N.Y., for six years before joining SUNY Cortland in Fall 2007 as a visiting assistant professor. Curtis was appointed as an assistant professor in 2008.
“The hope of the Army is to have a sensor, some type of multi-welled sensor, containing heart cells and skin cells and kidney cells in different wells,” Curtis explained. “And then you pass the water that you’re testing over the different cells and you detect the health of the cells. And if the health is compromised, then you know that whatever is in the water is going to compromise your heart or compromise your brain.”
She explained how the living cells work in conjunction with the ECIS electrodes on which they are mounted.
“Because the cells are healthy, they cover the electrode and they prevent the ions from moving between two different electrodes,” Curtis said. “But if the cell barrier breaks down from chemical toxicant presence, more ions will be able to pass between the two electrodes. And you can measure that change in ion flow very easily, which co-relates to the health of the cell layer.”
Curtis worked with one student assistant in borrowed lab space when she was a visiting professor. She had three more to help her during 2008 and the expanded research enabled her to add two more in the spring to grow vigorous cell lines for sensor use.
Many students apply to be her lab assistants. She chooses academically gifted individuals who will have the time and dedication to care for the cell specimens. Working with those lab assistants enthralls her more than private research ever did.
“I like them,” Curtis said. “They have a certain energy. I’m coming from a company where I had technicians, and you might have a good technician who’s really excited about the job or they might be a nine-to-five person. With these students, I explain the research I’m conducting for the Army and they think it’s so cool.”
It reminds her of the undergraduate research opportunities she experienced at SUNY Plattsburgh, where she earned a B.S. in biochemistry and biophysics and embraced her current career path.
“In college, I was interested in science and I was able to do independent research with two different professors,” said Curtis, who also was inspired by her science teachers when she attended West Irondequoit High School, near Rochester, N.Y.
As an undergraduate, she participated in the In Vitro Cell Biology and Biotechnology Program of the William H. Miner Institute in New York. Curtis subsequently received a Ph.D. in physiology and cell biology from Albany Medical College. Her studies resulted in multiple papers demonstrating the role of certain treatments on healing of the lungs. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville before going to work at Agave.
Curtis has been honored with a NASA Invention and Contribution Award. Albany Medical College presented her with a Trustees Scholarship, the Frank C. Ferguson Prize for Excellence in Academic Studies, the Leonard J. Procita Prize for Excellence in Teaching, the Leonard J. Procita Prize for Excellence in Research Presentation and the Dean’s Certificate for Excellence in Research. She took part in an NIH-NRSA Pre-doctoral Fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease Research Training.
“I feel very fortunate that I’m able to bring my experiences in academia and industry to my work, because I think that’s unique, I don’t think a lot of professors here have industry experience,” said Curtis, who teaches Mammalian Physiology and Anatomy and Physiology to undergraduate and graduate students. “I think the students really enjoy talking to me and learning about it.”
Theresa M. Curtis, an assistant professor of biological sciences at SUNY Cortland, stands between four lab assistants in her Bowers Hall laboratory. Her assistants, all of whom graduated in May with bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences are, from the left, Trista Thorn and Bailey Molitor (seated), and Jon Lee and Jon Ortega (standing).