Page 13 - EUREKA! Summer 2018

Wearing a white lab coat and blue nitrile gloves, Carleton

student Elia Palladino sits at a bench in a large open-

concept laboratory on the third floor of the university’s new

Health Sciences Building, painstakingly using a pipette to
squirt six microlitres of a synthetic dye solution into each of

the 384 tiny compartments in a rectangular plastic plate.

Palladino, a third-year Health Sciences major, is chipping “This research could give us important information about
away at an experiment that’s investigating the impact of connections between diet during pregnancy and fetal
maternal malnutrition on the transfer of B vitamin folate and health, as well as the long-term risk of chronic disease,”
the pseudovitamin inositol from mother to fetus through the says Srugo, who has to do each time-consuming step of the
placenta. Low levels of folic acid in the mother are linked to experiment in the exact same way to ensure the results are
poor fetal growth and neural tube defects — which hinder sound. “The circumstances we encounter in utero could be
brain and spinal development — and other long-term con- setting us up for poor future health.” Third-year Health Sciences student Elia Palladino is working on an experiment that’s investigating the impact of maternal malnutrition
cerns. But to understand the intricate relationships between Both Palladino and Srugo — who frequently make dis- on the transfer of vitamins from mother to fetus through the placenta. To understand the intricate relationships between maternal diet,
fetal development and offspring health, and to develop interventions that can be used before or during pregnancy to reduce the risk of
maternal diet, fetal development and offspring health, and claimers such as “correlation is not causation” — are super- birth defects and other complications, researchers have to design and complete a series of rigorous experiments.
to develop interventions that can be used before or during vised by Health Sciences professor Kristin Connor, whose
pregnancy to reduce the risk of birth defects and other fetal research focuses on the developmental origins of health and
complications, researchers have to design and complete disease (DOHaD). Palladino, in fact, was Connor’s first stu- side-effect-inducing pharmaceuticals, early preemptive came up through the academic system. But our job is to
a series of rigorous experiments to produce the data they dent when she joined the faculty at Carleton in September measures — for instance, programs that encourage people graduate interdisciplinary thinkers. We expect our students
need to validate their theories. 2015, just one year after the university launched its Bachelor to make simple changes to their diets and daily routines — to go off in boundary blurring directions. But you can’t do
Across the aisle from Palladino and wearing matching lab of Health Sciences degree. The two undergraduates are not can have a much more effective and sustainable impact. interdisciplinary education without disciplinary expertise.”
attire, fourth-year Health Sciences student Sebastian Srugo only helping a relatively new professor and relatively new But this is a major shift away from our quick-fix emergency-
is using a pipette to prepare solutions containing different program advance the frontier of health research, they also room-medicine-and-drugs mindset. Strategies to prevent Kristin Connor was born and raised in Stratford, Ont., where
sequences of DNA for the PCR machine, a “thermal cycler” represent a new interdisciplinary approach to health sci- diseases or lessen their burden must be rooted in compel- she had an active childhood, transitioning from years of bal-
that uses heat to amplify and measure the amount of DNA ences education that’s part of a bold holistic attempt to find ling scientific knowledge that takes into account the many let to basketball and badminton in high school, along with
in biological samples. Srugo’s studies, which have been un- solutions to some of today’s most critical health issues. determinants that shape our health. Which is why Connor plenty of hiking, camping and kayaking with her family on
der way for nearly two years, explore the development and Connor’s research epitomizes the ethos of Carleton’s and her colleagues, although trained in specific disciplines, Georgian Bay. Playing sports spurred an interest in nutrition,
function of the fetal and maternal guts, and could help us Health Sciences department, whose work spans the spec- want their students to look at health issues from every pos- and all that time outdoors inspired an affinity for nature and
understand how gut defences develop in early life and how trum from wet-lab biomedical research to epidemiology, sible angle. biology, so Connor majored in Molecular Biology and Genet-
the gut communicates with the brain. If the fetal gut has too with a web of collaborations with experts in fields such as “I’ve always been interested in preventative medicine and ics at the University of Guelph, with a minor in Nutritional
few cells that produce antimicrobial peptides (part of the in- chemistry, clinical medicine, computational biology, neuro- the idea that nutritional and lifestyle factors, and the bio- Sciences. She had been planning to go to medical school,
nate immune system that protects us from infection) or too science, health policy and regulatory affairs. Thousands of logical, social and physical environments we’re exposed to but her undergraduate studies were research intensive, and
few enteric glial cells (which help regulate inflammation and complex and interconnected mechanisms impact our health, early in life, profoundly affect our health trajectories,” says she fell in love with having the freedom to ask and seek
are a key part of the gut-brain axis) there could be implica- including genetics, lifestyle, the socio-economic conditions Connor. “Where we end up is a byproduct of where we start answers to any question as a scientist, rather than stick to a
tions for our immune defences and for brain development we live in and myriad other factors, including what our from, and you can’t understand or improve health through more confined framework as a clinician.
and function. The long-term consequence may be greater mothers eat and their exposure to environmental toxicants one lens. It’s about doing small things that cumulatively will Connor went on to do a PhD in Reproductive and Devel-
vulnerability to brain-associated disorders such as autism when pregnant. Instead of waiting until ailments or diseases have a greater impact. We, the faculty in Health Sciences, opmental Physiology at the University of Toronto, super-
and, as we age, dementia and Parkinson’s disease. arise and countering them with expensive and potentially were not trained as interdisciplinary researchers when we vised by John Challis, an international expert in fetal physiol-

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