Hello, Samford, and welcome to another episode of Beck's Bench. I'm Beck Taylor.
Today, Beck's Bench wants to explore the bench sciences at Samford.
Opportunities for Samford's researchers to contribute to scientific discovery
and to contribute to Samford's research mission.
And so that brings us today to the College of Health Sciences
and to the McWhorter School of Pharmacy and one of our pharmaceutical research
labs, where faculty work hand-in-hand with students on scholarly research projects.
These projects not only provide amazing
mentoring opportunities for faculty and students,
but the research also contributes to our understanding of real life
health challenges, potentially helping many patients around the world.
Today, we're speaking with recent Samford pharmacy graduate Tyler
Kaliszak, who assisted with pharmacy professor Dr.
Patty Jumbo's Research on a potential future treatment for Alzheimer's disease.
Well, Tyler, welcome to Beck's Bench.
Glad to have you today.
Hey, Dr. Taylor thank you very much for having me today.
So when I say words like working on a potential treatment
for Alzheimer's disease, that sounds pretty important.
What does that mean to you?
Yeah, you know,
I think the first word that comes to mind for me personally is humbling,
just to think that maybe I have a small part
in playing towards achieving that goal.
It's something that's very fulfilling to me.
Another word, that kind of comes to mind would be optimistic,
knowing that somebody like Dr.
Jumbo, as well as other research professionals, are here
really with the ultimate goal of trying to improve
the lives of people suffering from this condition.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
I'm an economist. I'm not a scientist.
So give us a little sense of what this work entails.
I understand your research. Dr.
Jumbo's research entails fruit flies.
Say a little bit more about that.
You know, I ask I probably ask Dr.
Jumbo the same exact question of why why a fruit fly on my first day.
And, you know, actually,
they have a lot of advantages, not just because of the low cost,
generally low maintenance and really fast reproductive rates.
But honestly, I think the biggest
key advantage that they have is that their genome,
you know, what they're made up of is actually pretty simple.
But what that allows us to do is really
focus on specific variables that we're looking for
and then try to find associations for stuff, i.e.
like Alzheimer's disease, where we're specifically looking for
some of the hallmark signs like decreased locomotive and memory defects.
Yeah.
So I know this is ongoing research.
Mm hmm.
But are there some results or outcomes that you can talk about?
There was a recent publication, Dr.
Jumbo did finding a correlation with improved memory and locomotion
with a medication that's traditionally used for blood pressure
and like hypertension, which is a Lisinopril,
which was very surprising and also very exciting for future applications.
So the research that we found
was actually building off of that original publication from her.
Oh, that's fantastic.
So you, as a young scientist, get to work with a faculty member, Dr. Jumbo.
What's it like to be side by side in the research lab with somebody like Dr.
Jumbo? It's awesome.
It's been a really great experience for me overall, for somebody younger
as an as a student wanting to look for mentors and people to learn for from.
When you find somebody that you know loves their job and is passionate
about the work that they do.
That's the hallmark person that I personally would look for
as a as a mentor.
So having worked with Dr.
Jumbo, being a part of a research project like this,
say more about how important this kind of research is
and why university like Samford ought to be doing this kind of research.
Well,
when you see the drive and the passion that Dr.
Jumbo has for this research, it really shows you that, hey,
that there is meaning in this in Alzheimer's,
not only because of the amount of passion that she puts towards it,
but because of there's you know, there's really only one FDA approved drug
for the disease state.
So finding any kind of additional research towards answering
solving this problem or answering these questions is extremely important.
What kind of advice would you give to a student who
maybe has the opportunity to work in the research lab alongside
a scientist like Dr. Jumbo?
They might be a little hesitant to do that.
What kind of encouragement would you give them?
Some of the encouragement that I would give them would be
if you are a student who is passionate about helping others
and specifically in the medical field, really ask questions
and is able to kind of get that application base learning
and want to learn from that aspect.
There is no shortage of faculty members doing research here at Samford
that is going to foster that environment and help you thrive
in that environment here at Samford, I believe.
Where do you hope to go from here? Here.
I want to build on everything that I've learned, really trying
to objectively answer these questions, either through the scientific method and
and being able to apply that learning and actually test for questions that I have.
I think that that's
an applicable field that even if I don't go into research,
I can apply that application based learning
in any field of medicine that I plan to go through.
Tyler, thanks for talking to us today.
We're proud of you.
We're proud of Dr.
Jumbo and the important work you're doing to improve the lives of others.
Thank you.
Thank you, Doctor Taylor. I appreciate you.
If you want to read more about Dr.
Jumbo's research into Alzheimer's disease,
be on the lookout for our next Seasons magazine.
There you'll find an in-depth look into her and our students' important work.
Well, thanks again for watching this episode of Beck's Bench.
Until next time, I'm Beck Taylor.
And of course, go Bulldogs.