Alexander
Michels hails
from the south suburbs of Chicago and until now has lived his entire life in
Illinois. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an undergraduate,
where he received his B.S. in Biochemistry, graduating with high distinction.
After working briefly in a molecular biology laboratory at the University of
Chicago, he came to Oregon State University as an LPI fellowship student. He
is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.
Alex works in Dr. Tory Hagen’s lab, under the broad scope of understanding the
changes in oxidant production and anti-oxidant status during the aging process.
He is concentrating on vitamin C, especially its decline in older animals. The
reason for this decline in vitamin C is unknown and could be due to a variety
of factors that change during the aging process. Specifically, he is investigating
the transport and levels of vitamin C and its oxidized counterpart, dehydroascorbic
acid, in cells isolated from rat organs. This research will help us to understand
how antioxidant defense changes during the aging process as the amount of free
radicals increases.
Yu
Zhen earned her
B.S. in Ecology and Environmental Biology in 1994 from the Department of Environmental
Science, Nankai University, P.R. China. She worked as an engineer in the Environmental
Protection Agency of Yantai, Shandong province, P.R. China from 1994 to 1996.
For the next three years, she studied the etiologic hypothesis of Kashin-Beck
Disease, an endemic osteoarthrophy in China, at the State Key Laboratory of
Environmental Aquatic Chemistry, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Science,
Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Yu Zhen is presently a Ph.D. student in Environmental and Molecular Toxicology
and works in the cancer chemoprotection program in LPI, which focuses on the
study of phytochemicals as cancer prevention agents. Initially she studied whole
wheat, refined wheat, and wheat bran as inhibitors of the heterocyclic amines,
also known as cooked-meat mutagens, using both the Salmonella mutagenicity assay
and the rat colonic aberrant crypt focus assay in Dr. Dashwood’s lab. She now
focuses on possible cancer chemprotection by the phytochemical indole-3-carbinol,
found in cruciferous vegetables, against transplacental cancinogenesis in mice.
She carries out these studies in Dr. David Williams’s lab.
Angela
Mastaloudis earned
her B.A. in Biological Sciences from the University of California at Santa Barbara
in 1992. She then spent six years in the recreation industry working for the
forest service, fishing in Alaska, and teaching snow skiing and snow boarding.
In 1998 she returned to school, earning her M.S. degree in Nutrition Science
at Oregon State University in 2000. She is working on her Ph.D. in Exercise
and Sport Science, with a focus on Exercise Physiology.
Angela studies the role of oxidative stress in exercise. For her master’s thesis
project, she conducted an experiment with 14 runners in a 50 km ultramarathon
race. She observed an increase in markers of oxidative stress and an increase
in the rate of vitamin E utilization during the race. For her doctoral thesis
project, she plans to supplement a similar group of runners with vitamin E and/or
vitamin C for six weeks prior to the 50km run. This will allow her to test whether
or not prior supplementation with antioxidants can attenuate the increase in
levels of oxidative stress markers and slow the rate of vitamin E disappearance
that was reported for the first ultramarathon race. Angela is an LPI fellow
in Dr. Maret Traber’s laboratory.
Jung
Suh first came
to the U.S. in 1987 from Thailand to attend a small high school just outside
New Haven, Connecticut. He received his B.A. in biology from Boston University
in 1994. He then entered the School of Public Health at Boston University to
study epidemiology and biostatistics. After receiving an M.P.H. in 1996, he
joined Dr. Balz Frei’s laboratory as a technician and later became a graduate
student studying with Dr. Frei at Boston University School of Medicine. Jung
moved with Dr. Frei to Oregon State University to continue studies under his
mentorship. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biochemistry
and Biophysics studying under both Drs. Balz Frei and Tory Hagen.
The central aim of Jung’s dissertation project is to establish the mechanism(s)
by which antioxidants, such as ascorbate and lipoic acid, protect against iron-mediated
oxidative stress. Iron is a vital micronutrient, but its aberrant accumulation
is highly deleterious because it can convert less reactive oxygen species like
hydrogen peroxide into highly reactive hydroxyl radicals that can damage macromolecules,
such as proteins, lipids, and DNA, and lead to myocardial dysfunction or neurodegeneration.
Jung has studied the antioxidant and possible pro-oxidant effects of vitamin
C. His results indicate that even under conditions where iron and hydrogen peroxide
were added to human blood, ascorbate protects against rather than enhances iron-dependent
lipid and protein oxidation. He has also shown that lipoic acid supplementation
in old rats can lower the level of free iron in the brain and restore their
short-term memory. In the rat heart, he has found that lipoic acid supplementation
can lower oxidative stress and restore the level of other antioxidants.
Last updated May, 2001
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