Dr. Lisa Webb
FaST Program Introduces Participants to Mutated Mice
Susan Kenney (left), Dr. Lisa Webb (center), and Terri Kaminsky, participants in the FaST Program, conducted research to determine the baseline phenotypes of mice at ORNL.
Handling mutant rodents might sound like something out of a science fiction movie, but for Dr. Lisa Webb and two of her students, it was just another day at the office at ORNL.
As participants in the Department of Energy's Faculty and Student Team (FaST) Program, Webb and her team tried to determine the baseline phenotypes of mutated mice by studying characteristics such as their organ weights, blood chemistry, and response to cold stress.
Webb is an assistant professor in biology at Christopher Newport University (CNU) in Virginia. She and two of her undergraduate biology students—Susan Kenney and Terri Kaminsky—worked with mentor Dr. Dabney K. Johnson, a senior staff scientist and group leader in the Mouse Genetics and Genomics Program at ORNL.
To determine the mice’s genetic traits, the team measured the animals’ physical and biochemical characteristics. Mice typically maintain their core body temperature in cold environments. However, some of the mice in the experiments did not. To find out why, the team exposed the subjects to cold and compared the results, ultimately aiming for a better understanding of energy balance in mice and the role of dietary fat in energy-balance control.
The knowledge gained could be used to help understand the physical makeup of humans.
A veteran of ORNL, Webb earned her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and did her dissertation research at ORNL’s mouse house. Webb said she got involved with the FaST Program to complete biomedical research that she normally could not do at CNU and to involve her students in world-class research.
Webb said she plans to take what she has learned at ORNL and incorporate it into her classroom for the next generation of scientists. “My summer experience here will definitely affect how I teach [the senior seminar on mouse models of human diseases],” she said. “I will hopefully have a wealth of information from my summer experience that I can use to facilitate that seminar.”