Developmental Biology and Toxicology

What we do

The goal of our research is to assess the toxic effects of a chemical known as bisphenol A (or BPA), which was once commonly used in the production of plastic materials. It is still prevalent in our environment today despite being largely taken out of plastic production, especially in aquatic environments like the ocean. Due to this, we utilize sea urchins (a marine organism) and examine how their early development is affected when grown in water containing the chemical.

How we do it

Our research utilizes light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy to view our developing sea urchin embryos and determine how they are affected by BPA. Light microscopy (LM) is used to record the amount of abnormal development that we observe in the embryos exposed to BPA. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is used to measure the embryonic skeletons of the sea urchins for differences between normal skeletons and BPA-exposed skeletons. We also utilize the program ImageJ to measure our skeletons, and the program RStudio to statistically analyze the data that we collect.

Our Goal

Our research will provide more information regarding the danger that BPA poses to our environment and many animals’ health, including humans. It is known that BPA has been found in humans, and it is associated with many adverse health effects. Our findings are intended to increase awareness regarding this chemical.

Interested in learning more?

Please feel free to email me at jkunsman@muhlenberg.edu.

What research is like?

The past several semesters in our lab have been unique. With only being able to run experiments every few weeks when our sea urchins our shipped, a day-in-the-life of research can be very calm one day and busy the next when it comes time for an experiment. The time spent outside of experimentation would revolve around covering current literature or discussing changes that could be made to our methods. Currently, we are working on drafting our paper and preparing to publish it. This so far has involved daily editing for each section of the paper.

Communicating our work

We have mostly communicated our work through posters and presentations, such as the summer research Friday Forums.