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CU Boulder neuroscientist will spend much of August helping European high school students learn the finer points of gene manipulation in prairie听voles

Neuroscientist Zoe Donaldson and her team have found a new way to contribute to global science education.

The associate professor in the Departments of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCDB) and Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder is teaming up with a postdoctoral researcher and one of her graduate students to teach international high school students this August at the听听(SMTB) in Estonia.

Donaldson became involved with the SMTB back in the late 1990s when she attended college with the man who would help start the school, Fyodor (Fedya) Kondrashov.

鈥淎lthough Fedya and I went into different fields鈥攅volutionary biology and neurogenetics, respectively鈥攐ur work has had interwoven themes that have seen听us collaborate multiple times,鈥� Donaldson says. 鈥淲e kept in touch, but it was only after I joined the faculty at CU Boulder and had established my lab that it was feasible for me to begin teaching at the school.鈥�

Kondrashov was excited to invite Donaldson to teach at SMTB.

鈥淚 knew that Zoe has exactly the qualities we are looking for,鈥� Kondrashov says. 鈥淥ne of the school鈥檚 pillars is to create an inclusive program. Every year we have students from over a dozen countries. We work very hard to eliminate barriers so that students feel included. I know that Zoe gets it, and I know she鈥檒l create an inclusive environment.鈥�

Donaldson says before the pandemic, she received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop new ways to manipulate the genome of the prairie vole (a small rodent about the size of a hamster), and听she had an idea for how to involve high school students in a project that would fit into the goals of the grant.听

鈥淭hat was 2020,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his is just now becoming a reality after two years of pandemic patience.鈥�

Donaldson explains that prairie voles, unlike lab mice and rats, are monogamous and form lifelong bonds with their mating partners.听鈥淢y lab studies what makes it possible for them to form such bonds, how doing so changes their brain and what happens when they lose a partner.鈥�

Donaldson鈥檚 work combines neural and genetic experiments to ask questions like what genes are required to be able to form a pair bond, and can an existing bond be broken by manipulating genes in the brain.

鈥淭hese questions are the core of what we鈥檒l be doing at SMTB,鈥� Donaldson says. 鈥淭he students will help us make a set of molecular tools to manipulate specific genes in the prairie vole brain,听which will be used by my lab and others in future experiments to try to make or break bonds.鈥澨�

Julie Sadino, who recently earned her PhD in MCDB with a behavioral neuroscience focus, works with Donaldson as a postdoctoral fellow and will be teaching alongside Donaldson at SMTB.听

鈥淭his is a really cool opportunity, not only for us but also for the students,鈥� Sadino says. 鈥淚鈥檓 very thankful that such a program exists and that we were invited to be a part of it. On a personal note, this is going way out of my comfort zone, but I hope to gain a lot from this experience. I've never been to Europe before, let alone seen how science is done in an international context, so it's all very exciting.鈥�

Liza Brusman, a fourth-year MCDB graduate student who has also served as a teaching assistant, is also going on the trip.

鈥淚 think it will be a great opportunity,鈥� Brusman says. 鈥淚 didn't know what research entailed or how experiments were done when I was in high听school, and an experience like this would have been really valuable to me. I also like teaching 鈥� (and) being able to make students excited about science.鈥�

Donaldson says both Sadino and Brusman have 鈥渟pecialized skills鈥� that will be 鈥渋nvaluable鈥� to their course.

鈥淭he hands-on nature of the course means that one person can't do it alone,鈥� Donaldson says. 鈥淚n addition to teaching, the three of us will serve as mentors to students as they decide which projects to pursue and discuss career opportunities in science.鈥澨�

Kondrashov says he expects about 50 students to take in classes and labs at SMTB鈥攕ome of whom are expected to be from Ukraine.

鈥淥ur students come from a diversity of different countries. Some of them end up in the top universities in the world鈥擧arvard, Yale, Cambridge鈥攋ust to name a few. Most end up in the best universities available to them in the country where they are from. An incredible statistic that I have yet to internalize is that among our first graduates, more than half end up going to do a master鈥檚 or a PhD degree, while some have gone on to industry from their bachelor鈥檚 program and some have gone on to medical school and starting a career in medicine or pharmacy.鈥澨�

Kondrashov adds that he hopes students get to know Donaldson as a person鈥斺�渢o understand her values about research, human relationships in the lab, her integrity and motivation, and also to see her as a wonderful human. In short, my greatest wish is for all of them to be themselves and in doing so being the role models to our students they crave to get to interact with.鈥�