Research fellow: Katie Heisler
Hometown: Mahwah, NJ
School: Roger Williams University
Major: Marine Biology; minor, Mathematics
Mentor: Roxanna Smolowitz
Project: Is neoplasia in hard clams infectious?

Katie Heisler decided at a young age that she wanted to work with marine animals.

“I knew from early childhood that I wanted to be a marine veterinarian,” she says. “We went to North Carolina every summer and I’d always go to the sea turtle rehabilitation shelter, and see all the injured sea turtles.”

This summer, the senior has positioned herself exactly where she wants to be, working on her first full-time research project under the guidance of Assistant Professor Roxanna Smolowitz, helping investigate how hard clams in the Wellfleet, Mass., harbor are getting infected with a deadly disease.

Pausing from her research in the RWU aquatic diagnostic lab, Heisler explains that the disease, neoplasia, causes obstructions in the vascular system of the clams: “Large, abnormal cells take the place of hemocytes, normal blood cells, and cause them to be sick. They surface and die.”

The prevalence of the disease has seen an increase and posed a significant impact on the aquaculture industry in the harbor, sparking concern about the potential spread of the disease, which only arises from May to June.

Using a syringe, Heisler explains, she has injected the diseased cells both into healthy clams and directly into the water where healthy clams are kept to help determine how the disease is transmitted — from clam to clam or through the water. The experiment also is being done at two different temperatures to determine whether the warming waters of climate change might play a role.

Heisler, who hopes to go onto veterinary school, spent time abroad in Bermuda during the fall semester, conducting a four-week research project that looked at the rocky intertidal zone. She also worked in a lab last summer.

“This is my first experience working on my own,” says Heisler of her RI EPSCoR Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) project. “I was a little nervous at first, but I’ve had a blast. It’s a lot of hard work. I’ve had help, though, and it’s good to be able to bounce ideas off of people. It’s helped confirm that this is what I want to do.”

Story and photo by Amy Dunkle