{"id":29755,"date":"2019-03-14T12:19:24","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T16:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/?p=29755"},"modified":"2019-03-21T10:40:52","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T14:40:52","slug":"stevick-first-publication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/2019\/03\/14\/stevick-first-publication\/","title":{"rendered":"C-AIM graduate student co-authors first publication on oyster research"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stevick\"
Rebecca Stevick, a fourth year doctoral student in URI’s College of the Environment and Life Sciences, has been working with advisor Dr. Marta Gomez-Chiarri on RI C-AIM research examining oysters as models for human health.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the past four years, RI C-AIM and University of Rhode Island graduate student Rebecca Stevick<\/strong> has been up close and personal with a staple Rhode Island seafood species: oysters. Now, the fourth year doctoral student has co-authored her first paper on how bivalves can be used as models for human health.<\/p>\n

The article, \u201cFrom the raw bar to the bench: Bivalves as models for human health,\u201d<\/a><\/strong> appears in the March issue of the journal Developmental and Comparative Immunology<\/em>. Stevick\u2019s doctoral advisor, Dr. Marta Gomez-Chiarri<\/strong>, and Dr. Ying Zhang<\/strong>, both professors at URI’s College of the Environment and Life Sciences, are co-authors, along with researchers from across the globe.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough no novel research went into the paper, as a review article I think it is important to step back and ask how current research fits into the greater scheme of things,\u201d explains Stevick. \u201cIt is fitting that this is my first publication because my undergraduate degree is in biomedical engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we tend to be scared of the word \u2018microbiome,\u2019 bacteria can be good. Oysters filter water, help with shoreline protection, and provide habitat for other species, so it is important to study what they are doing to help the bay.\u201dRebecca Stevick, C-AIM graduate student<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As part of her C-AIM research, Stevick is examining how microbial communities, or \u2018microbiomes,\u2019 can help or hinder oysters as they fight against diseases and environmental changes. The research has the potential to shed light on how other species, such as humans, respond to harmful bacteria or rely on certain bacterial species to fight infection and disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though we tend to be scared of the word \u2018microbiome,\u2019 bacteria can be good,\u201d says Stevick. \u201cOysters filter water, help with shoreline protection, and provide habitat for other species, so it is important to study what they are doing to help the bay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Blount_Hatchery\"
Oyster larvae are reared in tanks at Roger Williams University’s Blount Shellfish Hatchery. Photo by Rebecca Stevick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For example, Stevick has been researching the interaction of oysters and their microbiomes when treated with Bacillus<\/em>, a probiotic bacterium found to prevent disease in larval oysters. Working at Roger Williams University\u2019s<\/strong> Luther H. Blount Shellfish Hatchery<\/strong><\/a>, Stevick and Gomez-Chiarri were part of a team performing hatchery trials to see how young oysters respond to the probiotic that\u2019s similar to what is commonly found in yoghurt.<\/p>\n

\"OysterStevick\"
One of Stevick’s oysters from the Providence River is prepared for dissection. Photo by Rebecca Stevick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe would spawn the oysters and place them into their tanks, then study how they grew and how their microbiomes changed for the first 12 days of their lives,\u201d Stevick explains. \u201cWe would see if the Bacillus<\/em> probiotic was protecting the oysters against disease, and look at what other bacteria was helping as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevick, who is fully funded by a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship<\/strong><\/a>, is in the final year of her doctoral degree. Her thesis is incorporating all of her work on oysters, including C-AIM research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that bacteria and plankton are very important to ocean processes and biogeochemical cycles, but on the grand scheme of things, we know very little about how they are involved in the oyster microbiomes,\u201d she says about her work. \u201cI am fascinated by how bacteria allow oysters to do the ecosystem functions that we love them for!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Funded by a $19 million grant from the National Science Foundation through the Rhode Island Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and also a $3.8 million state match, RI C\u2011AIM<\/strong> is a collaboration of engineers, scientists, designers and communicators from eight higher education institutions<\/a> across the state, with the University of Rhode Island as lead, developing a new research infrastructure to assess, predict and respond to the effects of climate variability on coastal ecosystems.<\/em><\/p>\n

For more information about RI C-AIM, visit www.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor<\/a>. <\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past four years, RI C-AIM and University of Rhode Island graduate student Rebecca Stevick has been up close and personal with a staple Rhode Island seafood species: oysters. Now, the fourth year doctoral student has co-authored her first paper on how bivalves can be used as models for human health. The article, \u201cFrom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1994,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29755"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29989,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29755\/revisions\/29989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}