On Friday, February 8th at 6:30 PM, we will be holding the next lecture of our JICC Seasonal Art Lecture Series from Emerging Scholars:

Scholar Spotlight: Architectural Innovations of the Early Showa Period: The Japanese Bauhauslers

With Presenter Dr. Suzie Kim, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Mary Washington

Through a close investigation of artist Migishi Kotaro’s atelier in Tokyo (1934), Dr. Suzie Kim will discuss modern architectural practices of Japanese architect and former Bauhausler, Yamawaki Iwao (1898 – 1987), who sought to advance Japanese housing style based on his study at the Dessau Bauhaus between 1930 and 1932, and searched for a synthesis between geometric forms, straightforward structures reinforced concrete, and the traditional Japanese construction methods.

More information can be found at our website, and you can register for this free event through Eventbrite.

On behalf of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Corporate Recruitment Unit (CRU) would like to promote an upcoming Engineering Pathways Internship Program opportunity to students and recent graduates (graduated within 2 years).

Interns will work with the Office of Research Facilities (ORF), Division of Design and Construction Management (DDCM).

The Pathways Internship program is a paid opportunity for students and recent graduates that seek a dynamic, career development program with training and mentorship. 

To be eligible for the upcoming opportunity, applicants must have a cumulative GPA of a 3.0 or above.

For more information, please email The Corporate Recruitment (NIH/OD) at corporaterecruitment@od.nih.gov.

You can also learn more here: jobs.nih.gov

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Alumni Association International Scholarship

Two leading advocates for the arts and humanities in Maryland have elected Scott Casper, dean of UMBC’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, to their boards of directors. Casper is now beginning three-year terms with Maryland Humanities and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance (GBCA), continuing UMBC’s strong tradition of partnership with the two organizations.

Strong collaboration in the humanities

Maryland Humanities has long been a champion for UMBC’s humanities scholarship. Numerous UMBC faculty have received Maryland Humanities grants over the years. Most recently Felipe Filomeno, assistant professor of political science, and Tania Lizarazo, assistant professor of modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication, received support for their project “Honest Conversation: Faith Community Dialogues on Immigration and Race.” Additionally, Maryland Humanities has worked closely with the Dresher Center for the Humanities at UMBC to highlight humanities scholarship through the regular audio segment Humanities Connection, aired on WYPR.

Both institutions have also partnered for the annual Maryland History Day, which is sponsored by Maryland Humanities and hosted at UMBC (this year on May 11). This program engages 27,000 middle and high school students across the state in historical research projects each year, to help them develop skills in research, critical thinking, writing, and public speaking.

In the spring of 2018, when Maryland Humanities celebrated its 45th anniversary, the organization also honored UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski for his dedication to the organization and his service as a former board member.

“We’re delighted to welcome Dr. Casper to our Board of Directors,” says Phoebe Stein, executive director of Maryland Humanities. “His belief in the value and power of the humanities in our everyday lives, his extensive knowledge of the humanities in Maryland, and his work as a scholar and vast experience as a nonprofit administrator will be immensely valuable.”

A unique arts partnership

The GBCA has partnered with and supported UMBC’s arts community throughout its seventeen years as a vital arts organization for Baltimore artists. Several UMBC arts faculty have received GBCA awards to support their work, including Tim Nohe, professor of visual arts and director of the  Center for Innovation, Research, and Creativity in the Arts (CIRCA); Lee Boot, director of the Imaging Research Center; and Kathy O’Dell, associate professor visual arts and special assistant to the dean for education and arts partnerships.

Numerous UMBC faculty, staff, and alumni have received GBCA Baker Artist Awards. Most recently, celebrated jazz pianist and composer Lafayette Gilchrist ‘92, Africana studies, received a Baker Artist Award to help him continue to compose, perform, and record as a soloist and leader of two genre-defying bands.

UMBC faculty have also supported the GBCA through service and professional development work, honoring the institutions’ shared commitment to innovation and leadership in the arts. O’Dell served for many years on the GBCA Board of Directors, and continues to serve as co-chair of its Equity and Inclusion committee. Additionally, UMBC’s CIRCA partnered with GBCA in professional development intensives for faculty and students.

“It is tremendously meaningful to have Scott on our board with his expertise in the Walters, Civil War monuments, and his humanities perspective,” says Jeannie L. Howe, Executive Director of the GBCA. “We are extremely excited to have his enthusiasm and balance to make great contributions and strengthen [our work] with Maryland Humanities and UMBC as cultural partners in the region, state, and country.”

“Both Maryland Humanities and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance immeasurably enrich our communities, region, and state,” says Scott Casper. “They nurture our collective humanity, our creativity, and our understanding of contemporary and historical contexts for our challenges and endeavors.”

He shares, “I am honored to continue UMBC’s long partnerships with them and excited to participate in their essential work.”

Banner image: Scott Casper with colleagues. By Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

“The drug you design ten years from now may already be obsolete,” Ivan Erill says. In a new study in Frontiers in Microbiology, Erill and colleagues describe how bacteria that existed hundreds of millions of years ago were already resistant to an antibacterial drug not invented until the 1930s. Once farmers began using the new class of drugs in agriculture, resistance spread quickly. As the bacteria were exposed to the drugs on a large scale in soils and waterways, antibiotic-resistant strains began appearing in hospitals within a decade.

How is this all possible? Antibiotic resistance has much deeper roots than most people realize, Erill explains. Many antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections today are based on molecules bacteria naturally produce to out-compete their neighbors. “Your competitors are not just going to stand by,” says Erill, professor of biological sciences, “so over millions of years they are going to develop resistance. That’s a given.”

But the drugs featured in this research are not natural antibiotics. They are synthetic compounds produced by humans. “With synthetic drugs, that’s a different picture altogether,” Erill says. “It’s not a given that you would find resistance.” That’s why the research team was surprised when they did—hundreds of millions of years before the drugs were invented.

Tracking down the source

The synthetic antibacterial drugs in question, called sulfonamides, target an enzyme involved in a pathway necessary for DNA synthesis. If an organism can’t replicate its DNA, it can’t reproduce, so its population quickly dwindles to nothing. The bacteria that are resistant to sulfonamides have modified genes for the target enzyme, called sul genes (for sulfonamide resistance). These genes allow the bacteria to continue reproducing in the presence of the drug, which means the antibiotic won’t work on them.

Most sulfonamide-resistant bacteria have sul genes in what are called mobile elements—small segments of DNA that can easily jump from one individual or species to another. Erill and colleagues used computational tools to figure out which bacteria species had sulfonamide-resistance genes in their chromosomes instead of in mobile elements, indicating that they were the original sources of the resistance. They showed that two groups of bacteria harbor chromosomal sul-like genes.  

“You can use algorithms to reconstruct the most likely evolutionary history that explains the development of sulfonamide resistance,” Erill says. Those algorithms allowed the researchers to confirm that the resistance existed 500 to 600 million years ago. To further verify their results, the researchers inserted copies of the chromosomal sul-like genes into bacterial cells in the lab. When exposed to sulfonamides, the cells grew just fine, confirming that the genes confer resistance.

Pure chance

The question remains, though: “How can you explain that bacteria 500 million years ago were resistant to a substance that didn’t yet exist?” asks Erill. While there is an small chance some organism was producing a sulfonamide-like compound hundreds of millions of years ago and resistance evolved in response to that pressure, Erill and his team put forth a different argument.

“There is an enormous amount of bacterial genetic diversity,” Erill says. Miquel Sanchez, a Ph.D. student at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the first author on the paper, adds, “Resistant variants of the antibacterial target could be present in the global genetic pool even before microbes are exposed to them.”

So, the reason these two bacterial groups were resistant to a compound that had never existed? Erill says, “We argue that this is just pure chance.”

Rogue bacteria

This research has big implications for the development and use of future antibiotics. If scientists develop a new antibiotic, “it is well possible that there might be one bacterium in the world that is already resistant,” Erill says. With conservative use of the antibiotic in human patients, though, it’s unlikely that particular bacterium would ever be exposed to the antibiotic and spread its resistance.

But, “if you overuse the drug, especially in an agricultural setting, where the drug slowly permeates into the soil, waterways, and underground water reservoirs,” you’re exposing “this huge population of bacteria that otherwise would never be bothered by antibiotics or synthetic drugs,” Erill says. And, based on the team’s analysis, if the one bacterium that is already resistant is exposed to the drug, “this variant that is resistant will jump to other species in a matter of years.”

“For me, it’s especially a warning against using antibiotics in farm settings,” Erill says. New drugs are typically tested using disease-causing bacterial species, “but maybe that’s not enough,” he says. “Maybe you should do broader testing, especially on the non-usual suspects, like soil bacteria.”

Erill also says the new finding points toward using combination therapies more often. A bacterium in nature might harbor a chance resistance to one compound it’s never encountered, but it’s unlikely to be resistant to two. If doctors use two drugs at once, it is likely that one of the drugs will kill the bacteria, preventing it from spreading its resistance to the other drug.

These new research findings could affect how well superbugs are kept at bay and the effectiveness of new antibiotic treatments. Whether the agricultural industry and drug developers heed the team’s advice remains to be seen.

Image: From left to right, the authors of the paper: Ivan Erill, Pilar Cortés, Jordi Barbé, and Miquel Sánchez-Osuna. Photo by Ángela Martínez Mateos.