Brittany Charsar: Pursuing Excellence, from Molecular DNA to World Religions
She stares at the textbook. If only she could wrap her brain around the process of gene transcription.
So, the promoters initiate RNA polymerase to begin transcription at a particular site on the DNA. How do the transcription factors know where the gene is and when to bind to DNA? If the DNA is not highlighted like in the textbook, how can we know where a gene starts and stops?
University of Pittsburgh student Brittany Charsar (A&S ’13) sighs and take her eyes away from her book for a moment. Maybe she will switch gears and start working on that religious studies paper, she thinks.
Then, it hits her, like the proverbial ray of light.
She has to use the figures and diagrams in her textbooks as a tool to understand transcription; it is the pathway to understanding what a gene is, but it is not a final, rigid representation. The idea of a gene is just that, an idea.
She has been learning about the philosopher Kant’s noumenal versus phenomenal world (the world of ideas versus sensory reality) in her religious studies class, and she suddenly sees how it applies to genetics.
In the phenomenal world, we want to visualize the gene and interact with it, so we try to define a gene and illustrate it with drawings and graphical representations, molding it into something we can grasp and understand. But by doing so, we make ourselves prone to a constrained way of thinking.
Charsar smiles. This is what she tries to explain to people when they ask why she is a double major in what may seem like two disparate fields (religious studies and molecular biology). Well, she is a double major in these areas because she loves both fields, first and foremost. But she also is a double major because—contrary to popular belief—these areas of study are not mutually exclusive. In some totally cool and integrative ways, they inform each other.
She also has used scientific analogies to help better explain religious concepts. She employed the analogy of how water changes physical states to debate whether or not there was a place between the noumena and the phenomena in a religious studies class. She wrote a paper for her class, “Myth, Symbol, and Ritual,” on the concept of disease and how it has changed over time. Her pre-med studies came in handy there as well.
Charsar’s religious studies work also thrives on her personal faith: She is an actively practicing Catholic and attended Catholic school from K-12th grade. But, she is fascinated with other beliefs. “I love getting that feeling of, ‘Wow, this is someone else’s idea of truth,’ when learning about a different religion,” says Charsar. “Studying other religions opens up my mind to the diverse cultures of the world and gives me a deeper appreciation for them. It also makes me want to travel and experience them all firsthand!”
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Gene expression—the process by which genes are turned on when they are needed and turned off when they are not—is pretty important stuff. When it goes awry, cells can either die or grow uncontrollably. These two fates can lead to a variety of human diseases and cancers. Joseph Marten’s lab delves into understanding the molecular mechanisms that are involved in controlling gene expression—specifically in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which provides an excellent model to study gene regulation.
Charsar has been working with Marten, an assistant professor in the Dietrich School’s Department of Biological Sciences, and his grad students since May 2010. She contributes 15 hours of lab time a week during the school year, but ramps it up to a full 40 hours in summer. The research she helps with focuses on Spt16, a protein which is responsible for maintaining the structure of nucleosomes during active transcription. Charsar and her fellow researchers have utilized a collection of Spt16 mutants to reveal that when Spt16 does not work right, there are corresponding defects in the nucleosomes. These nucleosomal defects can throw a wrench in the whole process of proper gene regulation. This means that Spt16 plays an important role in nucleosome maintenance, which is important for whether or not genes are regulated properly.
The results of this research were recently published. “Identification of Spt16 mutants that are defective for transcription-coupled nucleosome occupancy in Saccharomyces cerevisiae,” was published in the journal G3: Genes, Genomics, and Genetics in May 2012. Charsar was listed as a contributor, along with Marten, graduate student Sarah Hainer, and undergraduate Shayna Cohen.
Charsar is thrilled to be in the lab. “The research you learn as an undergrad here really sets you apart from other undergraduates,” she notes. “Pitt really encourages and goes out of the way to get undergrads involved in research. I wanted to start as early as I could, so I started the summer after my freshman year and probably could’ve started earlier. (Charsar’s first research took place in the lab of Robert Sobol, associate professor of pharmacology and chemical biology, at UPMC’s Hillman Cancer Center.) I am involved in my lab like the other grad students, lab techs, and lab managers. I hold the responsibility to participate in lab meetings, present at journal club, and do my portion of the lab chores.”
She knows this experience, along with her diverse studies, will prepare her well for the next step. Charsar will graduate next April and is already in the process of applying to MD/PhD programs throughout the United States—including Pitt. She is interested in pursuing either pediatrics or infectious disease in medical school, and will probably study genetics or proteomics for her PhD (though she still exploring her options for research). She is also passionate about global health issues, specifically maternal health in developing countries. (A life-changing, three-month study abroad trip last May, that focused on public health in Tanzania, has anchored that commitment.) So many interests, so little time…
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Charsar’s passion for learning led her to Pitt. She still remembers her first visit, for an Honors College open house.
“(The late) Dean Alec Stewart gave a very riveting lecture about what the Honors College was and what it offered. I was taken by how passionate the Honors College was about learning,” says Charsar. “I felt that they understood exactly how I felt about learning and the importance of knowledge. I was excited because I knew I could be challenged here.”
Though the University has challenged Charsar, she has challenged herself equally. She juggles a heady mix of academic study (with her double major), lab research, volunteer work (she has worked at both Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC and UPMC Presbyterian), and Pitt activities (over the years, she has been a member of multiple groups and honor societies and has taken on active leadership roles in each of them). And, in her free time, she babysits three children ranging in age from seven to three in a Fox Chapel home. She is a Phi Beta Kappa member, won the Outstanding Freshman Biology Award, and has been continually on the Dean’s List Honor Roll.
This summer, Charsar is participating in the prestigious Amgen Scholars Summer Research Program at the University of California, Berkeley, conducting immunology research in the lab of Professor Ellen Robey, but come fall, she will be back, ready to launch her senior year of study.
As busy as she is, Charsar has been enjoying every moment of her time at the University. “I am so happy that I decided to come to Pitt,” Charsar says, confessing that she has become a Pitt recruiter. “I constantly try to get my friends’ younger sibling to come to Pitt. I tell them all the reasons Pitt is so awesome. It has everything…a diverse student population, every club and activity you can imagine, the most diverse range of majors and academic interests. No matter what type of person you are, or what type of things you’re interested in, you can find it here.”