Photo courtesy of Shira Ziegler

Shira Ziegler '08 has a new honor to add to her list of achievements earned at both Oberlin and at the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). USA TODAY recently named the neuroscience major to its 2008 ALL-USA College Academic Honorable Mention team.

The recognition program honors high-achieving undergraduates who excel in scholarship and intellectual pursuits that extend beyond the classroom to benefit society. Criteria include grades, academic rigor, leadership, activities, and the student's essay describing his or her most outstanding intellectual endeavor done while in college, according to USA TODAY.

Ziegler, of Bethesda, Md., represents Oberlin College in the Honorable Mention category for her achievements in science. She has spent four summers and one winter term working in the molecular neurogenetics section at NIH. She also received a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation award for 2007-08.

"I am honored that Oberlin College nominated me for the All-USA College Academic Team," Ziegler says.

At Oberlin, Ziegler is working on her honors project in neuroscience with Associate Professor Janice Thornton. Ziegler is investigating the effects of decreased luteinizing hormone (LH) levels on hippocampal-dependent spatial memory in female rats. She also is using an Alzheimer's disease rat model to determine if decreasing LH levels can preserve memory function. This research has implications for a new preventative drug treatment for Alzheimer's patients.

"Shira is a fantastic student," says Thornton. "She has been doing research at the National Institutes of Health since she was 16. She is already a mature scientist, working at an advanced graduate level. She works very independently and has great analytical skills, plus lots of energy. She has built her honor's project on work other students have done with me in the past and is taking it even further. She introduced the Alzheimer's disease model into the lab and has found that if Luteinizing Hormone (LH) actions are blocked, some of the cognitive deficits seen in Alzheimer's can be eliminated."

The discovery is specially significant because LH is a hormone that increases as women age and go through menopause, and women are twice as likely as men to get Alzheimer's. A drug that blocks the effects of high LH in women may become an important treatment to help maintain optimal cognitive functioning as women age.

"Shira's research is thorough and important," says Thornton. "We will present her research at two scientific conferences and publish her honor's thesis in a scientific journal (and one professor has suggested there is enough research there to warrant two articles). That's a rare achievement for an undergraduate anywhere."

Since receiving the Goldwater scholarship, Ziegler has been involved in a variety of research projects. This past summer, she worked in the neurosurgery department at Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, where she examined the efficacy and toxicity of combinatorial drug treatments on malignant glioma in cell culture and animal models. While at Hopkins, she also observed brain tumor surgeries with the chief of neurosurgery. Her research is being presented this spring at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting.

Ziegler's past research has focused on Gaucher disease, an inherited, potentially fatal genetic disorder caused by a deficiency of the enzyme glucocerebroside that produces excess amounts of a fatty substance or lipid in the body. The disease can cause blood disorders and bone complications.

Last year, Ziegler studied at Hebrew University in Israel. During her first winter term, she worked at Environmental Defense, a nonprofit organization that links science, economics, and law to create innovative solutions for pressing environmental problems. She analyzed industry reports of high production volume chemicals and compiled research on nanotechnology related to public health and the environment.

Ziegler recently earned a NIH Intramural Research Training Award. Following graduation this spring, she will work for a year with the clinical director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. There, she will be working in a laboratory looking at inborn errors of metabolism through molecular and cellular biological investigations and observing and treatment of patients in the clinic.

She plans to pursue a combined MD/PhD degree, and she will apply to programs this summer.