In This Duke Biology Class, Students Research a Disease That Steals the Ability to Walk

In the Duke biology course "Experiments in Animal Models of Human Neurodegenerative Disease," undergraduate students learn how to conduct meaningful research with medical impact. 

Students in the class, taught by biologists Nina Sherwood and Emily Ozdowski, conduct hands-on research using fruit flies to investigate Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that leads to loss of mobility.

“This lab is different from a normal classroom in that we never quite know what's going to happen at any given moment of our class,” said Ozdowski. “You might see students giving fruit flies new food. You might see antibody staining. You might see larval dissections."

Ultimately, students work toward understanding how HSP genetic mutations affect neural connections between muscles and nerves in fruit flies, which share roughly 75% of human disease-related genes.

For Duke students, the experience is transformative. 

“I love the feeling that you're doing real research and the impact that you have,” said one student in the class. “You're making real findings.”

Sherwood and Ozdowski say the impact extends beyond the classroom: “If what we find from this class contributes even a small part to helping patients with this disorder, that would be an amazing contribution.”