Barnard Biochemist Nasreen Haque Conducts Cutting-Edge Research on Biodiversity in Gowanus Canal
New York, NY-- The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn is a long way, both in distance and in psychological space, from the place where Barnard College biochemist Nasreen Haque first dreamed of a career aimed at protecting and understanding marine life. But it is at the bottom of this murky, toxic waterway where she is making remarkable progress in identifying the biodiversity and the harmful pollutants that exist side-by-side.
Haque does not stay on dry land and let others dive for her microbe samples - she herself is an avid diver and scientific advisor to the Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy. She is also member of the New York City Sea Gypsies, a club devoted to scuba diving. Haque has teamed up with her sister Niloufar Haque, a noted neuroscientist and a professor at the New York Institute of Technology, and they are researching a mysterious white semi-fluorescent substance observed by the Conservancy's director Ludger Balan in the benthic- or floor- of the Gowanus Canal.
This substance has not been found anywhere else in the city waters and their goal is to identify the microbial diversity that can prevail in this environment affected by the harsh big city pollutants. The Canal was originally a tidal inlet consisting of small creeks with abundant wildlife. Its heyday with maritime and commercial industry began in the 1920s and along with it came the pollution. Attempts are being made at present to control pollution through remediation.
The sisters hope that in the process of researching the substance, they will be able to better understand how chemical pollutants in the canal, which used to even have oysters in its cleaner days, have affected the bio-organisms living there. Haque, the diver in the duo, is filming and collecting samples underwater for analysis.
Because of the many toxins in the river, diving is arduous and can be dangerous. Special galvanized rubber dry suits must be worn so that water does not touch the skin.
"We need to do it manually like this so the samples do not get contaminated," said Haque. "It is hard, but we do it for science. We are in the process of developing methods on how to get the samples easier."
Haque expects to complete the tests by this summer to find out what the mysterious milky substance is.
Both sisters have involved their students in the project by analyzing some of the water samples and data using molecular and microbiological research techniques. Next Friday, May 13th, they will be hosting a one-day conference at the New York Institute of Technology, perhaps on scuba diving and environmental biodiversity, which will include lectures and demonstrations, as well as a pool session where students can discover scuba and underwater photography.
Haque, who was born in India and educated there, first became interested in pursuing the study of marine life through the films of Jacques Cousteau's, the famous French marine biologist, who fared the oceans for decades in an effort to protect and better understand marine life.
But it was not until she saw a film as an undergraduate of a famous Indian scientist Dr. Zahur Qasim who took the first Indian scientific team on an expedition to Anarctica that her dream started to take the shape of reality.
"In the film, I saw Dr. Qasim place the Indian flag on the earth of Anarctica as the first Indian scientist to lead the team there. This really impressed me - it being a very important event, so important to my country and the underdeveloped world in general," said Haque. "And to top it all, he was a faculty member at the Department of Zoology at my university, the same Department that I joined later. He never knew that he was such a role model for me."
Haque is also an accomplished molecular biologist, whose research on cardiovascular disease has led to the discovery of a new role for a gene belonging to a family of proteins called chemokines. The CC chemokine CCL-1 regulates the migration of cells in the arteries with direct implications on how conditions like heart disease and cancer develop. With the help of this discovery, new methods and medicines to help dysfunctional arteries and to fight cancer can be formulated.
Haque first got involved with marine research in 1989 when she participated in an expedition to Laccadive Islands off the coast of India, looking for biodiversity in fish, while on the faculty of the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa, India. She continued similar work at India's prestigious National Institute of Immunology where she was among the first scientists to conduct research on transgenic fish using recombinant DNA technology. By manipulating the genome and inducing the gene for growth, Haque could determine whether bigger fish could be generated, which in turn could result in a larger food supply for the country.
Haque arrived in the United States in 1993 to continue research using transgenic technology to study neuronal disorders at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She researched and helped identify the genes that are involved in the development of multiple sclerosis through testing on transgenic mice. "Same research, but with a different model - I went from fish to mice," Haque said.
At the invitation of a known hematologist Dr. Peter Harpel, and expert on lipoprotein (a) (known to be an independent risk factor in the development of atherosclerosis,) Haque joined a team of scientists to form a molecular biology section and conduct cardiovascular research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Haque and her colleagues ended up discovering a new function for a gene in atherosclerosis. It turned out to be a protein, called CC chemokine CCL-1, which is the major chemo-attractant induced by lipoprotein in human vascular endothelial cells. Haque's research paper was chosen as one of the best research papers at Mount Sinai that year and she was invited to present it at the yearly conference by the American Society of Hematology.
Haque joined the Barnard faculty in 2004 as a term professor and has taught Biochemistry, senior colloquium and researched chemokine regulation with students enrolled for the senior thesis. She received her doctorate at Aligarh Muslim University in India in 1987. |
