To: Undergraduate Research and Creativity Grant Review Committee

I am writing to you in support of Jonathan Lendrum’s application for the

undergraduate research and creativity grant. Jonathan is currently a major in Biology-

Biomedical concentration at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse. I have known

Jonathan since fall 2014 as his course instructor for Comparative Animal Physiology. He

received an A in the class, with an impressive 95% on the cumulative final. He had a

great attitude, was highly motivated, and genuinely interested in the subject.

Most of the undergraduate research students take a research project from their

faculty advisor and work on the project under the faculty advisor’s direct supervision.

Jonathan took a very different route. He developed his own original ideas and actively

reached out to faculty advisors who might be able to help him to test his ideas. He is very

interested in the links between gut microbiota and brain function. Specifically, he would

like to test a hypothesis that perturbation of gut microbiota by antibiotic treatment or

high-fat diet activates gut-brain axis and alters sleep behavior. Since this is a relatively

broad topic, Jonathan sought help from several UWL faculty members from different

disciplines, including Dr. Andrew Berns from Computer Science Department, Drs. Barret

Klein, Sumei Liu, and Brad Seebach from Biology Department. I (Sumei Liu) am one of

his faculty advisors to help him test how perturbation of gut microbiota changes gut

permeability. Increasing in gut permeability may open up a route for gut microbiota or

their metabolites to enter the body, active the gut-brain axis, and change brain function.

Jonathan received an undergraduate research and creativity grant in spring 2015

to start the project. During this phase of the project, he treated the mice with broad-

spectrum antibiotics and high-fat diet for 2 weeks. Broad-spectrum antibiotics would

deplete the gut microbiota, while high-fat diet would change the composition of gut

microbiota. He videotaped the sleep behaviors of the animals continuously before and

during the treatment period. He collected all samples and is currently doing data analysis.

One of the critical components of the project is to determine the changes in gut

bacteria population after antibiotic or high-fat diet treatment. By knowing the gut bacteria

composition, we can relate the changes in gut permeability and sleep behavior to certain

population of bacteria in the gut. Jonathan plans to send the fecal samples from our

experiment to the University of Madison Biotechnology Center for next-generation DNA

sequencing, a technique that can determine the microbial composition down to genus and

species level. An additional support by the undergraduate research and creativity grant

will help him achieve this goal.

Jonathan is a very independent undergraduate researcher. This is his project. He

designed the experiments, carried out the experiments, and even monitored the progress

of the project among several collaborators, including faculty members and undergraduate

research students. I view myself as his collaborator rather than a supervisor. I fully

support his application and will help him as much as I can. Aside from the experiments, I

will be available for advice on data analysis and preparation and submission of abstracts

and manuscripts. Due to the nature of the experiments, four months will be required to

complete the proposed experiments and an extra 2-3 months will be needed to finish data

analysis and preparation of abstracts and manuscripts.

If I can be of any further assistance, please feel to contact me.

Sincerely,

Sumei Liu

Associate Professor, Department of Biology