Going Global: Part III
Students conduct research in ancient Polish forest

UM students work alongside Polish students in the Bialowieza Forest.

Editor’s Note: This is part three of a series on University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy students who have participated in international pharmacy-related experiences during summer 2015.

7,000-year-old forest in Poland could hold the key to unlocking some of the world’s major health problems. A group of four students and two professors from the University of Mississippi traveled to Europe to study the ancient ecosystem in July.

“The Bialowieza Forest is particularly unique because it has not been touched by human hands for several hundred years,” said Jordan Zjawiony, native of Poland and UM professor of pharmacognosy. “We can only imagine what is inside. We had a special permit to access the wildest part of Bialowieza Forest, the Bialowieski National Park.”

School of Pharmacy students Adam Keasling and Austin Morrison, as well as biology students Michelle Ha and Ann Rasmussen traveled together to Poland with Zjawiony and Jason Hoeksema, associate professor of biology.

The six-week trip was funded by the National Science Foundation (grant number 1459504), of which Zjawiony is the principal investigator and Hoeksema the co-principal investigator. The three-year grant will allow groups of students to travel to Europe each summer to conduct research in the forest alongside Polish students and scientists.

The Bialowieza Forest is located on the border of Poland and Belarus. This strictly protected area is the most natural forest complex in the lowland part of Europe. It contains rare old growth and lies in a unique border zone between the boreal and temperate climate zones.

Zjawiony said that the forest holds great potential for the discovery of new natural products.

“Future pharmacists should learn that there are lots of medicinal plants around us that could be beneficial for patients,” he said. “We should work with them and eventually utilize them as drugs. That is one of our goals for the work we conduct in Poland.”

Fungi, in particular, are abundant in Bialowieza.

Fungi are abundant in the Bialowieza Forest.

“We found a very rare species of mushroom that grows on trees,” Zjawiony said. “These particular mushrooms have potential anticancer activity, which we are very excited about. We can study them further here at the National Center for Natural Products Research and confirm the activity while finding out what the active components are.”

Hoeksema is an expert in mycorrhizal fungi, a specialized class of fungi that grows symbiotically with the roots of plants. The group studied the fungi and how they interact with various species.

“We hope that the students gained an appreciation for both the particular challenges and potential rewards of international research collaborations while on this trip,” Hoeksema said. “They learned important basic information about the Bialowieza Forest and about the unique culture and people of Poland.”

Morrison, a second-year professional pharmacy student from Ridgeland, said the experience was “informative, yet completely different from the U.S.”

“Being able to travel all over Poland and see the history that the country has endured was extremely eye-opening,” Morrison said. “It was a wonderful opportunity to gain knowledge about research in a foreign country.”

Rasmussen, a biology graduate student from Kingsport, Tennessee, was intrigued by the opportunity to conduct research in the historical forest.

“Bialowieza has a history of various human uses, such as royal hunting grounds, bison grazing and timber, so there was a mosaic of ecosystems in a pretty small area,” Rasmussen said. “Currently, large areas in and around the forest aren’t actively managed, and the large amount of downed wood is a good habitat for rare fungi.”

Now that the first trip has ended, the group members will seek to publish their findings in scientific journals. Zjawiony is excited about recruiting students for next year’s trip.

“This experience was so beneficial to our students,” he said. “Now that the first year of the project has been completed, we will begin reaching out to students for next summer.”