What do brain-eating amoeba, blood transfusions and COVID-19 tests have in common? Medical Laboratory Scientists, that’s what. In this 3-part series, hear from faculty and students in the Medical Laboratory Sciences program at VCU as they explain their unlikely journeys in this field. Historically a “behind the scenes” role, Medical Laboratory Science is one of the most under-recognized healthcare careers; however, MLS professionals provide answers to life-saving decisions every day. They do everything from providing cancer testing results, to predicting the correct antibiotic to prescribe, to typing the correct blood for surgery.
Featured guest
Dr. Melissa Jamerson - Faculty in the VCU Medical Laboratory Sciences program
Program links
Explore more about the Medical Laboratory Sciences program at VCU
To learn more about the profession
Application information
What to hear from us? Sign up here!
What do brain-eating amoeba, blood transfusions and COVID-19 tests have in common? Medical Laboratory Scientists, that’s what. In this 3-part series, hear from faculty and students in the Medical Laboratory Sciences program at VCU as they explain their unlikely journeys in this field. Historically a “behind the scenes” role, Medical Laboratory Science is one of the most under-recognized healthcare careers; however, MLS professionals provide answers to life-saving decisions every day. They do everything from providing cancer testing results, to predicting the correct antibiotic to prescribe, to typing the correct blood for surgery.
Featured guest
Dr. Melissa Jamerson - Faculty in the VCU Medical Laboratory Sciences program
Program links
Explore more about the Medical Laboratory Sciences program at VCU
To learn more about the profession
Application information
What to hear from us? Sign up here!
Welcome to CHP Conversations. A podcast series produced by the VCU College of Health Professions. This series includes conversations with faculty, students, and alumni who exemplify our mission to create influential leaders in healthcare. Hello, and thank you for joining CHP Conversations. My name is Chelsea Gary. I'm the Director of recruitment and student programs here in the College of Health Professions. Today's episode will be a deep dive into our Medical Laboratory Sciences Department here at CHP. Um, I don't know if you all have ever wondered what happens to your blood after it's drawn or samples are sent off to the quote, unquote "lab". Maybe you haven't thought about it, but I know I have. And so the medical laboratory scientists play a vital role on a care delivery team. And so without their careful diagnosis, we're left without accurate information that physicians certainly need. And so today we are joined by Dr. Melissa Jamerson. She is the Assistant Chair of the Medical Laboratory Sciences Department here at CHP, as well as associate professor within the department. Welcome, Dr. Jamerson. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I will certainly give you some time to introduce yourself. But just to kind of provide some context and a bio that we have of Dr. Jamerson. She came to VCU after obtaining her bachelor's in medical lab sciences and PhD in microbiology and immunology. Prior to coming to the department here at VCU, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow investigating cannabinoid modulation [of the] primary human monocyte cytokine response to HIV gp120. Did I say that correctly? You did, you did! Okay, there we go! Alright so thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Jamerson. Thank you. Could you share with us your role here in the college and sort of what you do here? Sure, absolutely. So I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences and the Assistant Chair. My main role or biggest role is teaching. So currently I teach a course, CLLS 202, on the other campus. It is a general education course, part of the Gen-Ed 30 curriculum, or an option for students in the Gen-Ed 30 curriculum. In which we talk about infectious diseases and the impact that they have had on society. So we've been talking about influenza. This coming week they're learning about polio. We're definitely going to talk about COVID (I'm sure) that's coming up very soon and a variety of other infectious diseases. I also teach the immunohematology course here on the MCV campus for our program. And I advise students that are in our program in the graduate courses that have an interest in microbiology, immunohematology or blood banking as well. And some that have interests in immunology. The main thing is teaching. I'm also a researcher here in the department. The current research that we have going on focuses on a free-living amoeba called Naegleria fowleri, often referred to as a brain-eating amoeba. And so we do research looking at drugs that can be repurposed in terms of finding better treatment for patients that are diagnosed with that particular infection. It has a 98% fatality rate if somebody does become infected. So right now I have two graduate students that are looking at different drugs that could possibly be used. So those are the two main things, also a little bit of an administrative role as well. Wow, you are certainly busy, that's for sure. Is this something that you always knew you want it to get into? I mean, as a little girl, did you dream of being a scientist in the lab or what did that look like? So I always enjoyed science, but I have to admit that when I was growing up, I really wanted to go to vet school. I absolutely love animals. I have four dogs, a cat, we have a pony and a horse. Oh, wow. So (You've got the whole zoo) love, love animals. Yeah. So I went to Virginia Tech as a pre-vet students thinking that that was the route that I was going to go into. Very quickly learned that I do love animals, but that I was not somebody who necessarily would be good at treating them because seeing them ill, things like that were very hard for me. So I knew that I love science and I loved microbiology. So I switched and became a bio major, concentrating and microbiology and immunology. I still didn't know about the lab. I know I enjoyed student lab but I didn't know about medical laboratory sciences actually, until I was a senior at Virginia Tech. I took a pathogenic bacteriology course in which we got to go on a field trip to a hospital in Roanoke and we actually got to tour a clinical laboratory. And so I had no idea about the clinical laboratory until then. But as soon as I saw it, I knew that that's the field that I want it to go into. So when I finished at Virginia Tech, I came here to VCU and I completed a second undergraduate degree and became a generalist in clinical laboratory sciences. I was always someone who really enjoyed very hands-on learning (Sure.). I wanted to make an impact in terms of health care. But, never saw myself as being a nurse or a physician. Definitely knew that that was not for me, but really, really enjoyed being in the laboratory. Awesome. I know you mentioned being able to make an impact in the (Absolutely) health care setting. Could you share exactly how med-lab sciences plays a role in the day-to-day operations that we might not necessarily see. Sure. So about 70% of the information that a physician uses to diagnose a patient is actually generated from the clinical laboratory. Before I went on that field trip, I just assumed that the physician and the nurses were the ones that were doing all of this (Sure) laboratory testing and figuring out what was going on. But really the laboratory is working behind the scenes on that patient's sample, getting those very important laboratory results back to the physician so that that patient can be diagnosed. So without the lab, the physician would not be able to diagnose a patient like they can now? Absolutely. I know with with the rise of COVID and hopefully being on the other side of that pandemic. I know I'd seen, sort of, an increase of the different testing, the prevalence testing at home testing. Did you or I guess within the field, have you seen an increase after- hopefully on the other side I should say- after COVID, as far as an interest in this field or maybe even a personal interests, maybe family members, kind of connecting the dots as far as what you do. Oh, absolutely. Now that it has been on the news and seeing these images of the laboratory and talking more about laboratory tests and how important it is. And, you know, there was a lot of issues with the at-home test and how accurate are they and then the PCR molecular tests that are actually done in a laboratory. I think it really has brought to everyone's attention how important the laboratory is. So we definitely have seen an increase in students that are just more aware (Sure) of the laboratory and it has sparked an interest in them because now it's a new, it's not a new field (Right), but it's new to them. Right, right right. They didn't know about it previously. And definitely a lot more questions (I'm sure) from family members about the test itself, about my opinion about the vaccine and the development of the vaccine. I think it's a lot of things that before COVID we just didn't think about. And then we were forced to start thinking about it and asking questions about science more. Absolutely, absolutely. I know this field is almost seen as sort of like the heroes behind the scenes. And so even aside from all of the work that's being done in the lab, there's even more work being done is in regards to research. Absolutely. And I know the college we do things called Tuesday Talks, where different department chair all of the research that's taking place and the first Tuesday Talk that I attended was yours on the brain-eating (Yes, yes) ameoba. And I was like, "Oh my gosh. I'm never swimming in a lake again." [inaudible] Yeah. Absolutely. Could you share some of the other cool research that's taking place here (Sure) within MLS lab. Sure. So I primarily focus on Naegleria fowleri. I mean, as I mentioned, we have several students that are looking at different drugs that could possibly be used as treatment. We also in our department have a mass spec system that Dr. Korzun, who teaches our chemistry course, is in charge of. And so a project that he and I are working on together is determining whether or not that could be utilized to help detect an infection. So the cell wall of the amoeba is different than bacteria (Sure). And often when a patient presents in the emergency room with symptoms, physicians diagnose them as having bacterial meningitis because the symptoms really do overlap. There's a lot of similarities. There's not a really good test for Naegleria fowleri, and so one of the other projects that we have going on is trying to determine could we develop something that could be used to differentiate bacterial meningitis and an Naegleria fowleri infection. Because like I said, with the symptoms, there really is no difference (Yeah, yeah) that we see in patients. A lot of times it's when the patient's family reports that they have recently swam and warm freshwater and have that water exposure (Gotcha), but it's not always mentioned because when parents taking a child to the emergency room, that's not necessarily the first thing on their mind (Of course) that five days ago they swam in a lake. So that's one thing that we have going on. We also have Dr. Michael Lacy, who was a new faculty member in our department. He is now teaching the immunology course and he has immunology research going on looking at the role of T-cells in cardiovascular disease. So we're really excited about his research opportunities and the projects and things that he has going on. There's definitely chances for students to be involved in his research as well as mine. We do really enjoy having students involved in the research. Awesome. That was, that was gonna be my follow-up question as far as opportunities for students to get engaged and all that fun stuff that's taking place. Would you say that that is almost a unique aspect to the program here at VCU? Oh, absolutely. When I was an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, my senior year, I guess I was very active in my senior year. I also started doing research. So I got an email one day from somebody in the osteopathic school of medicine that's associated with Virginia Tech. And they were looking for somebody to do research on Acanthamoeba, but which is another free-living amoeba. I previously had no research experience. I was a student worker, a work-study student, where I would make media and do things for the food microbiology laboratory. But I didn't get to really be involved in any other research projects. So I responded and was lucky enough to get an opportunity to start doing a research project with that particular principle investigator. Dr. Paul Mary. I'll never forget the first person who got me involved in research. When I was working there, someone from VCU, Dr. Francine Marciano-Cabral, came and gave a talk about Naegleria fowleri. And so I got very interested in both of the Amoeba, with doing research. When I came here, she also gave me the opportunity to be involved in research. So me personally, because it plays such a huge role in me going into graduate school and getting a Ph.D., without both of them, I probably never would have done that. I wasn't an undergraduate who had that end goal, that was gonna be a Ph.D., but once I got involved in that undergraduate research, I knew that that was really something that I wanted to be involved in. And so I really like to give back to the students and have them also involved in the research that we do. That's absolutely fascinating. I think that the opportunity for students to not only, of course, learn within the classroom (Right), but to be able to apply that in a practical sense and really kinda see that light bulb go off is just such a magical moment, for sure. Oh, absolutely. Could you share some of the other sort of unique traits of the MLS program here (Sure) at VCU. Sure. One- Another thing that I think is unique about our program is students in our program, they have lecture in the morning and then they have laboratory sessions in the afternoon. So often we're lecturing on a topic. So for me, in blood banking in the spring semester, I'll lecture about a particular topic, and then that same afternoon they get to apply what we just learned in the lecture in the laboratory. Sure. So it's just very hands-on. I think it really solidifies the different concepts that we go over in the lecture and really helps a lot of students who, I myself learner, but people that are really visual learners and seeing it and doing it helped them. It really does help them understand the concepts that we're going over. To me that's unique (Yeah) because not every program is going to give that same hands-on. In the spring semester, they have lab five days a week. Oh wow. So, everyday they're getting to apply something, although different areas, (For sure) but something that they learned in lecture. So that's one thing that is unique. Another thing that's unique is we have student worker opportunities available to students. In the spring semester, VCU Health System comes and they hire anywhere 15-21 of our students to work in the clinical laboratory. So their junior year spring semester, they can actually get hired and they can start working in the clinical laboratory here at VCU. It gives them more experience, it gets their foot in the door. If they want, when they finish, if they want to work here at VCU now, they've already started that process. The people in the lab know them. Sure. It helps if they go on to graduate school and they stay with us and do projects, they've already learned their way around the lab. They know where everything is. The VA Hospital here in Richmond also has a program, it's called the valor program, where they also get to do student worker positions and they also get stipends as well as scholarship money. And then another thing that is unique about our program is that we do have a lot of scholarship opportunities. So Dr. Teresa Nadder, who's the chair of our department, continuously is sending out emails to students about the different scholarship opportunities and encouraging them to apply. One in particular, the Commonwealth Transfusion Foundation has been very generous with our department- last year and this year has given us over $100,000 for student scholarships. So we give those in the fall to our seniors and our graduate students. And then the spring we open them to juniors. But there's a lot of scholarship and employment opportunities that students have when they're with us. And I know that's like the bottom dollar (Absolutely) that a student wants you to know- Absolutely. Absolutely, student and parents. Absolutely. So our listeners may or may not know that. Of course, we have the location and the campus here in Richmond, Virginia, but we also have a campus in Abington, Virginia. Could you share how that experience might be similar or different for those students that are taking courses there. I would be happy to. So in Abington, Virginia, we have Dr. Josh Williams, who is the director of the program there. He is also our microbiology instructor. So our students that are here in Richmond on- I got to think about the days of the week that they have microbiology- this semester they have microbiology and chemistry on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So Tuesdays and Thursdays, they are connected with Dr. Williams on Zoom. So to students here in Richmond are watching him on Zoom or listening to the lecture on Zoom. The students in Abington are listening and participating in our lectures on Zoom. So we connect to Abington every day. When I teach blood banking there on the screen in the back of the room so that I can see them. Sure. I can interact with them. It's all in real time. All of the lectures. When they're done with the lectures, they do all of their laboratory sessions with Dr. Williams. It's a beautiful area. The students (It is.) that go there- yeah you get to witness it firsthand. The students that go there absolutely love it. They love Dr. Williams. It's a small group, so only six students are in that program at a time, or juniors in that program at a time. And so very close-knit get to know each other very well. We have had students that are here in Richmond and that are from the Abington area and they wanted to go there for the program. We've had others that weren't necessarily from that area but decided to go there and absolutely loved it. I love that. Also, that- while they can't do student worker positions with VCU, there are other positions that are available for them in that area. Perfect. Thank you so much. So with all of this great information that we've learned about the program, if we do have students that are like, 'Man, I absolutely know this is what I wanna do. This is, you know, what's next for me.' Could you share a little bit about that application process, sort of what that looks like and even what you all are looking for in a competitive student or applicant. Absolutely. Well, we have to open houses coming up. We have one that is actually this week, it's October 13th. And the second one is November 3rd, where you can attend in-person or you can attend virtually. So there will be a in-person tour here in the building. There will also be one virtually if you are not able to attend, I believe it will be recorded and it will also be posted so that (Awesome) if you are in class or you're busy at that time period, you can go back and watch it. It gives you some information, some other details about the program, about the courses, different faculty members are there. But if you are interested in applying, you can apply now from our department website, our homepage. The application process- there are a series of questions that ask you things like why you're interested in the program. You know, just trying for us to get some background as to what has led the student to applying. Sure. there is- so that's your little essay that you have to write. There are references, two references that students have to submit. The other questions that are on, there are, you know, some general questions about prerequisites. I will say that if you don't have all of your prerequisites complete, they just have to complete by the time the program starts. Okay. And so every year we have some students who maybe have to take organic chemistry or maybe the lab. Everybody puts that one off. Right. That was always the one that- as a student, that was the one that I, you know, (Of course) put off. But something that may need to be completed over the summer. If you do, that's okay. You apply. And if you're admitted into the program, it would be conditional and conditional meaning that you just need to complete that coursework, that prerequisite before you could actually start the program. Perfect. And I know something that's new to the program as far as guaranteed admissions opportunity, that's specific for, you know, our VCU students. Could you share a little bit about that? Yes, I would be happy to. So this year we are starting our guaranteed admissions program. This is for the pre-MLS students that have a GPA of a 3.5 or higher that I've taken our CLLS 201. And so this is an intro course that all faculty members come and talk to the students. Gives just a basic overview of the program, what it's like. We even have current juniors that come and talk to the students in that course. The faculty leaves the room, they can ask them whatever they want about the program, the good, the bad, everything. So students have to pass that. It's just a pass or fail course. If applying to the guaranteed admission program, the students do not have to interview and they do not have to get those references. Nice, yeah. So it is a little bit easier for students. Absolutely. That's CLS- CLLS course, again, that's offered in the spring? It's every semester (Awesome). So it's every semester, it's always on Wednesday. It is 12:00-12:50. And our new laboratory instructor, Maiya Picott, she's wonderful. Awesome, yes she is. Yes, she's in charge of that course. She leads it, but like I said, we, every faculty member comes and gives at least one lecture where we talk about whatever the discipline is that we teach. It kinda lets everybody get introduced to the faculty and we talk about our research when we're in there. The last time I went a few weeks ago, I was talking about blood banking or immunohematology. And we started talking about different lawsuits (Oh geez) and things that have occurred- yeah so, we've talked about all kinds of things in there. I'm sure you don't fall asleep in that class. No, no you do not. Awesome. So I guess to round things out. If you had any words of advice or words of wisdom for students interested in, you know, going into this field, what would it be? Well first, I would say come and talk to us. We have this open houses, but I always tell students in the courses that I teach that if they ever just want to draw it by, come see the laboratory, come see the building, ask questions. We're more than happy to have them. They can contact myself, contact Dr. Nader, and we do give tours even when we're not having an open house. Do what you enjoy (Yeah), so if being in the laboratory and science is something that you enjoy, then this is a field for you. Even if your ultimate goal is medical school. You need an undergraduate degree before that (Absolutely) and this is an undergraduate degree that exposes you to areas that other degrees, and I'm not putting down bio, I was a bio major (Of course), but you get exposed to other things (Yeah) that you wouldn't necessarily get exposed to (Yeah) in a biology course or in a, in a chemistry course. You get to look at your own blood underneath the microscope so you learn how to do phlebotomy, how to collect samples from patients. You get to, like I said, look at your blood underneath the microscope. In blood banking, they get to figure out what their blood type is. Right, (Oh wow) we've talked about donations and the donation process. In chemistry, they get to run their samples on the chemistry analyzer that we have. So it's very hands-on. Like I said, a lot of things that you would not necessarily get to learn in other courses. Perhaps you already know about sickle-cell disease, but have you really looked at it underneath the microscope from a real patient that's had a clinic here at VCU. Our students actually get to do that. And do you all have, I guess a good amount of students that are interested in going into medical school (We do, yeah!) or applying to medical school? Yes, we absolutely do. Every year we have several students that are interested. Their ultimate goal is medical school, sometimes dental, pharmacy, graduate school (Sure). I mean, I went on and did a Ph.D. afterwards. So we do have students that they want to go even further and that is wonderful. We still want them to come to us. If they're not gonna, you know, stay in the lab, it's still gives them a wonderful foundation for whatever they want to do. Absolutely. And of course we want them to stay in the lab. But we also know that there are many different career options for students right now and many different goals that they have. Of course, of course, thank you so much for sharing. Absolutely. So before we wrap up today, I have just a few, sort of, chip and choose, is what we're calling them, questions just to get to know you a little bit and your experience here at VCU and Richmond. Just add a little fun to mix. Okay. Sounds good. So could you tell us your favorite place on campus. The food carts around the medical center, there are (Absolutely) so many good ones. I love our new building. It's a little further of a walk to get to those (Yeah) food carts, but I will still make my way over there. Oh, yeah, they're so good. Let's see if you weren't in this field, what would you have done? Probably something with animals. I have to admit, whenever I see the dogs on call (Yeah, yeah) that are here. My dogs, I have four, but none of them are trained well enough to ever bring them anywhere near someone the hospital. But it would definitely be something with animals, not, you know, vet because it was not something that- when I investigated it more I could see myself going into, but definitely maybe helping train therapy dogs or doing something with animals. Definitely. Awesome, awesome. So it's a lot of food here. What was the last local foods spot you've dined at? So I actually live near Farmville, Virginia, so I don't eat a lot (Okay.) necessarily in the Richmond area. Yeah. But there is a restaurant in Farmville and a few other locations called The Fishin' Pig. That is wonderful. So I have to give a shout out to- (That sounds really good) It is really good (If I use my context clues). Very good fish, very good barbeque. Oh absolutely, absolutely. Okay. And if you could do research on anything at all, and money, time or resources were no issue, what would it be? Ooh, okay. And not Naegleria, I have to pick a new one. Yes, something completely different. Okay. I would probably pick to do something with Alzheimer's research and just because of the impact that it's had on my family, or Dementia research. I have several loved ones that have been affected, so I would probably go in that route. Absolutely. And I'm sure you could probably connect with [inaudible] in the gerontology department. Alright and my last question, last question of all, Nutsy the squirrel or Rodney the Ram? I got to go with Rodney the Ram. There we go! Okay alright. That was a trick question there. They're absolutely Rodney. Good answer, good answer. So I know I've personally learned a great deal of our heroes behind the scenes within the medical field here in medical laboratory sciences. So Dr. Jamerson, thank you so much. Oh thank you so much for having me. If our listeners are interested in learning more, could you share how they can get in contact with you or with the department? Absolutely. You are welcome to e-mail me. My e-mail address is hrickomj@vcu.edu. And you can also find that on our website, if you go to About Us, all of our faculty are on there and I would be very happy to answer any questions that anyone has. And like I said, if anybody ever wants a tour, we have a beautiful student laboratory. You can come see the research laboratory. You can see the brain-eating amoeba. We welcome you to come and visit us. I might have to stop by (Yeah.) to watch that. Thank you so much. And we'll certainly provide your contact information in the show notes so you all are able to get that. But thank you again, (Thank you) and we look forward to seeing what's next in the research lab. Thank you. Thanks so much.