A recent doctoral graduate of Oregon State University who won a national contest for using dance to communicate her research will be the speaker at Oregon State’s Science Pub on March 14.

The virtual event, a joint effort of Oregon State University in Corvallis and OSU-Cascades in Bend, will feature Heather Masson-Forsythe, who earned her doctorate from Oregon State earlier this year. Her presentation is titled: “Investigating how COVID-19 proteins stick to viral RNA and taking research from the lab to the dance floor.” This is a rescheduled event from January.

Masson-Forsythe’s thesis research centered on the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for the current pandemic. Using a variety of biophysical and biochemical techniques, Masson-Forsythe, along with members of Elisar Barbar’s lab group in OSU’s Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, characterized the nucleocapsid phosphoprotein and protein-RNA interactions.

 The nucleocapsid protein, or N protein, is a prime target for disease-fighting interventions because of the critical jobs it performs for the coronavirus’ infection cycle and because it mutates at a comparatively slow pace. Drugs and vaccines built around the work of the N protein carry the potential to be highly effective and for longer periods of time – i.e., less susceptible to resistance.

Throughout the research project, Masson-Forsythe used the app TikTok to document what it’s like to be a scientist trying to make research contributions to the ongoing global pandemic. With the handle @heycurlytop, she accumulated more than 50,000 TikTok followers and created videos that received hundreds of thousands of views.

She also turned her COVID-19 research project into a dance and submitted it to the 13th annual Dance Your Ph.D. contest organized by Science Magazine. She won in the newly created COVID-19 category and the video has been viewed approximately 40,000 times on YouTube.

The free Science Pub will run from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The event will be broadcast on YouTube Live. Registration is required and can be completed at https://beav.es/wPv.

 Sponsors of Science Pub include the OSU Office of Research, OSU-Cascades in Bend and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

About Oregon State University: As one of only three universities in the nation designated as a land, sea, space and sun grant institution, Oregon State serves Oregon and the world by working on today’s most pressing issues. Our more than 34,000 students come from across the globe, and our programs operate in every Oregon county. Oregon State receives more research funding than all of the state’s comprehensive public universities combined. At our campuses in Corvallis and Bend, marine research center in Newport and top-ranked Ecampus online degree programs, we excel at shaping today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders.