Madison Petersen: Learning About Essential Oils – and Flexibility
Scholar Madison Petersen works in the lab with her mentor, Uchenna Anele, Ph.D. on the study of how essential oils can serve as a substitute for pharmaceuticals in livestock treatment. Petersen said Anele has allowed her ‘creative freedom.’
Animal science major Madison Petersen cares about animals and sees how supporting their health and autonomy can better help humans. In her two experiments as an Undergraduate Research Scholar, she tried to improve dairy cows’ health – and learned the value of being flexible in her research.
“Since I was a young girl, I wanted to work with animals and always wanted to be a veterinarian,” said Petersen. “I think animal science is important because animals can’t speak for themselves – they have to rely on humans to advocate for them. Also, as the population grows, we’ll need animals to feed all the humans. Learning about animals and knowing how to take care of them can also be rewarding for humans.”
Petersen chose to come to N.C. A&T both for “the HBCU aspect” and because of its animal science program and University Farm.
“As someone who wants to attend veterinary school, those things really enticed me,” she said.
She enrolled in 2021, and during her four years, was named a Lewis and Elizabeth Dowdy Scholar and a CAES 1890 Scholar, and had internships through Purdue University, University of California Davis, and the Duke Lemur Center.
She began work in the lab of ruminant nutrition professor Uchenna Anele, Ph.D. as one of his research assistants during her freshman year.
“I’ve been very, very fortunate to work with exceptional undergraduate students, and Madison is one of them,” said Anele. “She’s always committed, always doing things, and she’s an intelligent, dedicated hard worker. It’s been an incredible journey.”
On Anele’s recommendation, Petersen applied and was accepted into the college’s Undergraduate Research Scholars Program in her junior year. She decided to focus on the effects of red seaweed and algae on mitigating cattle emissions.
“Seaweed is something that we think of when we go to the beach, but it’s been proven on numerous occasions to really mitigate and lessen the levels of methane and greenhouse gas that dairy cattle produce,” said Petersen. “My project was going to be focused on finding another way to insert red seaweed and algae into the cows’ feed and see how well it does. We also wanted to experiment with different modifications, such as freeze-drying the algae versus keeping it normal to see if that had any effect on those methane levels.”
Petersen planned to feed the seaweed and algae to dairy cattle that had been canulated, or surgically opened in their rumen, a specialized organ found in cud-chewing animals. Then, she and Anele would collect fluid from the rumen opening and run it through a simulated digestion system in Anele’s lab, looking for decreased levels of methane and recording any levels of gas that may have been produced in the simulation.
However, as the project was moving toward completion, the team hit a project-ending speed bump.
“We couldn’t obtain fresh red seaweed from a reliable source,” said Petersen. “We wanted material that we were confident would be safe for the dairy cattle.”
Undeterred, Petersen and Anele decided to switch gears and move towards another project to improve livestock health: using essential oils as an alternative to antibacterials.
“Sometimes you plan and it doesn’t work out,” said Anele. “But fortunately, this project is moving much faster than the previous one. Madison is moving into microbiology and molecular biology and using 24-hour containment, as opposed to batch culture, which would ordinarily take weeks or months. Within this new time frame, she will finish everything this fall, unlike the previous one which would spill into spring.”
For this new experiment, Petersen will expose a specific blend of essential oils, based on a previous study from one of Anele’s Ph.D. students, to different concentrations of E. coli bacteria during a 24-hour period, then extract RNA from the E. coli samples for sequencing to study how the essential oils mitigate their bacterial growth and reduce the potential risk of infection.
As her new project gathers momentum, Petersen praised Anele for his guidance and help in refocusing her energy.
“When I started this project, he made it very clear that he was going to let me take the reins and if I ever need any help or answers, he’s just an email or a phone call away,” said Petersen. “I appreciate that because he’s really allowed me to have creative freedom.”
