Bucknell Students Turn Classroom Research into Published Study on Antimicrobial Peptides

A Bucknell University course-based research project has culminated in a peer-reviewed publication, illustrating how hands-on classroom experiences can lead directly to new scientific knowledge and professional-level scholarship for undergraduates.

Students in biochemical methods, a course taught by Professor Sarah Smith, chemistry, are co-authors on a paper published last month in Peptide Science, the journal of the American Peptide Society. The study investigates how small changes in the sequence of antimicrobial peptides — naturally occurring molecules that help organisms fight infection — influence their structure and biological function.

"I think the connection to the course makes this a relatively unique publication," Smith says.

The project began in Spring 2024 as part of the upper-level laboratory course, which immerses students in authentic biochemical research rather than scripted experiments. Working in teams, students designed hypotheses, created peptide variants and analyzed how the changes they introduced to the peptides affected bacterial growth.

"Antimicrobial peptides are naturally produced by a lot of organisms," Smith says. "Our study focuses on one produced by a fruit fly. We took a piece of the natural product and looked at how we could make small changes to affect the shape of the peptide and whether those changes would impact bacterial growth. The class designed the initial set of peptides, made small changes, and then did an in-depth analysis to better understand their results."

The peptides were derived from cecropin B, an antimicrobial peptide produced by the fruit fly. While full-length cecropins are effective against bacteria, their length makes them challenging to adapt for therapeutic use. The Bucknell study focused on truncated, 16–amino acid peptides and examined how altering the position of tryptophan residues influenced antibacterial activity and toxicity.

Ten students from the course are listed as authors on the paper. After the semester ended, several students chose to remain involved, contributing to additional experiments and editing and writing the manuscript.

One of those students, Chris Feudale '25, joined Smith's research group after taking the course and became the paper’s first author. He completed a large portion of the experimental and analytical work as the project evolved from a class assignment into a full research study.

Professor Moria Chambers, biology, collaborated on the project and focuses on fruit fly immunity. Photo by Emily Paine, Marketing & Communications

The project also included collaboration with Professor Moria Chambers, biology, whose research focuses on fruit fly immunity. "She was interested in understanding the role of AMPs in fruit fly immunity, and I was looking at the biochemical questions of how these peptides work," Smith says. "It seemed like a really good opportunity for students in a course to design hypotheses and analyze the results."

The publication has already had a meaningful impact on the students' academic and professional paths. Several co-authors are applying to or have begun medical school and graduate programs.

"This published research can help their career," Smith says. "For some of them, it was an exciting thing to pursue."

The project also fostered mentorship across class years. Joey Feudale '27, Chris Feudale's younger brother, became involved after his older brother mentored him as the research continued in Smith's lab.

"There was really a handoff of the project," Joey Feudale says. "Chris trained me on the techniques and the background, and then I was able to step in and keep the work moving forward."

Smith has since taught the course again, with a new group of students asking different questions about antimicrobial peptides. Her research lab continues to build on the findings, with additional work underway toward another paper.

"Antimicrobial peptides are generally studied for new antimicrobial therapeutics," Smith says. "We have a lot of drug-resistant bacteria that we don’t have antibiotics for. We're working on the basic science to understand how antimicrobial peptides work and how they could be used in the future."

By turning a classroom project into a published study, Bucknell students are contributing to foundational biochemical research while gaining firsthand experience in how science is conducted — from hypothesis development to peer-reviewed publication.