Sue Small-Kreider
Special to InMotion
Reasoning out how creatures function interests Daytona State College student and shark researcher Katie DiGirolomo, who has a chance to have her research on bacteria living in shark mouths covered by National Geographic.
“I’ve always had a curiosity as to how people and animals work,” said DiGirolomo.
Besides being a full-time Marine Biology student, DiGirolomo is also employed as an operating room technician at Halifax Hospital. She says she has always done hospital jobs.
Her love of fishing comes from her grandfather, who has taken her fishing since she was a small child. Now he helps her with fishing for sharks in his boat out in the Atlantic Ocean.
The idea for DiGirolomo’s research on the bacteria living inside sharks’ mouths began with her watching fishing shows with her grandfather and boyfriend and then watching a video about a study involving anal swabs of sharks during the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. Swabbing sharks’ mouths seemed like something she could to do.
DiGirolomo had completed the Introduction to Oceanography course and was encouraged by Dr. Debra Woodall, Adviser of the DSC Institute of Marine and Environmental Studies, to be part of the oceanography lab.
“I just facilitate the lab. The students come up with the ideas and ways to go,” said Woodall.
Throughout the 2018 spring semester DiGirolomo researched and developed her plan to catch and release sharks along the Volusia County shoreline, by swabbing their mouths and recording the species, size, age and gender of each animal. She found only one other study on shark mouth bacteria done by Nathan R. Unger on Florida blacktip sharks. Unger is an assistant professor of pharmacy at Nova Southeastern University College.
Using Unger’s design for a remote sampling device, she made one from an extendable painting rod, a clamp, nuts and bolts, pieces of foam and nylon wire ties.
Finding enough sharks willing to be captured, swabbed and returned to the ocean has been the most challenging part of the research, DiGirolomo said. The idea is to hook a shark, but not damage it, by using fresh, not frozen bait.
Common scientific courtesy dictates that any creature willing to be a test subject should be made as comfortable as possible while obtaining samples and measurements. For sharks this means one person holds the shark with a wet towel over its snout to calm it, while another swabs and takes measurements— all in under three minutes. DiGirolomo said that her largest subject was a 7-foot hammerhead shark and her smallest subject, a sandbar shark, was the length of her forearm.
“We had to keep saltwater trickling down the hammerhead’s mouth because he was out of the water for so long,” DiGirolomo said.
Josh Munsey, also a DSC student at the Institute researching scalloped hammerhead sharks, has been helping DiGirolomo with collecting samples from the sharks he has tagged for his research.
Eight samples had been grown in the microbiology lab last fall, but were accidentally destroyed during winter break. DiGirolomo is taking the setback in stride, since she has perfected her technique of cultivating samples.
The next hurdle DiGirolomo is dealing with is finding lab tests that can be completed at DSC’s labs or other marine biology labs. She must first classify what bacteria are present in each sample, then test various antibiotics that are safe for humans, to find ones that will work against each bacterium. Her end goal for the research is to find antibiotics that will help human shark bite victims recover from the bacteria that can be deadlier than the bite itself.
“Microbiology is one of the less picked subjects for research here at the college,” said Isabella Storozkova, Lab Manager of the DSC microbiology labs. While a self-proclaimed microbiology geek, Storozkova, says she admires DiGirolomo for not only doing the lab work, but going out and doing the actual swabbing of the shark mouths as well.
While attending the American Geophysical Union conference last fall, DiGirolomo’s poster presentation on her research caught the attention of freelance reporter Annie Roth. who talked with DiGirolomo about the possibility of her research being covered by The National Geographic.
“That was the best part of my research project so far,” said DiGirolomo. “Now I just have to get more samples to complete my research.”