Fordham Jesuits Lead Celebration of Life for One of Their Own

Father Hegyi in 1974 with then biology chair Ruth Witkus, Ph.D.

For a brief moment on Jan. 21, the swirl of snow on the Rose Hill campus served as backdrop to the foundational Jesuit spirituality. On that day, as a massive storm threatened to shut down the city, a Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated for Father Márton (Martin) A. Hegyi, S.J., a longtime member of Fordham’s Jesuit community and a faculty member in the Department of Biology, who died on Jan. 17 at Murray-Weigel Hall. Fifteen of his Jesuit brothers flanked his casket and guided him from the University Church for the last time.

Tradition would normally dictate that the Jesuits sing Salve Regina just outside the church doors, but the snowstorm halted the procession at the vestibule. There, the celebrants sang in ancient cadence as the casket was hoisted onto shoulders and the bell tolled. The doors flew open and Father Hegyi was carried from the darkness of the church interior out into the white storm.

Born in Hungary on October 15, 1932, Father Hegyi entered the Society of Jesus in 1952. By several accounts at the service, his decision to remain with the Jesuits came at a tumultuous time in Hungary’s history—and at no small risk to his personal safety.

Father Hegyi, left, with Father McShane in 2007.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, described Father Hegyi’s escape from the Communist Hungary as “harrowing and heroic,” but not a story that could easily be coaxed from him.

The fact that he was reluctant to discuss his personal experience came as no surprise to those who knew him, describing him as a man more inclined to listen to others, than to talk about himself. 
Ladislas Orsy, S.J., said that Father Hegyi “emanated a radiant goodness” and was possessed of three cherished qualities: simplicity, fidelity, and magnanimity.

“His simplicity of purpose was on view for all who came in contact with his fidelity, of whom there were many,” he said, adding that even magnanimous giving was closely tied to his ability to receive and listen to people.

After leaving Hungary, Father Hegyi received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in zoology from Oxford University.  He received his doctorate in biology at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1973.  His research centered on molecular biology, more particularly on Holopedium, a zooplankton found in the Great Lakes.

His time at Fordham began in the Department of Biological Sciences in 1967. He once described his primary academic challenge as “bridging the tension between science and religion.”

“It was never just biology for him, it was about creation,” said Cheryl Badolato, FCRH ‘78, GSAS'82 who served as a teaching fellow under Father Hegyi and to whom he teasingly referred to as “my penance.”

His quiet charm drew drew fellow biologists to the University as well, said Amy R. Tuininga, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and dean for strategic initiatives at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

“There was something bigger that came from him than from your average human being, a certain power, serenity, and peacefulness,” she said. “He made you feel that there was more than just the biology that you were studying, and that your job as a professor was to look out for your fellow human beings.”

In 1996, on the occasion of receiving an award for excellence in teaching, Father Hegyi was described by Father McShane as “a consummate educator and a gifted mentor” who “introduced countless Fordham pre-meds to the mysteries of general biology.” In 2007, as Associate Professor Emeritus of Biology, he received the Bene Merenti award for his 40 years of service to the University. And in 2009, due to failing health, he moved to Murray-Weigel, the Jesuit infirmary abreast of the Fordham campus, to undertake his new mission of prayer for the church and the Society of Jesus.

In the end, the Jan. 21 Mass celebrated Father Hegyi’s total of 61 years as a Jesuit and 50 years as a priest.

“Martin loved God and God loved Martin,” said Father Orsy. “That’s the whole story.” 

-Tom Stoelker

Biology Professor Tracking Evening Bird Migrations

They're going to light up the night in Philadelphia.

But first, backers of Mexican-Canadian media artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's "Open Air" project want to make sure they don't kill thousands of birds in the process.

"Open Air" will feature 24 searchlights aimed into the night sky that will move in response to the sound of human voices, from 8 to 11 p.m., Sept. 20 to Oct. 14.

Since those date coincide with the peak of the fall bird migration, there is a danger that the 250 species of birds that fly through the area will become disoriented and die. A similar phenomenon was documented in 2010 during the "Tribute In Light" at the World Trade Center site.

As it happens, J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology at Fordham, studies how migrating birds move through urban landscapes, so "Open Air" is a unique opportunity to study how the birds react to light. Along with Christine Sheppard, Bird Collisions Campaign Manager for the American Bird Conservancy, he'll be monitoring them via radar from a location north of the city.

Clark and Sheppard were featured recently in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.


Will the birds swerve to avoid the beams? Fly higher to avoid them? Or ignore them? Only time will tell.

—Patrick Verel

FordhamScience: Mice Don’t Read Eye Charts

How do you know if a mouse is blind?

It’s hard to tell just by observing the mouse; unlike humans, mice rely less on vision and more on sense of smell and on their whiskers. (For those of you who know your nursery rhymes, this explains why Three Blind Mice ran after a farmer’s wife who was holding a kitchen knife.)

Yet a mouse’s eye photoreceptor rods and cones work very much like a human’s eye rods and cones.

Which is why Silvia Finnemann, Ph.D., associate professor of biology, measures and compares photoreceptor activity in live mice.

Finnemann’s work focuses on the causes of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), or loss of sight that accompanies the aging process. Of the 161 million people in the world who are visually impaired, 58 percent of them are over the age of 60.

Finnemann joined with research associate Ying Dun, Ph.D., and student-mentee Ramy Elattal (FCRH’ 10) on an experiment in her Larkin Hall laboratory to document the quality of vision in mutant lab mice that have reduced cellular anti-oxidant defenses, against normal “wild-type” mice. Anti-oxidants are molecules (found in green, leafy vegetables, pomegranates, etc.) that help prevent or reverse damage to living tissues caused by another type of molecule called a free radical. Free radicals (often formed when certain molecules interact with oxygen), have unpaired electrons, causing them to be very reactive with other molecules. When free radicals come in contact with DNA and cell membranes, the reactions damage them, a process called oxidative stress.

To test the eyes of live mice, the team uses an electroretingram (ERG) machine, which measures animal’s vision as well as human vision by means of simple electrical impulses detected on the surface of the eye by a contact lens—it’s a very similar procedure to an Electrocardiogram machine, which measures the heart.

An ERG can measure the light sensitivity of eye rods and cones and can also detect abnormal function in the retina. A healthy eye will respond to a flash of light much more vigorously than an unhealthy eye, so the team measured the different responses to light flashes in the two mouse groups, administering three separate recording sessions each with five consecutive responses at five different light intensities.

Those mutant mice that lacked proper anti-oxidant defense had a reduced reaction to the flashes of light, compared to the “wild-type” mice, whose response time was stronger and with larger amplitudes.

But the team wanted to see what the differences in the retinal photoreceptors of both teams of mice looked like as well. They used laser scanning confocal fluorescence microscopy, a process that takes pictures of a section of the retinal tissue.

You can see the mice’s retinas in the laser photographs (left): an image of a cross-section of a mouse retina. The green color shows cone photoreceptor cells, and the red color is a DNA counter stain that shows where the different cell types in the retina are positioned.

Now look at the following two photos. They offer a close-up comparison between a the healthy, normal mouse retina and a damaged retina in a mouse lacking antioxidant defense; the green squiggly lines in the wild-type photograph represent the presence of healthy cones.

Since there was no matrix of cones in the mutant mice, the scientists suggest that cones may be missing or defective and therefore impeding the vision.

So how does this relate to human blindness?

“Our cells and tissues have the same anti-oxidant defense systems as mouse cells,” said Finnemann, who studies cellular functions in the retina and their role in causing AMD. “But as this defense diminishes with age, our rods and cones malfunction.”

Finnemann said that identifying which components of the retinal cells are particularly vulnerable to oxidative damage is an important first step toward devising effective strategies how to prevent age-related blindness. Her other research includes a study (funded by the California Table Grape Commission) feeding mutant and wild-type mice a "healthy diet" enriched in grapes (good sources of anti-oxidants) and observing how this improves vision.

—Janet Sassi

FordhamScience: Undergraduate Research and Bird Mojo

Several Fordham students presented their research at the 64th Annual Eastern Colleges Science Conference (ECSC), at Pace University this spring, in which more than 400 students participated.

Among the seven award winners at the conference, two were Fordham students: Fordham College at Rose Hill senior Stacey Barnaby, a chemistry major from Monroe, Conn.; and Esi Kajno, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native and natural sciences major at Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

Stacey Barnaby has been conducting research in the Chemistry Department in the laboratory of Ipsita Banerjee, Ph.D., for the past year. Barnaby’s project mainly focuses on the development of nanostructures for potential applications in anti-aging and cancer.

Specifically, Barnaby has been studying the growth of kinetin-based nanostructures and the growth of selenium nanoparticles as biocompatible materials for drug delivery for prevention of oxidative cellular damage. She has been examining the potential of these materials as radical scavengers and investigating their efficiency as supports for enzymes such as glutathione peroxidase, which plays a vital role in prevention of oxidative damage. These materials have been found to survive in live cell cultures of normal rat kidney cells, which is promising and she hopes that she will be soon be moving on to conduct in vivo studies. She has already presented at conferences such as the New York American Chemical Society undergraduate research symposium, the Columbia University undergraduate research symposium, the Fordham undergraduate research symposium, and ECSC, which involved undergraduate participants from colleges and universities all over the East Coast.

At ECSC, Barnaby was recently honored with an excellence for poster presentation award, in the division for molecular biology and biochemistry. She loves doing research and presenting and sharing her work with fellow researchers at conferences. She gives campus tours as a member of the Rose Hill Society, welcomes freshman as a part of the New Student Orientation team, and tutors students in the HEOP program. She hopes to apply to graduate school to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry/bionanotechnology. “I love research because the possibilities are endless,” she said. “I truly feel that through research, I can help make a difference in the world.”

Esi Kajno worked with Dr. James Wishart at Brookhaven National Laboratory as part of the Summer Undergraduate Internship program.

Due to global energy challenges, the conversion of cellulosic biomass (plant material) into ethanol has recently attracted considerable interest as an alternative means for the production of affordable and renewable biofuels. The complication is that plant-derived cellulosic material requires pre-treatment in order to remove the lignin that is naturally bound to cellulose and makes it resistant to hydrolysis into fermentable sugars.

Current pre-treatment processes are costly and challenging since they require harsh conditions (high pressures and temperatures, use of strong acids and/or toxic and flammable substances). Recently, alternative methods to improve on cellulose conversion to biofuels have focused on the use of a new category of solvents known as Ionic Liquids (ILs). These are salts that remain liquids at low temperatures. Unlike organic solvents, ILs are non volatile and therefore very attractive as a green chemistry alternative. In addition their unique set of physical and chemical characteristics offers a new medium for reaction kinetics.

Kajno’s work focused on the synthesis, purification and characterization of ILs and their use in studying the dissolution of cellulose from corn cob and wood, which is key to its conversion into ethanol.

Science Friday Bonus: J. Alan Clark, the Avian Barry White
Today the Daily News reports on Alan Clark’s work with a flock of highly endangered Waldrapp ibis at the Bronx Zoo. The flockhad produced no chicks for seven years. Clark, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Fordham, created a soundtrack of mating calls, recorded in Austria, that restored the birds’ mojo, and the flock has since hatched six offspring from three sets of parents.

Read the complete story, which includes photos and recordings of the mating calls: “Soundtrack of mating calls helps put flock of endangered Waldrapp ibis at Bronx Zoo in the mood.”

FordhamScience: The Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station

The Calder Center was established in 1967 for ecological research and environmental education. Its 113 forested acres offer undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to develop hands-on skills in field biology and environmental studies. The Calder Center is one of the few field stations in North America with relatively undisturbed communities near a large urban center.

The center's research faculty and scientists from other research institutions direct a diversity of research programs, including work on ecosystem responses to loss of eastern hemlock due to exotic insects and climate change, ecology and epidemiology of vector-borne diseases, avian population dynamics, urban wildlife ecology, behavioral and biochemical adaptations of mammals to extreme environments, the role of ectomycorrhizal fungi in forest soils and their responses to control burning and wildfire, and the role of benthic algae in stream food webs.

Fordham University's partnerships with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the New York Botanical Garden foster collaboration between Calder Center researchers and scientists at these institutions.

Calder Center Background and Research Profiles

Fordham's Calder Center Named State Entomology Lab

Calder Director Measures Aquatic Health in Upper Mississippi

Scientist Charts Effects of Climate Change on Hibernating Chipmunks

Fordham Plays Key Role in Gathering Pollen Counts That Reach a Wide Audience

Calder Center Awarded NIH Grant to Study Tick Pathogens

Fordham Biologists Create Index to Measure Tick Risk

Calder Center Photo Gallery












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Tick, Tick, Tick Index

The University’s Tick Index was created and is maintained by Tom Daniels, Ph.D., of the Vector Ecology Laboratory. The index is an estimate of the risk in Westchester County of being bitten by a nymphal or adult deer tick, both of which are carriers of Lyme disease.

After several weeks of low risk, the index begins to climb again this weekend as the adult ticks emerge. There are three stages in the tick life cycle: larvae, nymph and adult. The nymphs peak in June and July and cause the largest number of Lyme disease infections because their greatest numbers coincide with increased activity of lightly dressed humans in the woods, and because the nymphs are much smaller than adults (about the size of a poppy seed) and so are harder to spot.

Adult ticks are active in the fall. Risk of infection from adult ticks will diminish and eventually fall to zero once average temperatures consistently fall below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. For this weekend’s index, go to: www.fordham.edu/tick.

The Vector Ecology Laboratory is housed at Fordham’s Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.