Mason Wheeler, a doctoral student working at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, is the first recipient of the fraternity’s endowed fellowship.
During the pandemic, some Virginia Tech Zeta Beta Tau fraternity alumni — most of whom graduated in the 1970s — reunited over Zoom and started an informal giving project to lift their spirits. That undertaking ultimately inspired them to create a more lasting gift.
In August 2022, the fraternity members pledged to fund a fellowship to support students in the Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health Graduate Program conducting research at Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC.
The group met its goal nearly a year ahead of schedule and awarded its first fellowship this summer. “We think Fralin Biomedical Research Institute offers three great things. It’s our alma mater, it’s our fraternity that has enriched our lives, and it’s the kind of health issues people have faced for quite some time,” Greg Metcalf ’77, said when the group first embarked on the project. “We take Tech’s motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), to heart.”
Mason Wheeler, who is in the fourth year of her doctoral program, is grateful to be the first recipient. Just as the fraternity members’ philanthropy was inspired by the pandemic, Wheeler’s path to graduate work at the institute began with COVID-19.
“While an undergraduate, my institution-based research experience was canceled due to COVID-19, but I was hired as a research technician in the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute under Dr. Carla Finkielstein,” Wheeler said.
She was a member of a rapid-response team that played a pivotal role in deploying a COVID-19 test across Southwest Virginia using an RNA extraction and qPCR workflow developed in-house.
The testing platform was crucial in delivering rapid and accurate assessments during a period when timely data was vital for shaping health policy and safeguarding the public. “The laboratory provided much-needed testing capacity to Southwest Virginia and greatly assisted in local pandemic management,” Wheeler said.
As a doctoral student, Wheeler has shifted her focus to cardiovascular disease, particularly as it relates to insulin resistance. She was the first graduate student to join the lab of Jessica Pfleger, a Fralin Biomedical Research Institute assistant professor focused on the molecular mechanisms that underlie cardiovascular disease. “Mason is quickly becoming recognized by leaders in the field as a rising star in the basic cardiovascular sciences,” Pfleger said. Her work is marked by collaborations across a number of different labs.
In Pfleger’s lab, Wheeler is investigating cardiovascular disease, a leading cause of death in the United States, with a specific focus on people with Type 2 diabetes, who are at heightened risk. Wheeler’s studies aim to better understand the breakdown and processing of glucose and insulin resistance as they relate to diabetic cardiomyopathy and heart failure.
The Zeta Beta Tau fellowship will support her experiments, conference attendance, and publication of research findings.
