Exploring the depths: How an underground UTC research experience shaped an academic journey

Michael Schoonover, who received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2016, performed grant-funded research at Raccoon Mountain Caverns during the 2015-2016 academic year with UTC microbiologist David Giles. Schoonover, who received a Master of Physician Assistant Studies from Wingate University in North Carolina, is now a physician assistant based in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Michael and Courtney Schoonover are both 2016 graduates of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The couple married in 2020 (photo courtesy of Michael Schoonover).

When Dr. David Giles contacted me to let me know that UTC had acquired Raccoon Mountain Caverns, it really hit me. It brought back the significance of the undergraduate research opportunity at the caverns and what it meant to me—in regard to how far I had come at that point in my life and its importance in my journey to my present career.

It is tough to explain its significance, though, without giving a little bit of context. If you don’t mind indulging me a little bit, I would like to share an overview of my academic history.

Growing up, academics were a struggle for me. I grew up in a poor public school system, and, as a result, my parents decided to homeschool me. With four kids and many extracurriculars, my early schooling was often neglected.

Eventually, my parents were able to get me into a private Catholic school, which I started in seventh grade—but I went into it at a fourth-grade math level, a second-grade reading comprehension level, and I actually had no other schooling in any other topics at that time.

To my parents’ credit, when I started school, they got me in with an educational psychotherapist and I was able to get on track and graduate high school with honors. However, I didn’t quite have the confidence in academics that a lot of my peers had, and I constantly felt behind and was playing catch-up.

Confidence is crucial in higher education, especially for challenging paths like pre-med. Like many, I struggled early on.

For someone like me, kind of on the outside looking in, you get this sense of imposter syndrome when you try to step into these advanced science labs with these gifted students trying to get into these research projects. It took a couple of years of bouncing around science labs and academic jobs before I found Dr. Giles.

I was actually lucky enough to get into his microbiology lab and lecture during my second semester of sophomore year. He was very enthusiastic, he was very personable, and he was very approachable in an environment that can be very intimidating for students. It took some persistence and good grades on assignments and tests, but I eventually was able to get into the world of research with Dr. Giles.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I went to his office to ask some obscure question about classwork when—in reality—I was there because I liked talking to the guy. He was interesting. He was passionate about what he did, and that would rub off on me while I was with him.

He told me about a physician, Dr. Steve Perlaky, who owned Raccoon Mountain Caverns. Dr. Giles informed me that he had some grant money that we could use to collect samples and run analyses to see what kind of microbes survive in those harsh environments. It took me a minute to realize he was actually offering me a research position at that time, and when I put that together, I was just over the moon. I’m pretty sure I called everyone in my family after that conversation.

For Dr. Giles, it seemed like it was something he had wanted to do for a long time. I think for him, a lot of the excitement came from the sense of adventure and exploration and discovery of what we might find in the caverns. Also, those guys are stuck in the lab or the classroom quite a bit, so getting to work in the caverns as a change of scenery was pretty exciting. For the physician who owned the caverns, I think a lot of the excitement came from the possible applications that might come from what we discovered.

I remember when we first met with Dr. Perlaky to collect those initial samples. Before we entered the caverns for the first time, he reminded us that one of the greatest discoveries—penicillin—was found entirely by accident. They left a Petri dish out in the lab for so long that it started growing fungus; next thing you know, we have penicillin. He said, “Who knows what we might find in these caverns? We might find a compound that contributes to a cure for cancer later in the future. You never know unless you look.”

Unfortunately, we did not find a cure for cancer with our first couple of samples. But we did take those samples back to the lab, put them on Petri dishes, threw them in the incubator to see what would grow, and essentially separated the different microbes that had grown up into pure cultures. When we got those pure samples, we did DNA analysis to try to identify them and see if we could find any unique organisms. We ran them through mass spectrometry to see if we could discover unique molecular structures like different fatty acid chains. Again, we didn’t find a cure for cancer, but the research was just in its infancy stages at that time.

The world is full of things that have yet to be discovered. These caverns represent that. It’s an extreme environment that has had minimal human contact. Things that grow in extreme environments tend to have unique properties that allow them to survive. The question is, can we discover what these properties are and can we find a way to make them benefit humanity? That was the goal for starting in those caverns.

I still find that to be very exciting, and it’s incredible that UTC is going to take ownership of the caverns. This now means there will be more opportunities for students to join unique research teams. It will drive the passion not just of the students but of the faculty that are involved—and passion is what drives discovery.

Personally, the research I did at Raccoon Mountain Caverns gave me a sense of belonging. For the first time, I felt like I belonged in this realm of academics—of being a true expert in this specific field of science that very few others have explored. It gave me the confidence that now drives my critical thinking in advanced science.

I think about that research project every time I go to work to help my patients because it gave me essential skills to succeed in what I’m doing today. Even though it isn’t directly advanced research and academics, it still helped build that critical thinking and that understanding that you need to have to be working in fields of advanced science. That’s what I think it will mean to UTC students because that’s ultimately what it meant to me.