Lynn Yang

The periodontal ligament (PDL), which surrounds the tooth in its bony socket, is unique amongst mammalian tissues as one of the only ligaments that is both innervated and vascularized. Nerves and vasculature are involved in inflammatory and sensory transduction processes in the PDL of patients who seek orthodontic treatments, such as braces, who generally undergo orthodontic tooth movement (OTM), or tooth movement in response to any non-physiologic force. However, OTM often incurs serious negative consequences, ranging from compromised oral hygiene and severe discomfort during treatment, to orthodontically-induced inflammatory root absorption […]

Stephanie Robinson

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are non-infectious viral capsids that can be engineered, and serve as a drug delivery scaffolds.The MS2 bacteriophage is a VLP that has already proven to be a robust and mutable VLP by the Francis group. I am utilizing the same techniques to another VLP, the Hepatitis B virus (HBV), to identify if this is a universal quality that can be applied to immunogenic VLPs that affect humans. I aim to substitute each position of the of the HBV polypeptide with all possible combinations of the 20 natural […]

Alvin Wan

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has seen state-of-the-art results with Atari games, spoken dialogue systems, and a differentiable neural computer. However, excessive amounts of computer power are required to attain such results. My work concerns potential simplifications of DRL so that more advanced tasks are feasible, leveraging alternative evolutionary strategies with deep function approximators and evolutionary strategies with linear function approximators.

Malcolm Crawford

Dopamine is an important neuromodulator, and dysregulation of dopaminergic function is involved in many neurological disorders, from Parkinsons disease to addiction. The mTOR pathway, a ubiquitous signaling pathway which regulates cell growth and survival, plays an important role in dopamine neuron fate. By manipulating mTOR signaling in dopamine neurons via cell-type specific deletion of the Tsc1 gene, a negative regulator of the mTOR complex, I am examining how changes in cell morphology and protein expression levels are impacted by mTOR hyper-activation. This work can contribute to a better understanding of […]

Jordan Xiao

At the level of transcription, gene expression is controlled by activator and repressor proteins (transcription factors) which bind to DNA in concentration-dependent manners. Current models in biophysics depict transcriptional regulation as an input-output function where the output rate of mRNA synthesis depends on the concentrations of input transcription factors. Our project seeks to evaluate and improve these quantitative models by developing optogenetic techniques to systematically perturb the natural system, in this case the common fruit fly embryo. We fuse a special light-sensitive protein to maternal transcription factors, then use different […]

Amanda Tomlinson

Technology has improved many aspects of our lives, but some of the largest changes have come in medicine. One large area of improvement is developing sensors that continuously monitor human health. These sensors need to be small enough to be non-invasive, and be low power so they can be used for a long time without being replaced. The aim of my research is to design and fabricate a small (2mm x 2mm), low power CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) camera to use in MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems). Lower power consumption will make […]

Mariel Nelson

Shallow landslides, a major geologic hazard, can be initiated by periods of heavy rainfall or as a result of land use. Physical processes that occur during a landslide, however, are notoriously difficult to interpret because landslides are rarely witnessed and often occur as single events. During February 2017, an intense storm generated approximately 400 landslides in a hilly, sedimentary landscape near Williams, California. This study will survey each landslide that occurred at the site to obtain a detailed statistical dataset for comparison with high resolution topographic maps and existing hillslope […]

Hanna Liao

Sexual reproduction in almost all known organisms requires a specialized cell division named meiosis. Errors in this cell division are the leading cause of genetic disorders such as Downs syndrome, miscarriages, and congenital birth defects in humans. To ensure the success of meiosis, chromosomes undergo a dynamic restructuring of their kinetochores, which mediate chromosome segregation. In budding yeast, a single kinetochore subunit named Ndc80p is down-regulated in meiotic prophase to ensure proper meiotic chromosome segregation. Preliminary results by our lab have shown that Ndc80p degradation depends on the proteasome, potentially […]

Caolan John

Quantum mechanics shows us that the electronic energy levels of isolated atoms are discrete. Upon the formation of a solid with many atoms, these energy levels merge to become quasi-continuous functions of the electrons momentum known as energy bands. In CeSb, the structure of these energy bands protects the stability of a semimetal state that would, in the absence of topological considerations, be destroyed in favor of an insulating state. In addition, CeSb possesses local magnetic moments that strongly interact with the electrons of the solid. I will be investigating […]

Nazar Akhverdyan

Hydrocarbon contamination can be extremely detrimental to affected ecosystems and bioremediation, the use of microorganisms to detoxify and remove environmental pollutants, presents an effective solution. Specifically, oxygenases are required to perform hydroxylation or carboxylation reactions that cleave aromatic rings into less inert intermediates. Oxygen is an essential co-substrate for many aromatic hydrocarbon degradation pathways. However, bioremediation of aromatic hydrocarbons is often constrained by limited oxygen levels, which can be attributed to oxygens low solubility and rapid depletion during cellular respiration. Bioreactor-mediated hydrocarbon degradation similarly faces oxygen limitation issues, and solutions […]