Ryan Quan

Mitochondrial DNA Depletion Syndromes (MdDSs) are a set of diseases characterized by severe pathological effects on the liver and brain. These syndromes are implicated by low/absent levels of mitochondrial genomes, circular strands of DNA housed in the mitochondria (mtDNA) that encode for proteins important for respiration. Thus, maintenance of this genome is thought to be critical for cellular health. However, the mechanism behind the tissue-specific pathologies of these syndromes remains unclear. Recent evidence suggests that the essentiality of mtDNA for cell viability and division may vary across different conditions. Recent […]

Rohan Shinkre

Recent research regarding dengue virus serotypes 1-4 (DENV 1-4) has focused on the human immune systems production of antibodies after infection by the virus. IgG antibodies after primary infection can either protect or mediate viral replication to potentially cause severe dengue disease. These pathogenic antibodies are cross-reactive, but IgG-mediated protection for one serotype of dengue virus will not necessarily protect against the other three serotypes. Most dengue research has focused on IgG antibodies, since it was previously thought that IgM antibodies have low affinity for DENV and may not play […]

Hong Joo Ryoo

My research asks whether quantum mechanical characterizations of a black hole are consistent with certain solutions to paradoxes. In particular, I plan to consider the Firewall Paradox, a problem arising from entanglement in a black hole’s presence. This view suggests a breaking of entanglement that leads to intense radiation. Using a formulation of hard, soft, and far modes, I will investigate a proposed solution known as the Final State Solution. By constructing the possible solution through the lens of the various modes, I aim to contribute to a deeper, more […]

Ngoc-Thanh Tieu

Vietnam’s demographic transition to increased urbanization and rapid economic development have led to a nutrition transition from traditional to nontraditional, processed diets. Vietnam endures a double burden of malnutrition, the simultaneous prevalence of childhood stunting, thinness, overweight, and obesity. However, these outcomes have not been distributed evenly, particularly when comparing child growth status between different ethnicities. There is a need to explore the prevalence of child malnutrition among Vietnam’s ethnicities, examine if there are significant differences between them, and, lastly, examine potential risk and/or protective factors associated with these outcomes. […]

Jennifer Lee

Understanding niche differentiation is fundamental for comprehending the complicated process of adaptive radiation, a process characterized by the rapid formation of many ecologically different species from a single ancestor. However, the way in which niche differentiation is achieved during the early stage of adaptive radiation is still highly debated among evolutionary biologists. On the one hand, through the process of character displacement, natural selection could facilitate differentiation and diversification between closely related species where they co-occur with no need for prior niche differentiation at the time of secondary contact. Alternatively, […]

Kenneth Loi

mRNA has proven to be a promising novel therapeutic class due to its programmability, low barriers to synthesis, and rapid translation into protein in vivo. mRNA as a platform technology has led to the development of broad applications such as vaccines, therapeutic protein replacement, in vivo genome editing, and in vivo cellular reprogramming. Despite growing interest in mRNAs therapeutic potential, it suffers from low delivery rates due to its instability and short half-life, thereby limiting its clinical adoption. mRNA transcripts are vulnerable to various degradation mechanisms in the cell, as […]

Sophia Ma

  Population growth is set to exceed the capacity of modern agricultural yields, but innovations in agricultural technologies have the potential to meet global food needs. One promising area of basic research is involves improving the biology of photosynthesis so the plants themselves can grow more efficiently. At a fundamental level, it is easy to think that more sunlight equates to more photosynthesis. However, plants often receive far more sunlight than they can use, which can be damaging to the cell. Plants and algae have evolved ingenious mechanisms to dissipate […]

Nicole Kim

  Many of the antibiotics used today are natural products of bacterial secondary metabolism. Streptomyces spp., in particular, have been found to produce many secondary metabolites, including antifungals, antibiotics, antivirals, and antitumorals. The modern age is facing a problem of rapidly increasing antibiotic resistance coupled with a lack of discovery of new antimicrobial compounds. This project seeks to identify and investigate the spectrum of action of a potentially novel antifungal compound produced by a Streptomyces sasae isolate from burned soil plots in the Blodgett Research Forest. This compound has been […]

Jonathan Mui

Ambient light is essential to a wide variety of biological processes, including behavior, reproduction, and physiology. Accordingly, changes in ambient lighting may induce stress and thereby affect the health of an animal. Analysis of glucocorticoid (GC) hormones, the hormones that help mediate stress responses provides an important means of evaluating such effects. GCs increase blood glucose levels and stimulate glucose production to provide energy for the flight or fight response to stressors. My project seeks to understand how GC levels in colonial tuco-tucos (Ctenomys sociabilis) vary in response to different […]

Jaeson Kim

Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is a degenerative change that occurs in the cervical spine and causes compression of the spinal cord. Patients with CSM can experience a wide range of symptoms, including weakness and numbness in the hands and arms, loss and balance and coordination, and neck pain. CSM is the most common spinal cord dysfunction in older persons and is likely to increase in incidence as the number of older persons in the United States increases. My research will focus on the diagnosis and treatment of CSM. More specifically, […]