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. […]

Kenneth Trang

Bacteria inhabit nearly every surface on Earth, from tabletops to hydrothermal vents. Thus, it is unsurprising that a diverse community of microbes, or microbiome, also inhabits the human gut. However, these residents arent simple stowaways, as gut bacteria actively modulate host development and physiology. Therefore, as different species of bacteria modulate host physiology differently, understanding the factors that determine which bacteria can and cannot colonize the gut is of increasing importance. Host genetics, diet, and geography were all shown to play important roles in determining microbiome composition. The goal of […]

Xavier Tao

Currently, most chemotherapy drugs used for cancer treatment target specific upregulated or dysfunctional pathways, rather than specific cancer-driving mutations. This results in adverse side effects or reduced applicability, since the drug can also affect normal pathways of healthy cells. In many tumors, cancer-driving mutations alter amino acid residues into cysteines. Due to cysteine’s unique chemical properties, these mutations are an ideal target for covalently binding molecules. This approach is especially useful in undruggable proteins lacking traditionally targeted binding pockets. In this regard, the Nomura Research Group has applied target-based screening […]

Connor Tumelty

Epigenetic information refers to chemical modifications to DNA and histones that can be inherited independently of the genetic sequence of a gene. These modifications control the expression of the gene and can alter the organism’s phenotype. In nature, a number of epialleles (alleles with identical sequences yet different epigenetic states) have been identified and often contribute to vast phenotypic diversity among a population of organisms. It is currently poorly understood whether epialleles can be engineered within plant systems. If possible, this could expand the toolbox available to plant breeders and […]

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, […]

Lillian Litvak

  Our research aim is to provide greater insights into the functions of NLR immune receptors, which are part of the second tier of the plant immune system, based on our current knowledge of their protein structure and mechanism. As we work toward this goal, we will answer basic research questions about how these highly conserved immune receptors detect pathogens and signal an immune response. More specifically, what region of the receptor recognizes the pathogen effector? Does this region also play a role in switching the receptor to the activated […]

Alexander Kvitsinski

The benzylic methylene unit (Ar-CH2-R) is a common motif in drug candidates and pharmaceuticals. However, the propensity of its C-H bonds toward oxidation creates the challenge of metabolic stability. One solution is the substitution of this motif with the benzylic difluoromethylene or difluorobenzyl units (Ar-CF2-R), wherein the reactive C-H bonds are substituted with metabolically more stable C-F bonds. However, despite the potential advantage of such an approach, few pharmaceuticals containing this motif have been commercialized. This project focuses on the development of novel Ar-CF2-M synthons for C-C cross-coupling chemistry. First, […]

Sara Koupaei

I am interested in learning more about the unique rhamnolipid methyl esters (RMEs) produced by the pyrophilous bacterium Paraburkholderia sp. F3 and RMEs’ ecological significance. Previous endeavors in this project have uncovered the production of the unique RMEs by P. sp. F3, which first attracted attention due to its antibiotic activity against a pyrophilous fungus (Pyronema omphalodes) found in the same environment as P. sp. F3. After purification and identification of these antibiotic compounds, the RMEs were identified as analogs of the rhamnolipids produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a biosurfactant with […]