Jiayi Tan
People with high level of nearsightedness will have a 5- to 10-fold chance of developing glaucoma, cataract, and sight-threatening diseases such as retinal detachment later in life. Atropine eye drop is one of the most effective therapies for nearsightedness control. I will conduct a small-scaled randomized controlled trial to understand the impact of eye color on the effectiveness of atropine eye drop. Many studies on atropine have focused on Asian populations, and few studies have compared the effect of atropine between Asians and Europeans, who tend to have much lighter […]
Tiffany Tian
Up to half of Wilsons disease patients suffer from sleep disorders, including poor sleep quality, REM behavioral disorders (RBD), and cataplexy. However, the neural basis of these symptoms is poorly understood. My project this summer is to determine whether the ATP7B-/- knockout mouse is a good model system for studying the sleep disorders manifested in Wilsons disease, especially in the context of neural pathways involving copper homeostasis. Using automated sleep scoring methods, we will quantify sleep signatures in ATP7B-/- knockout and wildtype control mice. The brain copper changes in recorded […]
Tania Sodhi
The spotted fever group Rickettsiae (SFGR) are a collective group of Gram-negative obligate pathogens from Rickettesia spp. Most bacteria in the SFGR use two effectors to mediate actin-based motility (ABM). This is in contrast to other intracellular pathogens, which utilize only a single effector for ABM. The goal of my research project is to understand how Rickettsia parkeri, a member of the SFGR family, regulates the expression of two effectors that mediate ABM: RickA and Sca2. While both effectors are involved in mediating ABM, the regulation for both effectors and […]
Britney Weng
In humans, Positive Transcription Elongation Factor b (P-TEFb) is an RNA Polymerase II regulator crucial for proper gene expression. To execute its regulatory function, P-TEFb itself is precisely regulated via reversible interactions with an snRNP complex. Using biochemical techniques, past studies have confirmed LARP7, HEXIM1, and BRD4 to be protein partners of P-TEFb. My project aims to study the dynamic regulatory role of known protein partners LARP7, HEXIM1, and BRD4 in P-TEFb regulation. I will apply a new technique called proximity-assisted photoactivation (PAPA) to single particle tracking (SPT) and […]
Daniel Rostamloo
Algebraic geometry is a rich area of mathematics that investigates the properties of geometric objects (like a variety the solution set of a system of polynomial equations) using their underlying algebraic structure. The closely related field of homological algebra studies how mappings between algebraic spaces (e.g., collections of polynomials) can be understood in terms of more concrete representations with tools from topology and algebra combined to understand the geometric structure of varieties. One homological invariant is a table of numbers called the Betti table, which captures nuanced geometric information about […]
Tannya Tang
In arthropods and vertebrates, Hox genes determine how an organism develops along the axis running from its head to its tail. Little is known of Hox function outside of these standard animal models, but studies in annelids (segmented worms) suggest that Hox genes not only play a conserved role in embryonic patterning, but are also deployed in ways specific to annelids. For example, hox3 is expressed around the posterior growth zone (PGZ), from which all new segments arise. I hypothesize that hox3 is a stem cell marker in annelids that […]
Jianxiang Zhang
Cataract, a clouding of the eye lens, is the leading cause of blindness worldwide. Periaxin (Prx) is a scaffold protein interacting with membrane/cytoskeletal networks in the lens and other cell types and has been implicated in cataract development. My project will investigate the functions of Prx variants in lens cells. Recent studies in the Gong Lab suggest that Prx is a genetic modifier regulating cataract severity in connexin 46 knockout (Cx46KO) mice. Four Prx missense variants have been identified between the 129SvJae (129) and the C57BL/6J (B6) mouse strains. […]
Jacob Krantz
Geometric flows, such as the Ricci flow, Yang-Mills flow, and harmonic map flow, are natural ways to smooth out geometric objects (metric, connection, and maps, respectively). In this project, we will explore the idea of using geometric flows to develop new analytic tools for studying geometric objects. A possible goal of this project is to use geometric flows to solve problems in dispersive PDEs that involve geometric objects.
Erin Lee
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and strokes are ongoing public health crises, taking millions of lives annually and leaving survivors chronically disabled. They commonly affect the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), an integrative center for the brain’s reward and decision-making circuit. Thus, damage to the OFC can cause behavioral deficits, including impulsivity and impaired decision-making. My research examines the brain’s capacity for compensatory and functional reorganization in intact tissue following injury or lesion, which is crucial to furthering the clinical potential of neurorehabilitation. Previous analyses done by the D’Esposito Lab have found that […]
Albert Qiang
Metabolically engineering living organisms to synthesize chemicals is an exciting alternative to traditional production pipelines, allowing for the sustainable and scalable production of a wide array of useful compounds. However, dramatically altering the fundamental chemical behavior of organisms by introducing new biosynthetic pathways can often have unintended consequences on cellular growth. The expression of an unnatural pathway consumes valuable cellular resources, an effect known as metabolic burden that ultimately limits overall production. My research project seeks to better characterize the effect metabolic burden has on an existing engineered biosynthetic pathway […]