Cory Berger
Discovering how traits evolve or are lost is key to understanding the processes underlying biodiversity. Web-building is an ancestral trait in orb-weaving spiders, but several taxa have secondarily lost the ability to build webs. Among the long-jawed spiders of the genus Tetragnatha, there are species that exhibit a range of web-building phenotypes, including the total loss of web-building and the construction of reduced webs. My research will use Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to investigate the silk organs of these species, which will provide a clear picture of the morphologies associated […]
Emily Duan
The activation of the adaptive immune system in host-tumor interaction mediates the efficiency and strength of the host anti-tumor response. Necroptosis, a form of programmed cell death, has the ability to moderate the development of antitumor tolerance versus immunity due to its pro-inflammatory properties. However, in what ways and to what extent do the products of necroptosis trigger the activation of the immune system is not well understood. I am interested in using a necroptotic tumor vaccine overexpressing RIP3, a cell death protein, to study the effect of necroptosis on […]
Iris Li
The Target of Rapamycin (TOR) is a protein kinase involved in many aspects of cell physiology. Because of its importance in regulating growth, TOR has been central to metabolic and cancer research for years. Saccharomyces cerevisiae contains two paralogs of TOR, Tor1 and Tor2, which exist in their respective multi-subunit complexes TORC1 and TORC2. TORC2 has been found to regulate cell polarity, endocytosis, and actin polymerization in response to external stimuli, and studies have shown that the localization of TORC2 to the plasma membrane is essential for the complex’s function. […]
Nazineen Kandahari
The epidemiology of disease is changing from acute to chronic. A majority of our research and public health efforts have been focused on eradicating infectious diseases when, in fact, chronic diseases are the leading causes of death worldwide. The mortality rate for chronic disease increases exponentially with age, and, with the increasingly aging population, chronic disease is a public health issue demanding urgent attention. Chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimers, result when the ability of an organism to maintain homeostasis diminishes. The unfolded protein response (UPR) is one […]
Katherine Latimer
Hi! My name is Katie and I’m majoring in Physics and Chemistry here at Cal. I am really excited about my research this summer because it combines those two subjects, which I love, as well as some math and computer science, which are also fun. My work falls under the scope of the Materials Project, a collaboration at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that runs quantum mechanical simulations of many different materials on remote supercomputers and publishes the resulting data online and free to the public. By calculating just a few […]
Shannon Wu
Telomere maintenance and protection is performed by the six-protein complex called shelterin. Shelterin defects may lead to telomeropathies like Dyskeratosis Congenita (DC), a rare but severe disease with poor clinical outcomes. Recently, whole exome sequencing studies of DC patients have identified mutations in the gene locus of the shelterin component, TIN2. By establishing a disease model for DC using CRISPR/Cas9-gene edited isogenic human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines, I aim to investigate how TIN2-DC mutations give rise to disrupted telomere maintenance and DC phenotypes. Specifically, I will elucidate the genetic […]
Crystal Lee
American Cockroaches exhibit a large versatility of movement; they are able to transverse over varying substrates in different orientations. Over the last decade, scientists have studied the tarsus, or foot of the cockroach, looking specifically for certain features that allow the cockroach to make such transitions. So far, three distinct structures; the claw, the euplantulae, or a set of overlapping friction pads, and the arolium, which is an adhesive protrusion; have been found to act in tandem during movement. My research for the summer will investigate the capabilities of the […]
Divya Patel
Asthma is caused by chronic inflammation in the lungs, which leads to inappropriate contraction of smooth muscle cells that surround the lung airways, causing them to narrow and impair breathing. Contraction of the smooth muscle occurs when the level of calcium ions inside the cells increases, and relaxation only occurs once muscle cells return to their resting state. This relaxation process is regulated by a potassium channel, the BK channel. Chronic inhibition of BK channels can result in airway muscle hyper-contraction and eventually lead to asthma. The steroid hormone, progesterone, […]
Quinn Spencer
Entomopthera muscae is a fungus that infects flies that can induce behavioral changes and subsequently cause morbidity Drosophila melanogaster. However, the mechanism behind this drastic modification is still largely unknown. My research aims to find a way to modify and flourescently tag a gene in the fungus using CRISPR/Cas9, which may allow us to better understand mechanisms of infection and subsequent behavioral modifications in the host organisms. By doing so, we will be able to track how the fungus can travel through and modify the function of the nervous system […]
Tong Zhang
DNA transposable elements are mobile genetic elements that can move through out a host genome by the action of an encoded DNA transposase. The activity of several DNA transposases is significantly stimulated by DNA bending proteins, presumably promoting correct assembly of the transposase upon the DNA transposon ends (i.e. Mu transposase , RAG1/2, etc). While Drosophila P element transposase is well characterized, stimulation of the transposition reaction by DNA bending proteins has not been investigated. Here, I would like to investigate two Drosophila DNA bending proteins, HMGD and HMGZ, on […]