Manraj Gill
Human chromosomes end in a repetitive sequence called the telomere. The inability of the DNA replication machinery to fully replicate chromosomes results in progressive telomere shortening with each cell division. Critically short telomeres serve as a signal to stop cellular replication. In this manner, telomeres act as a buffer sequence to prevent loss of genetic information on the chromosomes; a process that is associated with cellular and organismal aging. However, telomerase, a reverse transcriptase, can restore lost telomeric sequence and increase the length of the telomere. In humans, adult stem […]
Colleen Murphy
The ability to understand and predict how landscapes will evolve enables us to mitigate the effects of natural disasters and to act as stewards of the land by taking appropriate conservation and restoration measures when necessary. Currently, the geomorphic transport laws that we use to express this evolution do not quantitatively consider variations in rock types and the vegetative communities that they host. This project aims to further our understanding of the role that lithologic heterogeneity plays in landscape evolution by mapping and characterizing lithologic variability at two sites in […]
Andrew C. Lu
Many tandemly repeated histone gene clusters exist in the Drosophila Melanogaster genome and are subjected to complex regulation during the cell cycle. However, the exact mechanism of this regulation remains elusive. Using a variant of the CRISPR/Cas9 system, we have developed a DNA-pulldown technique that, when coupled to mass-spectrometry, is capable of identifying bound proteins on a given promoter, enhancer, or any other regulatory DNA sequence. Applying this technique to the D. Melanogaster histone cluster, the pulldown samples interestingly showed an enrichment of a particular protein domain – LisH. Found […]
Edwina Tran
Dengue virus (DENV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that causes up to 390 million infections every year, resulting in 96 million cases of disease globally. Infection with any of the four serotypes of dengue can result in inapparent infection, dengue fever, or severe forms of the disease associated with vascular leak leading to shock. DENV non-structural protein 1 (NS1) plays a role in viral replication and immune evasion, as well as pathogenesis. More specifically, DENV NS1 has been found to trigger permeability of human endothelial cells in vitro and systemic vascular […]
Anandita Mathur
Autophagy is a fundamental pro-survival cellular process by which superfluous proteins and damaged organelles are delivered to the lysosome for degradation and reuse.. Numerous human disorders have been linked with dysfunction in autophagy including heart disease, cancer, and neurodegeneration. The molecular mechanisms of autophagy are currently not well understood. My project goal is to study how the autophagosome, the double membrane vesicle which contains cargo and fuses with the lysosome membrane, is generated. Based on previous studies, we hypothesize that the CTAGE5 protein plays a role in autophagosome biogenesis. I […]
Yizhen Zhang
Vision is one of the most important senses in vertebrates. In adults, photoreceptors in the retina convert light into electrical signals, interneurons modify these signals, and retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) integrate the signals and send output to the brain. In most newborn mammals, photoreceptors and interneurons are not yet fully functional. However, newborns still respond to light. How are they seeing? A RGC subpopulation are atypical photoreceptors that respond to light in development. These intrinsically photosensitive RGCs (ipRGCs) encode light intensity and send output to the brains centers for mood […]
Sanyum Channa
Honeycomb iridates are a class of compounds that were theoretically predicted to be spin liquids, i.e. materials that lacked magnetic ordering due to their magnetic spin interactions. However, due to real-world deviations from theory, compounds like Lithium Iridate have been extensively studied to show fascinating forms of magnetism (like spiral and zig-zag orderings). Taking inspiration from this recent research, the goal of my project is to synthesize a new iridate – Ag2IrO3 (Silver Iridate). The motivation for this is to see how the metal, Ag, interacts with the underlying magnetism […]
Spencer Doyle
Transition metal dichalcogenides make up a class of 2D semiconductors that are of high interest in the field of condensed matter currently. I plan on synthesizing two primary intercalated versions of these compounds: Fe(1/3)NbS2 and Fe(1/3)TaS2. These two compounds have competing magnetic orderings (antiferromagnetism and ferromagnetism respectively), so what happens in a hybrid material where both Nb and Ta are present? The Fe sites in Fe(1/3)NbS2 already host frustrated moments, but by incorporating some ferromagnetic ordering from the Ta compound, the frustration can be tweaked. Frustration is one of the […]
Zisu Dong
Reconstructing dense models of real-world 3D scenes is important for autonomous driving tasks. However, motion estimation for an agile single camera moving through general, unknown scenes has proved to be a challenging problem. The task becomes much more challenging in autonomous driving when real-time performance is required under disturbance of transient change of moving objects (e.g. vehicles, pedestrians) and surrounding environments (e.g. lighting conditions). The goal of this project is to build a pipeline for processing driving videos gathered by on-dash car camera on top of existing Structure from Motion […]
Kyler Natividad
Electromigration is a phenomenon in which an electric current induces the gradual motion of atoms in a conductor. While electromigration has been observed at the macroscopic scale, its fundamental mechanisms are not well-understood at the atomic scale. The goal of my research project is to investigate the interaction between the electric current and conductor-supported atoms that gives rise to electromigration. Electromigration has important effects on the reliability of electronic components, and has many proposed applications, including uses in nanomachine actuation, chemical transport, and as a method for the nanoscale mixing […]