Iris Wu
Several age-related neurodegenerative diseases are a result of a decline in protein homeostasis as organisms age. Mitochondria, a vital organelle in the cell, is especially susceptible and thought to be a sensor of proteotoxic stress. Understanding how mitochondria communicate stress and recover homeostasis is therefore fundamental in developing novel treatments for age-onset human diseases. One way that mitochondria communicate stress is through the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt). Important work has shown that stress can be communicated between tissues, such as from neurons to intestinal cells, called the cell-non-autonomous UPRmt. […]
Aidan Backus
Over the summer, we propose to investigate the root multiplicities of (generalized) Kac-Moody Algebras. Our plan is to create an open-source computer package that allows for the computation of root multiplicities of Kac-Moody algebras, building upon the existing tools available to computational mathematicians, for instance, the popular library sage-math. Once we have developed and verified this package against known tables of root multiplicities, we aim to start investigating the root multiplicities of simple graphs, and attempt to address some outstanding conjectures on the distributions of root multiplicities. A greater understanding […]
Lexi Zhou
The Striatum plays a critical role in decision making and action outcome evaluation. It is primarily composed of two distinct pathwaysdirect and indirect that receive excitatory inputs from the cortex and the thalamus and are differentially modulated by dopamine signals from the midbrain. There has been a wealth of experimental and theoretical work on how the dichotomy of these striatal pathways mediates choice selection. The classic go/no-go model proposes that these pathways play discrete roles in choice selection, with the direct pathway fires to select a rewarding option and the […]
Meera Aravinth
Electromagnetism is a fundamental physical phenomenon, but there is still much to learn about how and why it takes shape in solids, where the interactions between many atoms can create unique and unexpected magnetic and electronic features. This summer, my SURF project will be an investigation of magnetism in FexWSe2. WSe2 is a transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD), which are often layered, quasi-2D materials which are being studied widely due to their promise in revealing foundational aspects of physics in low-dimensional systems. Intercalating a TMD with a transition metal such as […]
Andy Chen
There is evidence that body motion can either improve (Gallero-Salas et al., 2020, Gilad et al., 2018 ) or inhibit (McBride et al., 2019) performance during head-fixed behavior in mice. Therefore, it is important to understand how body movements affect sensory detection performance in behavioral tasks. My research project will look closely at the effects of body movement on a mouses performance in a whisker-based sensory detection task. From previous literature, we know that body movements modulate sensory signals in cortical areas of mice. My research will involve using behavioral […]
Kendall Fitzgerald
One of the most ambitious expeditions in the history of UC Berkeley has yet to be completed. In 1947, the University of California Africa Expedition, led by researchers from the UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology, set out for southern Africa to collect fossils from early hominid sites. However, upon their return, many of the micro-mammal fossils were stored away without being properly examined or categorized. My project will focus on a subset of this wealth of Plio-Pleistocene fossils: the shrew fossils (family Soricidae). Though sometimes overlooked, these small mammals have […]
Anthony Chen
Numerical linear algebra underlies much of the modern world. It is essential to a wide variety situations, and as such, it is of great interest to analyze and optimize the underlying algorithms. In recent years, there has been an increased interest in optimizing algorithms to reduce communication, which is frequently many orders of magnitude slower than performing calculations. The Hlder-Brascamp-Lieb inequality and the Red-Blue Pebbling Game are two powerful approaches to theoretical analysis of communication, and both are used to derive communication optimal lower bounds. Once these bounds have been […]
Amir Moayed
Filopodia are finger-like actin based extensions in migrating cells. These cytoplasmic projections are involved in perceiving the environment, interacting with extracellular particles for phagocytosis, anchoring the cell to the substratum, and responding to chemoattractants. In eukaryotic cells, proper actin organization and interaction with the membrane and binding proteins is crucial for filopodia function. Despite having a general understanding of the various functions associated with filopodia, there is not much known about how actin organization and interaction with the membrane at the leading edge allows the cell to carry out these […]
Miles Mellott
The complement system is a function of the innate immune system a group of proteins in the blood that target, mark, and destroy potential pathogens, as well as modulating the response of immune cells. Most viruses must interfere with its activity in order to infect someone, but the mechanism of interactions remains largely uncharacterized. My project seeks to specifically identify and characterize the interactions of Human Cytomegalovirus proteins with the complement protein MBL1 (Mannose-Binding Lectin) by use of a yeast-two-hybrid protein interaction assay. This assay can determine if a given […]
Zihang Wang
My research topic is inspired by the recent discovery of some novel properties in superconductivity and mott-like insulating behavior of twisted bilayer graphene (TBG). In general, there exist a variety of twisted systems that may exhibit similar behavior as TBG (such as -RuCl3). My goal is to test different twisted heterostructures optical and transport properties with a standardized exfoliation/ transfer method. Since making the twisted angle heterostructure is difficult to achieve accurately by hand, the first phase of my research is to motorize the transfer stage with full control of […]