Richard Hakim
How do our brains create the perception of pain? In order to study this question, researchers need a way of controlling the stimulus while looking at circuits in the brain. Unfortunately, inducing pain in animal models causes tissue damage and immune responses, which makes interpreting responses difficult. My current project seeks to develop a method of controlling the firing patterns of the neurons that sense painful heat. We employ the new and promising technique of optogenetics, which allows us to control the firing patterns of desired neurons using light. I […]
Lisa Du
Cancer is characterized by uncontrolled cell growth, which is in part dependent on mTOR, a serine/threonine kinase that controls protein translation. Although mTOR is almost never mutated in cancer cells , mutations upstream of mTOR can influence the rate at which the cells grow. The Shokat lab has studied the effect of mTOR inhibitors in liver cancer cells, identifying the tumor suppressor kinase LKB1 as a potential modifier of mTOR inhibitor sensitivity. LKB1 has multiple targets with different effects on cancer cell behavior. Through pharmacological and signal transduction analysis, I […]
Jay Ramsay
The purpose of the experiment is to understand why obese people are four times as likely chance of getting cancer as non-obese people. We believe blue berries contain valuable nutrients that are absent in obese people’s diets and cause cancer. This experiment will measure the effect that blue berry consumption has on DNA damage levels and mitochondrial efficiency. High DNA damage and low mitochondrial efficiency have shown to be influential factors for cancer development.
Sung Won Han
Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive brain cancers. Recent studies have shown that only a subset of patients exhibit enduring response to anti-angiogenic therapy, which inhibits the growth of blood vessels, approximately half developing acquired resistance after initial response (anti-angiogenic factors include VEGF and bevacizumab). A key feature of anti-agniogenic resistance is the manifestation of a more invasive tumor, and it has been identified that tumor cell invasion is dictated by chemotaxis, cellular movement due to a soluble factor gradient, and haptotaxis, cellular movement due to molecules within the […]
Michael Forsuelo
A promising approach to generating clean and sustainable energy is artificial photosynthesis, which aims to mimic photosynthesis in plants or bacteria and improve upon its energy conversion efficiency. Charge separation is a key step in artificial photosynthesis, but its mechanism is not yet fully understood. Recent evidence for ultrafast (sub-picosecond) charge separation in a wide variety of organic donor-acceptor materials has revived interest in the topic. Since the timescale of ultrafast charge separation is comparable to typical decoherence timescales, quantum coherent effects may play a significant role in this process. […]
Sara Ratican
One of the fundamental aims of current neuroscience research is to understand how external sensory inputs and internal states are represented in the brain, and how neuronal circuits process these inputs to ultimately alter behavior. In order to decipher the underlying mechanisms behind this process, my research looks at how different tastes are distinguished by the brain in Drosophila Melanogaster. Calcium ions serve as a primary intracellular messenger in neurons. During electrical activity, intracellular calcium concentrations rise 10 to 100 times higher in active neurons. My project will use transgenic […]
Min Young Huh
What is a laser? The current world perception of a laser is a strong intensified beam of light that is projected in a directionless way. But what if we could change that? What if we can shine a beam of light in 1 direction but actually have the light in the other without any physical interaction. We are doing 2 experiments. First using hydrophone to cause density differential to guide the laser; using the principle of total refraction. Secondly we will be doing an experiment where we process LED light […]
Megan Fu
Limited water availability in areas of drought can have implications on disease spread in crops. The goal of my research is to study water stress dynamics in grape plants and mealybugs, one of the major vineyard pests. Mealybug vectors transmit a family of viruses leading to Grapevine Leafroll Disease (GLD), causing uneconomical losses in vine health, grape quality, and yield. It is especially important to understand the effects of water stress on mealybug movement, as it may subsequently affect pathogen spread. I will be examining 1) mealybug settling preference between […]
Miles Rusch
A stable and controllable quantum system is necessary for a quantum computer to operate reliably. The quantum system is generally composed of qubits, which are the information-storage elements of the quantum computer. The computer must be able to operate on this system in a controlled fashion as to not destroy the fragile state of the quantum system. My project involves optimizing the quantum computer’s operations so that their control of the qubits is maximized. I will employ a computer algorithm similar to gradient ascent optimization to optimize the operations. In […]
Zizhou Zhao
Most tapes in use today, are composed of a viscoelastic polymer spread on a plastic backing film, which often cause inflammation and damage, especially for infants and the elderly with sensitive skin. As an alternative technology to adhesive tape, synthetic gecko adhesives inspired by the adhesive foot-pads of geckos can be used to solve this problem. These new tapes attach to a surface with a dense array of micro- and nano-scale hair that maximizes the van der Waals interaction.