Emilie Petit

Endometriosis is a serious disease that affects 1 in every 10 menstruating individuals, causing painful symptoms that can lead to infertility. Despite this pain, 6 out of every 10 patients remain undiagnosed, as the current method of diagnosis is invasive laparoscopic surgery. This project works to directly address this healthcare disparity. Evidence has supported that endometrial cells have different physical and biological properties from healthy cells. Ongoing research from the Sohn Lab has created methods that can analyze cell properties to differentiate healthy and diseased cells. We intend to employ […]

Annelise Prince

Cardiovascular disease is behind 1 in 5 deaths in the US due to muscle cells of the heart, cardiomyocytes, lacking regenerative abilities after injury leading to dysfunction. Understanding the composition of human heart tissue means there is a better model to understand the baseline regenerative potential of the human heart to eventually uncover novel therapeutic strategies to promote the regeneration of cardiomyocytes and decrease heart-related deaths. Inspired by a 2016 Nature paper that used thick histological samples of animal heart tissue, I will develop a procedure to estimate the true […]

Rohan Rattan

The configuration of a plant’s root system is crucial in its inherent ability to access essential nutrients in soil and secure water. Furthermore, tuning root form has long been a goal in plant engineering. Plant synthetic biology now makes it possible to develop tools to reprogram root systems. However, this endeavor faces challenges, including the complexity of designing synthetic genetic programs and the intricate cross-talk between developmental processes. Type-B Response Regulators are a family of transcription factors in the two-component cytokinin signaling system that modulate the expression of genes involved […]

Ryan Read

Subjective perceptions of risk can profoundly influence decision making. Recent work suggests that people perceptually inflate risks learned through experience compared to those learned through description. However, due the difficulty of neurophysiological recordings in humans the neural mechanisms underlying this description-experience gap (DE gap) remain unclear. To address this issue, Ryan will behaviorally explore whether the DE gap exists in non-human primates (NHPs) using behavioral tasks based on previous studies in humans. If NHPs display the same biases and follow a similar learning model it would indicate fundamental similarity in […]

Corina Dunn

In materials with “flat-bands” where electrons have suppressed kinetic energy, effects of electron-electron interactions give rise to exotic quantum phases including superconductivity. While two-dimensional flat-band materials have been broadly studied in recent years, flat-bands are only just beginning to be realized in three dimensional networks. 3D flat-band materials are an interesting laboratory for the competition between superconductivity and magnetism and may even permit their coexistence. This project will focus on synthesizing and characterizing 3D flat-band materials to identify what exotic quantum phases can be discovered and to understand how electron […]

Katie Fitzgerald

The ribosome is conserved across biological organisms and is co-evolved with the genetic code to decode mRNA into proteins. Its macromolecular machinery is highly specific to the canonical set of twenty amino acids, leading to high fidelity yet low diversity of possible protein structure. Expanding the set of amino acids that can be successfully incorporated into proteins could lead to novel peptide structures and functions. The Cate Lab aims to rationally engineer the ribosome to incorporate non-proteinogenic monomers. Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (Cryo-EM) has revealed A2062 as a possible site of […]

Stella Frank

My research explores symbiotic relationships between trees and root-associated fungi, which provide up to 80% of plant nitrogen and phosphorus. These symbioses primarily fall into two categories: ectomycorrhizal fungi, which envelop root cells, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which penetrate root cell walls. Despite their prevalence, comparative studies of the two systems are lacking. I will quantify nutrient sharing and assess gene expression in Populus trichocarpa (black cottonwood) associated with each type of mutualistic partner. By elucidating nutrient transfer mechanisms, I seek to pinpoint genes facilitating this exchange and illuminate functional […]

Dimple Amitha Garuadapuri

RNA molecules are known to play critical roles in various cellular processes, and understanding their structure provides a lot of insight into their function and the mechanisms they use. Recent advancement with AlphaFold and other protein prediction algorithms have proven the potential of utilizing machine learning techniques to computational predict structure. Solving the problem of protein structure is not only significantly enhancing our understanding, but also streamlining the drug delivery and therapeutic development process. Being able to computationally predict accurate RNA structures would similarly enhance our understanding of noncoding RNA […]

Casey Herbert

Neuropsychiatric disorders are commonly associated with sleep disturbances and a high percentage of chronic sleep issues. Children with neurodevelopmental genetic conditions have a high likelihood of developing sleep disorders, which consequently leads to an array of neuropsychiatric conditions. Unraveling the relationship between sleep, neurodevelopment, and neuropsychiatric disorders is extremely difficult due to their complexities and interlinking factors. Genomic studies have led to the identification of genes correlated with human sleep disorders. However, unlike previous studies that focus on how genes control sleep behavior, I propose to analyze specific sleep disorder […]

Nicole Khatibi

Turbulent flows are everpresent in engineering and nature. Turbulent flows are characterized by a wide range of flow scales, intense mixing, high rates of heat and momentum transfer, and significant energy dissipation rates. A question of paramount importance in the field is how do turbulent flows achieve these ‘extreme’ properties. The practical and scientific importance of this question can hardly be overstated. A thorough insight into the principal components of turbulence will facilitate the development of better control strategies in engineering and explain the physical mechanism behind the enhanced angular […]