Cheong Chan
Physicists can now readily cool atoms down to near absolute zero and exploit their quantum behavior that one does not see at everyday room temperatures. One such application of cold atoms is called atom interferometry. Typically, the experimental setup of atom interferometers are quite bulky and can fill up a room. However, at the cost of some sensitivity these setups can be scaled down to the size of a moving box. Since such a small atom interferometers can measure accelerations nearly as well as other cutting edge technology, a miniature […]
Michelle Leu
In my research, I plan to investigate the role of vitamin A in obesity prevention. With obesity increasing at alarming rates in the United States in the past twenty years, it is imperative to gain a deeper understanding in the development of the condition. Obesity is influenced by many risk factors such as diet, lifestyle, and genetics. I will explore how vitamin A regulates adipose tissue, observing mice with the Rdh10 gene conditionally deleted in white adipose tissue, and comparing their weight gain to that of wild type control mice. […]
Robert Stevenson
This project is investigating conflicts in the representation of plant assemblages in the middle Pennsylvanian (Moscovian, 311.7 1.1 to 306.5 1.0 Mya) fossil record. Currently, the held belief is that the tropical lowlands of the Moscovian were dominated by swamp forests (coal forests) during periods of deglaciation. However, recent studies of the Baker Coal from the Cottage Grove mine of southeast Illinois show xerophytic (dry) plants sandwiched in-between layers dominated by the more common coal forest plants. This discovery infers that these floras may have been growing in close proximity […]
Robert Bellerose
Biofuels have received much attention lately as the need for a renewable and carbon-neutral source of energy becomes increasingly important. We have assembled a biosynthetic pathway in Escherichia coli that produces butanol, a second generation biofuel, in six overall steps. However, there is a significant bottleneck at crotonyl-CoA reductase (Ccr) in the pathway that limits butanol production, which may be attributed to the observation that Ccr suffers from low solubility. The overall goal of my project is to carry out directed evolution of Ccr and generate a library of mutants […]
Lusha Liang
In bacterial genomes, functionally related genes tend to be grouped together in operons, possibly to facilitate co-regulation and coordinated horizontal gene transfer. However, co-regulation and the formation of selfish gene clusters cannot explain the co-localization of regulators and their target operons. Yet this co-localization of prokaryotic transcription factor genes and their binding sites is widespread and is a driving force in the specific organization of transcriptional units on the chromosome. Thus in this study I will use the paradigmatic model of gene regulation, the lac locus, to address a fundamental […]
Roxanne Rajaii
Cell responses are mediated by signal transduction pathways that involve protein and lipid kinase cascades. One of the two essential PtdIns 4-kinases in the budding yeast (S. cerevisiae), encoded by the PIK1 gene, localizes both to the Golgi and in the nucleus and has an essential function in both compartments. Pik1 in the Golgi functions in regulating secretion from the Golgi to the cell surface, but the processes that Pik1 helps regulate in the nucleus are not well understood. In an effort to understand the essential role of Pik1 in […]
Jillian Lee Silvestrini
I am studying the possible physical or functional interaction between ELF3 and CRY2, two genes in Arabidopsis thaliana that are involved in regulating the plants biological clock. I will study ELF3 and CRY2 using Arabidopsis plants that have mutations in these genes, resulting in dysfunctional proteins. Many of the phenotypes of the single mutants are opposite, which helps to facilitate analysis of the gene interaction. I will look at flowering time, monochromatic and white light signaling (using hypocotyl elongation as an assay), and regulation of 24-hour rhythms using Luciferase as […]
Tianzan Zhou
My project concerns the regulation of transcription. Transcription is the process by which a DNA sequence is transcribed into an RNA sequence. This RNA sequence then gets translated into a protein, which is the basic machinery of life. Therefore, the mechanisms by which transcription is regulated are very important to understand. We have evidence for a novel mechanism that takes place during transcription and utilizes the creation of truncated, nonfunctional RNA transcripts of a gene to repress the formation of long, functional transcripts of that same gene. We do not […]
Catherine Ngo
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in America. Hundreds of different diseases are characterized as cancer, but all have the same underlying cause. This mortal disease results from mutations in genes responsible for cell division regulation. For my project, I will positionally clone the curly mutation of Xenopus tropicalis, a defect due to alterations in a tumor suppressor gene. This summer my primary goal is to narrow in on the region in which the curly gene resides–the first step of positional cloning. After this initial step, I […]
Sun Young Jeong
I am studying how birds time their reproductive systems in response to local environmental changes. For instance, the European great tit has expanded northward as temperatures have increased and these northern populations have delayed the timing of breeding, an advantageous adaption because spring conditions come later in the year with increasing latitude. It is thought that the delay occurs via an increase in the photoperiodic threshold to induce gonadal growth. We think that a delay in the activation of genes that regulate photoperiodic response in the northern population is responsible […]