Mallika Lal
Antibiotic resistance in the Enterobacteriaceae family, which includes Gram-negative bacteria E. coli and Klebsiella, has become a serious public health problem. Many bacteria of this family produce extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs), which are enzymes that can degrade most beta-lactam antibiotics. Therefore, carbapenems, a type of beta-lactam drug, are increasingly the drugs of last resort for ESBL-producing bacteria. However, an enzyme called Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) threatens to render carbapenems completely ineffective, leaving few choices for treatment in patients with infections caused by KPC-producing species. In fact, the CDC has designated carbapenem-resistant […]
Siti Galang Keo
Matthew Boggess
Everyday actions require both the selection of the correct action and then the correct execution of this action. For example, when playing tennis, one has to both select the correct stroke to use and then correctly execute this stroke. The basal ganglia and cerebellum are two systems in the brain thought to be responsible for action selection and execution respectively. My research aims to develop a computational model of these two systems in order to investigate how they interact to produce complex motor actions. This model will be biologically constrained […]
Jamie Lynn Inman
Kari Miller
Discovering the genes underlying evolved morphological changes is a major goal of evolutionary biology. The threespine stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) is an excellent model for dissecting the genes underlying evolutionary adaptation. Recent freshwater stickleback populations have evolved dramatic morphological changes relative to ancestral marine populations. I propose genetic analysis of freshwater gill raker reduction, a change in head skeletal bones known to be important in feeding on larger prey present in freshwater. Previous work has mapped gill raker reduction to multiple regions of the genome, including a strong-effect region (termed […]
Sabrina Hom
Alex Onishi
Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide. 53% of all Americans over the age of 75 have cataracts or have had cataract extraction surgery. Connexin protein subunits form gap junction channels in the lens and transport metabolites required for lens transparency. Previous work has indicated that when connexin is knocked out in the 129SvJae mouse strain, severe cataracts results. Disruption of the same connexin in the C57BL/6J (B6) strain displays a mild cataract that is hardly noticeable. Several loci in the B6 background likely containing genes that function to […]
Shiaulou Yuan
Jae Ho Paek
Reactive oxygen speciesincluding hydrogen peroxide, superoxide, and hydroxyl radicalare commonly blamed for causing a variety of oxidative damages in cell. However, there are scientific papers published that suggest these reactive oxygen species actually play fruitful, not harmful, roles in cells. The increasing need for studying these reactive oxygen species calls for the development of tools that can be used for effectively detecting these reactive oxygen species in vivo. Hydroethidinethe reduced state of ethidium bromide, a common DNA dyeis recognized as a reliable superoxide probe. However, hydroethidine can be much improved […]