Michelle Lee
If a nuclear weapon exploded in an urban environment, the effects would be catastrophic. Governments would want to quickly know what type of weapon it was, where it came from and who made it. One effect of the explosion is that it would expose many materials to large numbers of neutrons producing a variety of radioactive isotopes. When these isotopes decay, they produce characteristic gamma rays that allow them to be uniquely identified. My project will identify the radioactive species produced by neutron interactions with a wide variety of materials […]
Zoe Adams
It has been shown that tumors are not simply genetically homogeneous collections of cells, but rather growths of evolving, genetically diverse populations that typically arise from a single mutant cell. As this mutant cell proliferates, its daughter cells naturally pick up more mutations due to a variety of factors, creating genetic heterogeneity. More and more studies have been published analyzing the possible interactions of these varied populations, ultimately suggesting that there may be cooperation that influences tumor growth. My lab at UCSF has developed a system using a 4-color confetti […]
Nikhil Sahoo
In our research, we will use toric geometry to study the cohomological structure of complex Grassmannians. The cohomology ring of a Grassmannian varieties is described by the Littlewood-Richardson rule. One of the main open questions in Schubert calculus concerns the generalization of the Littlewood-Richardson rule to flag varieties. Such a generalization is highly desirable, because it is a manifestly positive formula that can be applied to other areas: in algebraic geometry, it helps describe complicated intersections; in representation theory, it helps to find irreducible, direct-sum decompositions of tensor products; in […]
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 […]
Junhao Fan
In our research, we will use toric geometry to study the cohomological structure of complex Grassmannians. The cohomology ring of a Grassmannian varieties is described by the Littlewood-Richardson rule. One of the main open questions in Schubert calculus concerns the generalization of the Littlewood-Richardson rule to flag varieties. Such a generalization is highly desirable, because it is a manifestly positive formula that can be applied to other areas: in algebraic geometry, it helps describe complicated intersections; in representation theory, it helps to find irreducible, direct-sum decompositions of tensor products; in […]
Aimee Cortez
The soil microbial community is rich with bacteria that provide an abundant source of medically valuable natural antibiotics and pharmaceuticals. In particular, Streptomyces padanus possesses antimicrobial activity and produces actinomycin D, an antibiotic with antitumor properties. However, there is a lack of understanding in the field regarding the ecology of antibiotic production in S. padanus — specifically how antibiotic products contribute to antimicrobial activity during microbial interactions. Preliminary data suggests that activity of actinomycin D inhibits growth of the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae during interspecies interactions. In my research, I will […]
Keto, De Zhang
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are generally thought to be the thermonuclear disruption of a carbon-oxygen white-dwarf star, but their formation scenarios and exact progenitor systems are still ambiguous. SNe Ia are used as standardizable candles used for measuring distances in the universe. Famously, SNe Ia are being used to determine the acceleration at which the universe is expanding (i.e., Hubble constant). Knowing more about the formation and progenitor of SNe Ia may help correct some assumptions made when using SNe Ia to measure distances. The photospheric velocity of SNe […]
Shea Khyeam
Although animals such as zebrafish and newborn mice retain the ability to regenerate the heart post-injury, adult mammalians have largely lost this cardiac regenerative capacity. Consequently, a patient will irreversibly lose as many as a billion cardiomyocytes following a heart attack and suffer from permanently reduced cardiac function. Today, nearly five million Americans live with heart failurethis underscores the significance of our inability to regenerate myocardial tissue. Most mammalian cardiomyocytes lose their proliferative and regenerative abilities because they undergo binucleation, terminal differentiation, and permanent withdrawal from the cell cycle postnatally. […]
Jenny Lai
Despite the ever increasing number of identified genetic diseases, many of the genes associated with these human disorders are still either poorly understood or have not yet been functionally described during development. My work will pursue the characterization of three genes: scinderin (scin), angiotensin-I-converting-enzyme (ace), and clustered mitochondria cluA homolog (cluh), which are all expressed in the kidney according to preliminary findings in the Harland lab. Using Xenopus as a model, I will study the role of these three genes in nephrogenesis and kidney function through a series of experiments […]
Yining Liu
In our research, we will use toric geometry to study the cohomological structure of complex Grassmannians. The cohomology ring of a Grassmannian varieties is described by the Littlewood-Richardson rule. One of the main open questions in Schubert calculus concerns the generalization of the Littlewood-Richardson rule to flag varieties. Such a generalization is highly desirable, because it is a manifestly positive formula that can be applied to other areas: in algebraic geometry, it helps describe complicated intersections; in representation theory, it helps to find irreducible, direct-sum decompositions of tensor products; in […]