July 16, 2023
By: Catherine Pyne
Dorsal closure is a stage of Drosophila embryogenesis in which lateral epidermal cell sheets bordering an eye-shaped dorsal opening ”zip” together to form a seamed and then seamless epithelium. Understanding this process is important because it models cell sheet movements...
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By: Kennedy Truitt
Orthopedic injuries often occur while the knee is extended, in a relatively stiff (limited change in angle) position that generates relatively high ground reaction forces (GRF, forces applied to the body from the ground). Modern humans walk with their knees...
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By: Kibir Elias
Pseudouridine, an isomer of the uracil nucleotide, is a common RNA modification. However, its function is not fully understood, especially during plant immunity. In collaboration with Dr. Chuan He’s laboratory in University of Chicago, we applied a new technique, BID-Seq,...
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By: Riley Reeves
Pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) is an ancient, conserved branch of the plant immune system activated by pathogen-associated molecular patterns. Calcium signaling is an important part of the immune pathway and plant responses to stress, yet the spatiotemporal dynamics of calcium during...
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By: Wigdan Hissein
Oxidative stress is a pervasive environmental challenge linked to the development and progression of several diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and immunodeficiency. Understanding various cellular responses to oxidative stress is essential in developing therapeutic interventions. The Ubiquitin Proteasome System (UPS)...
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By: Erika Rispoli
The prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) has increased rapidly in recent decades. Genetic mechanisms of these disorders have been studied extensively; however, environmental factors contributing to NDD development remain less understood. Current evidence suggests that alterations in synaptogenesis and pruning...
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By: Emma Podol
Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is known to be induced by seizures themselves, although there is much to learn about the mechanisms by which TLE develops and progresses (“epileptogenesis”). Briefly inhibiting BDNF/TrkB signaling induces regression of epileptogenesis, yet this only occurs...
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By: Christopher Kang
Microfluidic devices are tools used to study cell behaviors and interactions with their microenvironments. Typical in vitro models, like 2D-culture dishes, insufficiently capture the complex structure of the extracellular matrix, whereas in vivo models like animal testing make it difficult...
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By: Jaqueline Villanueva Govea (she/her/hers)
Cryptococcus neoformans is a human fungal pathogen that can infect the lungs and later spread to the central nervous system. This disease is most associated with immunosuppressed individuals. C. neoformans is distinctive compared to other fungi because of its ability...
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By: Maia Goel
Caenorhabditis elegans that hatch into an environment without any nutrients are arrested in the first larval stage of development, L1. Larvae can remain in L1 arrest for weeks and resume normal development once they receive food. However, many C. elegans...
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By: Julian Orrego
Gap junctions are intercellular channels made up of hexameric units, connexins in vertebrates or innexins in invertebrates, that allow ions and small molecules to pass between adjacent cells. Although gap junctions are essential to the survival and function of organisms,...
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July 15, 2023
By: Vinicius Xie Fu
Mucosal vaccines are gaining increased attention due to their potential to tackle distinct bodily mucosae and induce immune responses to prevent and treat infectious diseases and autoimmune conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Some benefits over traditional vaccination methods...
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July 14, 2023
By: Jarvis Savage
J Savage, M Ney, A Chilkoti Biomedical Engineering; Duke University; Durham, NC 27708 Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) have the ability to phase separate in liquid which provides many applications (like protein purification), and with modifications they can have pH dependent properties...
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By: Frank Lin
Ferroptosis is a form of programmed cell death characterized by the accumulation of reactive oxygen species, which lead to lipid peroxidation and membrane rupture. To search for novel ferroptosis inducers and inhibitors, we combined two ferroptosis inducers: erastin and RSL3...
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By: Arielle Kim
Cyanolichens are symbiotic associations between fungi and cyanobacteria. When lichenized fungi reproduce sexually, the fungal spores are dispersed without the cyanobacteria, and they must find a new partner to form a cyanolichen thallus. However, how common these potential cyanobacterial partners...
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July 13, 2023
By: David Su
Chloroplast division of photosynthetic eukaryotes is a highly regulated process with divisionary machinery involving a division ring and other essential components. To gain insights into this process, our lab uses the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, which possesses a single chloroplast...
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By: Hannah Baetge
Hannah Baetge Mentors: Mercedes Barzi, PhD, Karl-Dimiter Bissig, MD, PhD Department of Pediatrics | Division of Genetics Rescue of glycogen storage disease Ia in mice by liver-directed therapies Glycogen Storage Disease Ia (GSD Ia) is a rare inherited metabolic disease...
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July 12, 2023
By: Erika Rispoli
This week in BSURF, we were tasked to present our projects in the form of a chalk talk. We had 8 minutes and a whiteboard, and had to communicate the central ideas and questions underlying our projects. Each talk was...
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