July 29, 2017
By: Annika
7:50am… 8:00… 8:10… 8:20… 8:30… 8:35… These are all the alarms my roommate had to suffer through on a daily basis as I tried to convince myself to wake up for our morning faculty seminars. Although dragging myself out of...
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By: Iris Chang
Dr. Charles Gersbach wakes up each morning motivated and excited by the thought that he can discover something new and fresh with his passion and hard work. He didn’t feel he could find such motivation through moist toilet paper, an...
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By: Rebecca Lee
I thoroughly enjoyed these seminars. Not only did I learn more about other research that I might not have thought of exposing myself to, but I also got to know how these researchers became…researchers. To be completely honest, it’s nice...
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July 25, 2017
By: Bruny Kenou
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="160"] Credits: Duke DIBS[/caption] Dr. Amir Rezvani is a professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Associate Director of Addiction Division at Duke University in addition to being one of the PI in the lab that I...
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By: Ian Levitan
Limitations to dopamine D2 ligands for antipsychotic efficacy. The D2 receptor has often been examined as the target for antipsychotic drugs due to its distribution in critical areas of the brain involved in movement and reward. Beta-arrestin biased drugs such...
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By: Ian Levitan
In the Caron lab, my project has largely been testing new schizophrenia drugs on the dopamine receptors. Because my interests in the sciences have largely revolved around pharmacology and cell biology, I have usually approached the concept of neuropsychiatric disorders...
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By: Ian Levitan
For me, each day of the week in the Caron lab is dedicated to a different procedure with the overall goal of generating data for my project. Thanks to my dedicated mentor who goes to lab on Sunday, I am...
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By: Bruny Kenou
Approximately half of the world’s children are exposed to second-hand smoke. Preliminary studies have been conducted that shows the link between Attention Deficient Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and tobacco smoke. Tobacco smoke is a substance that contains thousands of harmful chemicals...
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July 24, 2017
By: Justin Savage
Astrocytes are a non-neuronal cell population in the brain which perform many important functions, including regulating synapse formation and function and helping to form the blood brain barrier. Despite the importance of these cells in vivo, little is known about...
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By: Aaliyah Davy
Identifying the endoreplication pathway in Cryptococcus neoformans Aaliyah Davy Mentors: Ci Fu, PhD., Joseph Heitman, MD., PhD. Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology Cryptococcus neoformans is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that affects the immunocompromised and rarely, the immunocompetent. The fungus...
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July 23, 2017
By: Maddie Ojeda
Randomly self-assembling copolymers have repeatedly demonstrated great promise toward eliciting therapeutic immune responses, and specifically for autoimmune diseases. However, their mechanisms of action are not yet fully understood. Many factors such as pH and temperature can affect the nature of...
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By: Ulises
Exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) chemicals is widespread due to their presence in emissions from tobacco smoke, wood stoves, and organic fuel burning throughout the world. Many PAHs are classified as carcinogens, and prior studies have shown an increase...
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By: Cassie Ingram
Self-assembling peptide nanofibers have been shown to have self-adjuvanting properties—stimulating targeted immune responses in vivo and raising long lasting antibody responses without an accompanying inflammatory response. Despite these novel properties, the mechanisms behind nanofiber induced immune responses are still not...
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By: Kristie Kim
This first draft of my abstract is the result of careful and meticulous revisions to quite a few sentences to reduce the word count to fewer than 200 words. Who knew how tough it would be to fit so many...
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By: Chumba Koech
The Role of Glucagon in Insulin Secretion Glucagon and Insulin are products of the alpha and beta cell respectively, that are essential to maintaining glucose homeostasis. It’s also known that incretins, signaling hormones secreted in our small intestine are essential...
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By: Georgia Young
This is a first draft of my abstract Ecologic Factors Influencing Hormone Concentrations in Female Baboons Although studies have shown how ecologic factors influence human female hormone concentrations and male baboon hormone concentrations, little is known about how these same...
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By: Alie Fink
The Dzirasa lab uses chronic social defeat stress to create an ecologically relevant model for depression in mouse models. The model results in the expression of two distinct phenotypes, resilient and susceptible, similar to the phenotypes seen in human patients...
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July 22, 2017
By: Rebecca Lee
My abstract draft: Will they learn to court? Studying the role of Or47b in drosophila courtship learning behavior Behaviors are made up of both innate and plastic components and courtship is no exception. It has been discovered that courtship can...
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