July 6, 2016
By: Moreen Njoroge
Under the supervision of Amber Eubanks, a third-year graduate student and I have been studying the biochemistry of kinases in Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria. Malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people each year across the globe. The primary...
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By: Ajile Owens
When you tell someone that you're working in an HIV lab, they typically assume that all of your work is dedicated to finding a vaccine and while Dr. Barton Haynes' lab does desperately want to find a way to...
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July 5, 2016
By: Raj Borra
State of the art technology including electronics that can interface with the brain has been incredibly useful in both understanding how the brain works and how neural diseases develop and occur. One of the biggest challenges today is to create electrodes that...
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By: Margo Orlen
Forty to fifty percent of therapeutic drugs today target a class of plasma membrane proteins called G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) (Beaulieu & Gainetdinov, 2011). The dopamine receptor is a type of GPCR that, when activated by dopamine, plays a role...
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By: Chad Munger
The Bohórquez Lab focuses on the connection between the gut and the brain, especially how the brain perceives what the gut feels. Team members have performed a neurotracing using a monosynaptic rabies virus. The modified rabies virus they used could...
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July 4, 2016
By: Murotiwamambo Mudziviri
A lab resembles a giant organism made up numerous systems – in this case it’s the scientists – working towards a common goal. My role in The Perfect Lab is one of the many small parts that contribute towards the...
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By: Griffin Haas
The Pickup lab studies poxviruses and their interactions with host cells, as well as their potential to be used as vectors in immunizations. Previous studies using a poxvirus known as Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) were conducted to try and elicit...
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July 3, 2016
By: Courtney Hill
One undertaking of the Wright Lab is to work on projects benefitting the Coastal SEES project (Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability). This effort as a whole is dedicated to the understanding of coastal systems through various temporal and spatial...
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By: Emre Kiziltug
Hello everyone! This week I wrote about the overall research project in Kuo Lab and describe my particular role in it. I hope you enjoy it! Ependymal cells located in the walls of brain ventricles play an important role in neurogenesis...
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By: Yilin Yang
The Jiang lab in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Medical Genetics at Duke University focuses on finding the genetic or the epigenetic basis of various mental disorders such as autism, Angelman syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome. Each of...
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By: Elizabeth Snyder-Mounts
My research project for this summer is to model the protocol as outlined in the publication Generation of vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells from human pluripotent stem cells (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4566857/) for differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into vascular...
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By: Demi Zhu
The Jinks-Robertson Lab at Duke investigates genome stability and mutagenesis using yeast. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is used as a model organism because yeast is easy to grow, and has a cell cycle similar to that of human cells which is also regulated...
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By: Melissa Horowitz
When discussing the development of any type of organism, the topics of both genetics and the environment are strongly considered, which has contributed to the debate known as “nature vs. nurture.” At the Donohue Lab, both heredity and the environment...
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By: Megan Jiao
Generally speaking, the Baugh lab is a c. elegans lab that observes developmental arrest (L1 arrest) in roundworms with various mutations under starvation to elucidate signaling pathways and gene regulatory mechanisms that control this arrest. These pathways and mechanisms mirror...
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By: Susan Zheng
The Poss lab focuses on the concepts and mechanisms of regeneration in zebrafish. Zebrafish are a known animal model system for studying regeneration because of their remarkable ability to regenerate lost tissue after injury. Adult zebrafish are capable of regenerating...
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By: Hannah Ahrendt
Glossary: Promoter: A short sequence of DNA located just before the transcription start site for a gene, which is responsible for initiating the transcription of a gene, generally by recruiting RNA polymerase, the molecule responsible for DNA transcription. Transcription factor:...
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July 1, 2016
By: Casey Kuka
**WARNING** LENGTHY POST AHEAD **WARNING** This is a slightly longer post than usual, but I didn't want to gloss over anything important and risk comprehension for the sake of brevity. Also, I'm just really excited about my project and its...
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June 30, 2016
By: Demi Zhu
Dr. Sue Jinks-Robertson is a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology and a director in the Program in Cell and Molecular Biology. She received her undergraduate degree from Agnes Scott College, a small liberal arts women’s college, where she studied...
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