Undergraduate Research Day 2021

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/27016

With students involved in so many research opportunities, Undergraduate Research Day provides the perfect opportunity for them to share their work with the campus community. Held each April, Undergraduate Research Day showcases current research, scholarship, and artistic endeavors.

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End date: 2021Subject: search.filters.subject.SPHL

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Biomarker Research Applications in Alzheimer's Disease
    (2021-05) Cieslak, Zofia; Acha, Beatrice; Hemani, Danny; Kubli, Anjali; Lee, So Min; Mgboji, Rejoyce; Nallani, Madhulika C.; Park, Michael J.; Samson, Mahalet; Wu, Benjamin; Smith, J. Carson; Smith, J. Carson
    Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) affects millions of older individuals and is a growing problem without an accessible diagnosis method, drug target for treatment, or model of the longitudinal progression of the disease. The project, led by University of Maryland Gemstone Team BRAIN, aims to determine how changes in memory, visuospatial ability, the plasma amyloid β 42/40 ratio, and the total hippocampal volume can be used to accurately predict the onset and progression of AD. Using the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a database that compiles data from nationwide studies, we analyze cognitive function (memory and visuospatial ability), plasma biomarkers (amyloid β 42/40 ratio), and brain imaging (hippocampal volume). Data analysis consists of using programs such as Python and JASP to analyze data from the ADNI database, and finding significant relationships between variables through statistical analysis. Our results suggest that the impact of the e4 allele on memory and visuospatial ability over time may be strong in people who show early cognitive decline, independent of age, sex and education, and that hippocampal volume loss is greater in people who carry the e4 allele independent of covariates. Furthermore, it is unclear if plasma biomarkers reflect brain pathology. Team BRAIN’s future research goals include addressing disparities in AD development among different demographic and socioeconomic groups, using our findings to work towards a novel and cost-effective approach to diagnosing and treating AD to eradicate boundaries in the access to care, applying machine learning to propose a model of prediction and longitudinal progression, and expanding the variable set to include more biomarkers.
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    Identification of Clostridium Phage Endolysins with Novel Multimeric Genetic Sequences
    (2021) Bokil, Eesha; Baker, Charley; Nelson, Daniel; O'Hara, Jessica
    The endolysin CD27L is produced by the Clostridium phage phiCD27. This phage targets the bacteria and uses the endolysin’s enzymatic properties to lyse cells from within and release new replicated phages. Past studies have characterized the two domains of CD27L’s genetic sequence, the enzymatically active domain (EAD) at the N-terminus and the cell wall binding domain (CBD) at the C-terminus connected by a linker sequence. The gene sequence order is EAD-linker-CBD. A unique aspect of CD27L is its ability to form a multimeric enzymatic structure from these two domains where one EAD and multiple CBDs are present in one structure. This multimeric endolysin is formed from one gene, so translation of the one sequence uses two ribosome binding sites and two start codons. One ribosome binding site and start codon is before the EAD and the other in the linker sequence before the CBD. Our goal is to analyze the sequences of other Clostridium phage endolysins to find multimeric endolysins similar to CD27L. We are specifically looking for multiple ribosome binding sites with start codons or alternate start codons downstream in close proximity on one gene sequence.
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    Investigating Arginine Biosynthesis in Viral Replication
    (2020-11) Lee, Harrison; Griffin, Ryleigh; Stecklein, Sabrina; Chaudry, Daniel; O'Hara, Jessica
    When a virus infects a cell, it must hijack that host cell’s inner machinery, normally used to manufacture necessary molecules for the host cell, and divert that machinery to producing new viruses. Previous research has indicated that arginine, an amino acid, plays an important role in viral infection. We investigated the role arginine plays in infection in two ways. First, we compared how well bacteriophage, a type of bacteria-infecting virus, replicated in normal (parent) E. coli and genetically modified E. coli that could not produce their own arginine. These genetically modified E. coli are called a knock-out strain because the gene for a particular protein, in this case an enzyme involved in producing arginine, is removed. The gene in question is called argH and thus the knock-out strain is named ΔargH. Here we found that when arginine was available from outside the cell, there was no significant difference between bacteriophage replication in the two E. coli strains. Second, we observed how the levels of certain small molecules (metabolites), including arginine, inside a human cell changed after it was infected with the Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV). We found that HCMV infected cells had altered levels of metabolites from throughout the arginine biosynthesis pathway, including increased levels of arginine.
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    Characterizing a Chimera: Comparative Analysis of Pal Endolysin and its Homologs
    (2021-04) Griffin, Ryleigh; Lee, Harrison; O'Hara, Jessica; Nelson, Daniel
    Once a virus infects a cell and produces more virus particles (virions), it must find a way to release those virions so they can infect more cells. Bacteriophage, or viruses that infect bacteria, accomplish this goal by producing endolysins, proteins that cause bacterial cells to lyse by breaking down their cell walls. Many endolysins have a modular structure consisting of an enzymatically active domain (EAD), which catalytically breaks bonds in peptidoglycan, the main component of bacterial cell walls, and a cell wall binding domain (CBD), which attaches the endolysin to the cell wall and determines host specificity. By combining EADs and CBDs from different endolysins, researchers can produce new “chimeric” endolysins in order to kill disease-causing bacteria in a targeted fashion, which can be more effective than the original enzymes. Chimeric endolysins can also form naturally. Bacteriophage Dp-1, which infects Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, produces a chimeric endolysin called Pal. Pal’s CBD has the ability to bind to choline and is very similar to a portion of the LytA enzyme produced by S. pneumoniae. Pal’s EAD breaks down amide bonds in peptidoglycan and is very similar to a portion of the endolysin produced by a Bacteriophage BK5-T, which infects Lactococcus lactis bacteria. In our research, we used bioinformatics techniques to find other proteins that share homology with Pal and to investigate the evolutionary relationships between these proteins. We hope that a better understanding of this natural chimeric endolysin could be useful to researchers attempting to engineer new ones.