Office of Undergraduate Research

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Emphasizing equitable and inclusive access to research opportunities, the University of Maryland's Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) empowers undergraduates and faculty to engage and succeed in inquiry, creative activity, and scholarship. This collection includes materials shared by undergraduate researchers during OUR events. It also encompasses materials from Undergraduate Research Day 2020, Undergraduate Research Day 2021, and Undergraduate Research Day 2022, which were organized by the Maryland Center for Undergraduate Research.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 18
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    The Efficacy of Electric Vehicles
    (2024) Ratnavale, William; Demirekler, Defne; Srivastava, Vai; Ruangmas, Thanicha
    As a part of the Biden Administration’s Investing in America agenda, the administration is targeting that at least fifty percent of new car sales will be electric by 2030. Using emissions data from 2010 to 2019, Holland et al. (2022) highlighted concerns that the increased electricity production to meet this additional demand could lead to an increase in marginal emissions, offsetting the environmental benefits predicted by the Biden Administration. Our research builds upon their findings by utilizing updated emissions data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Markets Division and hourly electricity generation from the Energy Information Administration from 2020 to 2022 to study how the marginal emissions for electric vehicles have changed in recent years compared to gasoline vehicles. By focusing on this timeframe, our study updates the existing literature on electric vehicle emissions and serves as a benchmark for future policy analysis since this time frame predates the rapid expansion in electric vehicle production and sales into the future.
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    Tracing the Rhetorical Boundaries of College Park through Archival Maps
    (2024) Grenning, Penelope; Bruner, Jaclyn
    Through the investigations of archival maps, this research project examines the changes in the College Park cultural landscape over time. Although the fire of 1912 destroyed many documents, remaining materials help to illustrate how the university and city have shaped each other over time. Through archived maps of what we now know as College Park, detail the changes over time, including changes in environment and use of space, as well as the ways in which the relationship between the university and the town has evolved over time. Relying on accessible primary documents, this research project looks at influential events in College Park history, such as the founding era of “College Lawn,” the eventual incorporation of the City of College Park, and the devastation of the Lakeland community.
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    What is Justice?: Coping Methods for Families of Lynching Victims
    (2024) Storm, Sadie; Bruner, Jaclyn
    In 2007, Congress authorized (re)investigations into racially motivated homicides before 1970. While many of these cases would not see “courtroom justice,” victims and their families deserve to have their stories heard. This research project examines a case from 1960 in Louisiana, when five black men, Earnest McFarland, Albert Pitts, David Pitts, Alfred Marshall, and Charlie Willis, were shot by their white employer, Robert Fuller. Only Willis survived the attack. In reviewing a range of both archival and contemporary sources, I encountered a narrative from Willie Mae Pitts Sallie, sister to two of the victims, explaining why she forgave Fuller for his criminal actions. In an effort to further explore how relatives of lynched persons cope with intergenerational racial trauma, I engage Sallie’s response as an illustrative example of the power of storytelling with regard to the public memory of lynching. Storytelling is widely regarded as an identity-building and constitutive tool; for this project I produced a written anthology of short stories, to promote a broadly accessible retelling of this story, enacting a space to cope with the trauma of this memory, as well bring awareness to the trauma that lynching enacts on a family, community, and region.
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    Who Gets to be a Victim?: The Significance of Johnny Robinson’s Murder
    (2024) Peart, Riley; Bruner, Jaclyn
    The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963 received attention on a federal level, and illustrated the brazen lengths of racial violence in Alabama for a broader audience. Lesser known, however, is the racially motivated murder of 16-year-old Johnny Robinson, which happened a few hours after the church bombing, when Birmingham police officer Jack Park fatally shot Robinson in the back as he was fleeing the scene of an altercation. This research project examines why Robinson’s death was overlooked and remained underreported by the media in the 1960s. While the church bombing gained extensive media attention and was portrayed as the tragic loss of young, innocent black lives, Robinson's case was framed in newspaper coverage not as a victim of racial violence but as a troublemaker evading police, declaring his death an "accidental" shooting. The difference in media coverage and public perception between these two significant events juxtaposes the rhetorical frame of “victimhood;” a frame recognizable to contemporary audiences, especially following the protests in the summer of 2020 after George Floyd’s murder by a white, Minneapolis police officer. Drawing on primary documents, conclusions made from a requested FOIA report, and parallels to the 2020 protests for George Floyd, this research seeks to shed light on the factors that contributed to Robinson's case being overlooked and denied the justice it deserves.
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    DNA Aptamers Against Airway Mucin Proteins for Therapeutics and Diagnostics
    (2024) Dwomoh, Deborah; Welte, Linara; Savage, Colin; McDonald, Cyan; Shpilman, Zackary; Srinath, Priyanka; Spirito, Catherine
    Mucus is a viscous bodily fluid composed of mucin proteins, inorganic salts, and water. MUC5AC and MUC5B are the two mucin proteins that makeup airway mucus. Elevated levels of MUC5AC can indicate certain diseases, like asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Current treatments for mucus-associated respiratory diseases include using enzymes and chemical agents to clear mucus buildup. These existing treatments are limited in their ability to selectively target specific mucin proteins within mucus. Our research aims to select DNA aptamers that bind to MUC5AC or MUC5B, within mucus samples. We are optimizing a One-Pot SELEX or in vitro selection methodology previously used by other researchers to select aptamers against MUC16. Selected DNA aptamers with high binding affinity and specificity can detect airway mucin proteins and deliver engineered proteases to cleave and destroy them.
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    INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF E. COLI TCA CYCLE METABOLISM IN BACTERIOPHAGE REPLICATION
    (2024) Kavalov, Lilith; Weaver, Trinity; O'Hara, Jessica
    Bacteriophages are viruses that specifically infect and hijack Escherichia coli's metabolic processes to proliferate, ultimately destroying the host cell in the process. The Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle (TCA Cycle) is a multi-step aerobic enzyme-catalyzed pathway that occurs in the cytoplasm of E. coli and is responsible for generating the electron-carrier molecules NADH and FADH2 which are crucial for generating ATP for the cell in future steps of cellular respiration. The E. coli genes, acnB, and acnA, encode enzymes that catalyze different reactions that are necessary for the TCA cycle. We hypothesize that the removal of these genes would negatively impact the growth rate and ATP levels of E. coli and, as a result, inhibit or slow the replication of bacteriophage. To determine the effects of the removal of these genes, enzyme assays, comparative growth curves of the knockout strains, and plaque assays of bacteriophage replication were measured and investigated. Furthermore, we quantified the knockout’s effects by collecting lysis curves as well as performing an ATP assay using bioluminescence.
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    Decreased Host-Cell ATP Levels Affects Bacteriophage Replication in Knockout E. coli Strains
    (2024) Alumyar, Marrie; Beitzell, Lauren; Bradish, Kristin; Kato, Rion; Vozna, Alina; O'Hara, Jessica
    Bacteriophages are viruses that use host cell metabolic resources for replication. Altering Escherichia coli's ATP production pathway can inhibit bacteriophage replication, offering a new approach to bacteriophage therapy.The atp genes encode ATP synthase subunits crucial for ATP generation in E. coli. Knockouts ΔatpA, B, D, E, and H, alongside the parent strain, were studied. Focus narrowed to ΔatpA and B due to significant deviations from the parent strain. It is hypothesized that these knockout strains reduce growth in E. coli and bacteriophage due to decreased ATP production, vital for metabolism and phage replication. Comparative growth assays of E. coli parent and ATP knockout strains were conducted in LB-rich media and M9 minimal media. T4 bacteriophage replication was measured through lysis curves, plaque assays, and two time-point phage titer experiments, chosen for consistent replication. Characterization of T4 bacteriophage replication revealed ΔatpA's crucial role, showing difficulties in growth and lysing. ΔatpA required 10-4 dilutions in phage titer experiments due to low PFU/mL, contrasting with 10-7 dilutions for other strains. ATP assay data showed significantly lower ATP concentration (319nM) in ΔatpB compared to the parent strain, also implying its crucial role in ATP synthesis.Future research will focus on characterizing phage replication in ATP synthase knockout strains using E. coli ATP synthase inhibitors to deepen understanding of phage-host interactions. Controlled bacteriophage manipulation can be studied further to have a better understanding of the application of bacteriophage therapy and to potentially improve its clinical efficacy.
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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.