Department of Biology
Nirica Borges Lab: Dr. Heidi Elmendorf (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Isolating and purifying a newly discovered variant surface protein in the cell membrane of the free-living diplomonad Trepomonas agilis (an organism in the same monophyletic clade as Giardia lamblia) and characterizing its angtigenicity based on the immune response produced in mice.
Michael DeStefano Lab: Dr. Joseph Neale (Dept. of Biology)
Research: My research tests the hypothesis that glutamate carboxypeptidase II (GCPII) and glutamate carboxypeptidase III (GCPIII) are differentially expressed in the nervous system and that this expression reflectws their specific roles in the inactivation of the neurotransmitter N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG).
Kirk Lohmueller Lab: Dr. Lee-Jun Wong (Institute for Molecular and Human Genetics, Georgetown Univ.)
Research: Performing association studies of numerous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with hypertension in different populations; also examining the evolutionary history and haplotype structure of genes associated with hypertension.
Daniel Levinson Lab:
Research:
Katharine Long Lab: Katharine Carr (Department of anatomy and Genetics, Oxford University)
Research: This research project investigated the hypothesis that the female hormones estrogen progesterone and prolactin increased microparticle permeability across tight junctions in the small intestine.
Victoria Rafalski Lab:Dr. Joseph Neale (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Characterizing one of the enzymes that inactivates the dipeptide neurotransmitter, NAAG
Noreen Bukhari Lab: Dr. Joseph Neale (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Characterizing the behavior and NAAG levels in the brains of mice in which the gene for an enzyme that inactivates this peptide neurotransmitter has been knocked out.
Brent Gilmore Lab: Dr. Mary Beth Martin (Lombardi Cancer Center)
Research: Investigating the effects of temperature on the funcational ability of estrogen receptors in MCF-7 cells (breast cancer cell line)
Louis Licamele Lab: Dr. Josef Rauschecker (Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics)
Research: Training rhesus monkeys for audioperception tasks such as responding to monkey calls in order for electrophysiological recordings of auditory cortex in activity to be performed later on; also designing appealing visual representations of monkey calls on the computer
Mehrak Marzban Lab: Dr. Brian Howell (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD)
Research: Investigating the hypothesis that overexpression of Bas1 in conjunction with expression of tau affects Drosophila viability, CNS organization and tau phosphorylation.
Olumide Ojeifo Lab: Dr. Joseph Neale (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Determining the level of mRNA in brain for a novel enzyme that inactivates the peptide transmitter, NAAG.
Andreas Rauschecker Lab: Dr. Josef Rauschecker (Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics)
Research: Performing electrophysiological recordings of non-primary auditory areas of monkey auditory cortex, such as the superior temporal gyrus, in awake behaving rhesus macaques in order to better understand how processing of various complex acoustical signals occurs in the brain.
Iga Wegorzewska Lab: Dr. Joseph Neale (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Characterizing the behavior of mice in which the gene for an enzyme that inactivates the neurotransmitter, NAAG, has been knocked-out, and determining the expression of mRNA for the metabotropic glutamate receptor, mGluR3, in these mice.
Rachel Adams Lab: Dr. Matt Hamilton (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Attempting to establish an accurate phylogeny of the angiosperm family, Lupinis, which is important to the study of whether floral color change in Lupinus is a result of selection, genetic drift, or a combination of the two in a "drift-selection balance."
Alexander Baras Lab: Novartis Pharmaceuticals
Research: DNA chip technology, specifically Affymetric GeneChips, for gene analysis in clinical studies correlating drug response with cancer genotypes
Connie Chan Lab: Dr. John Richert (Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology)
Research: Identifying polymorphisms in the promoter region of Sp3 in relation to development of multiple sclerosis.
Young Choe Lab:Dr. Mark Danielsen (Dept. of Biochemistry)
Research: Identifying a possible protein important in the p53 pathway
David Fernandez Lab: Dr. Clarke
Research: Studying the protein IRF-1 and the correlation between expression of that protein and various types of antiestrogen resistance in breast cancer cell lines.
Justin Kopa Lab: Dr. Steve Singer (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Engineering a strain of Giardia that secretes bioactive Interleukin (IL-6) as part of the investigation of the role of IL-6 in the immunological pathway that organisms use to control Giardia lamblia infections; also used QCRT-0PCR to determine if levels of IL-6 change in the gut during infections
Efua Leke Lab: Dr. Diane Taylor (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Investigating one epitope of the antigen, the Circumsporozoite Protein (CSP), and its possible relation to patterns of malaria immunity in women of different gravidity (different numbers of pregnancies)
Vikram Palanivel Lab: Dr. Anne Rosenwald (Dept. of Biology)
Research: Studying the effects of inhibition of the nucleotide cycle of Arl1, a G-protein that is believed to have a role in regulation of membrance traffic, in Sacromyces cervisea on viability and sensitivity to various drugs