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Full-Text Articles in Microbiology
Sunflower Seedlings Fail To Remove Uranium Pollution In The Navajo Nation: Participatory Science As A Path To Build Community And Address Environmental Injustice, Zak R. Webber
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Mid-20th century mining on Naabeehó Bináhásdzo (Navajo Nation) polluted groundwater with high concentrations of uranium and arsenic. The Navajo Nation and other rural residents of this region use groundwater for drinking, livestock, and irrigation. However, many individuals and communities must purchase and transport treated water from locations that are often hours away. Sunflowers have been shown to preferentially take up heavy metals, including uranium and arsenic, potentially representing a tool to improve water quality through on-site, low-cost phytoremediation. We carried out a collaborative research project with a high school class on the Navajo Nation in 2018 and 2019. The students …
Evaluation And Improvement Of A Novel Method For Rapid Promoter Characterization In A Zebrafish Model, Hunter Giles
Evaluation And Improvement Of A Novel Method For Rapid Promoter Characterization In A Zebrafish Model, Hunter Giles
Undergraduate Honors Theses
This thesis examines a novel technique for characterizing promoters using a zebrafish model. The proximal upstream cis-regulatory elements, also known as promoters or promoter regions, are essential for the precise regulation and timing of gene expression. Often the characterization of these regions relies on imprecise methods involving large deletions or bioinformatic predictions rather than experimental data. However, high-throughput sequencing technology could potentially allow large libraries containing hundreds of thousands of variants of a single promoter to be simultaneously analyzed. We have been working to develop a novel method for promoter characterization that takes advantage of this technology. We tested this …