Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Anatomy And Physiology Preparatory Course Textbook (2nd Edition), Carlos Liachovitzky

Open Educational Resources

The goal of this preparatory textbook is to give students a chance to become familiar with some terms and some basic concepts they will find later on in the Anatomy and Physiology course, especially during the first few weeks of the course.

Organization and functioning of the human organism are generally presented starting from the simplest building blocks, and then moving into levels of increasing complexity. This textbook follows the same presentation. It begins introducing the concept of homeostasis, then covers the chemical level, and later on a basic introduction to cellular level, organ level, and organ system level. This …

Determining The Antibacterial Activity And Mode Of Action Of Tirandamycin, Hailey Bouchard

CMC Senior Theses

Tirandamycin is a small molecule natural product that has been isolated from various species of marine and terrestrial Streptomyces. The natural product has shown antibacterial activity against an array of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, showing promise as a pharmaceutical drug. Tirandamycin has 14 known derivatives, many of which have been created synthetically. Some of its derivatives are particularly potent against the high-risk bacteria vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Escherichia coli. However, the antibacterial potency of these derivatives has not been tested systematically leading to the possibility of discovering more potent …

Organocatalyzed Synthesis Of Epoxides From Chalcones Utilizing Amino Acids, Sabrina N. Kegeler

Masters Theses

The epoxide functional group is important throughout the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, as well as in nature. In the chemical industry, epoxides are present in resins and fragrances. In the pharmaceutical industry, epoxide-containing compounds are used as intermediates in the manufacturing of drugs. In nature, many natural products contain epoxide groups and are used for medicinal purposes, and for models to create synthetic molecules.

One approach to epoxide synthesis involves the use of an alkene precursor, a base, and an oxidizing agent. This is where my investigations began. The first step was to optimize the epoxidation reaction, examining substrate scope, …

Recombinant Expression And Purification Of Amyloid-Β In E. Coli, Wisam M. Beauti

Honors Theses

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder that affects people older than 65 years 1,2,5. It is characterized by the presence of extracellular plaque deposits that are seen specifically in the brains of AD patients 4,5. These plaques are mainly comprised of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide aggregates. Aβ plaque production and deposition is believed to drive AD pathogenesis. Studying these proteins is crucial to understanding aspects of AD in order to develop possible therapeutic treatments. Recombinant expression of Aβ can also provide a handle to introduce mutations in the protein to further study their structure-function relationships. However, synthetic Aβ monomer …

Syntheses Of Precursors To Fluorine-18 Labeled Pet Imaging Agents, Lindsay B. Boling

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Killerflip: A Novel Lytic Peptide Specifically Inducing Cancer Cell Death, B Pennarun, G. Gaidos, O Bucur, A Tinari

Dartmouth Scholarship

One of the objectives in the development of effective cancer therapy is induction of tumor-selective cell death. Toward this end, we have identified a small peptide that, when introduced into cells via a TAT cell-delivery system, shows a remarkably potent cytoxicity in a variety of cancer cell lines and inhibits tumor growth in vivo, whereas sparing normal cells and tissues. This fusion peptide was named killer FLIP as its sequence was derived from the C-terminal domain of c-FLIP, an anti-apoptotic protein. Using structure activity analysis, we determined the minimal bioactive core of killerFLIP, namely killerFLIP-E. Structural analysis of cells using …

Ferrocene Constrained Helical Peptides Via On-Resin Cyclization, Thomas A. Mcteague

Senior Theses and Projects

Previous research within the Curran group has demonstrated that ferrocene may be used as an organometallic constraint to induce the formation of α-helices in short peptides which traditionally possess undefined conformations. Through strategic placement of lysine residues at the i and i+3 positions within the peptide, such a constraint was accomplished via the crosslinking of the lysine side chains to ferrocene dicarboxylic acid chloride in solution phase synthesis. The aim of this work was to develop a method for solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) for the synthesis of these ferrocene-constrained helices. In particular, we seek to develop a method in …

Linus Pauling: Scientist Of The 20th Century, Laura Ward

Natural Sciences Student Research Presentations

This poster describes the contributions scientist Linus Pauling made to the fields of chemistry and molecular biology, including his hybridization theory.

Stabilization Of Smar1 Mrna By Pga2 Involves A Stem Loop Structure In The 5' Utr, Lakshminarasimhan Pavritha, Shravanti Rampalli, Surajit Sinha, Kadreppa Sreenath, Richard G. Pestell, Samit Chattopadhyay

Department of Cancer Biology Faculty Papers

Prostaglandins are anticancer agents known to inhibit tumor cell proliferation both in vitro and in vivo by affecting the mRNA stability. Here we report that a MAR-binding protein SMAR1 is a target of Prostaglandin A2 (PGA2) induced growth arrest. We identify a regulatory mechanism leading to stabilization of SMAR1 transcript. Our results show that a minor stem and loop structure present in the 5' UTR of SMAR1 (1-UTR) is critical for nucleoprotein complex formation that leads to SMAR1 stabilization in response to PGA2. This results in an increased SMAR1 transcript and altered protein levels, that in turn causes downregulation of …