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Purdue University

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

2017

Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Temporal Resolution Of Cell Death Signaling Events Induced By Cold Atmospheric Plasma And Electroporation In Human Cancer Cells, Danielle M. Krug, Prasoon K. Diwakar, Ahmed Hassanein Aug 2017

Temporal Resolution Of Cell Death Signaling Events Induced By Cold Atmospheric Plasma And Electroporation In Human Cancer Cells, Danielle M. Krug, Prasoon K. Diwakar, Ahmed Hassanein

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Cancer treatment resistance and their invasive and expensive nature is propelling research towards developing alternate approaches to eradicate cancer in patients. Non-thermal, i.e., cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) and electroporation (EP) applied to the surface of cancerous tissue are new methods that are minimally invasive, safe, and selective. These approaches, both independently and synergistically, have been shown to deplete cancer cell populations, but the signaling mechanisms of death and their timelines of action are still widely unknown. To better understand the timeframe of signaling events occurring upon treatment, human cancer cell lines were treated with CAP, EP, and combined CAP with …


Finding Human Proteins That Bind To A Lassa Virus Protein, Maria Alejandra Pardo Ruge, Veronica J. Heintz, Douglas J. Lacount Aug 2017

Finding Human Proteins That Bind To A Lassa Virus Protein, Maria Alejandra Pardo Ruge, Veronica J. Heintz, Douglas J. Lacount

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Viral hemorrhagic fevers are severe illnesses caused by many different viruses. Lassa Virus is one of these important pathogens in Western Africa, causing hemorrhagic fever and eventually death without early medical treatment. There is no vaccine and there is little information on host-pathogen interactions. Therefore, the interaction between viral proteins and host targets is useful to understand Lassa virus’s lifecycle and pathology, and to develop ways to prevent infection. In this project, we study the nucleoprotein of Lassa virus (NP), which has been reported to have anti-interferon (IFN) activity through elimination of double stranded RNA (dsRNA). These features could be …


Determining The Structure Of Phospholipase C Epsilon, Hannah O'Neill, Monita Sieng, Elisabeth Garland-Kuntz, Angeline Lyon Aug 2017

Determining The Structure Of Phospholipase C Epsilon, Hannah O'Neill, Monita Sieng, Elisabeth Garland-Kuntz, Angeline Lyon

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The phospholipase C (PLC) epsilon subfamily of PLC enzymes are found at highest concentration within the cardiovascular system. Improper functioning of the enzyme, whether due to overstimulation or changes in expression, has far-reaching effects within the human body Stunted heart valve development and cardiac hypertrophy and are two such examples. The mechanisms by which PLC epsilon activity is regulated in these processes remain unknown, as does the physical structure of the enzyme. In this study, we seek to determine the structure of a PLC epsilon fragment that retains enzymatic activity and is amenable to crystallization. Mutagenesis of PLC epsilon cDNA …


Fret Biosensors: Engineering Fluorescent Proteins As Biological Tools For Studying Parkinson’S Disease, Nathan J. Leroy, Jacob R. Norley, Saranya Radhakrishnan, Mathew Tantama Aug 2017

Fret Biosensors: Engineering Fluorescent Proteins As Biological Tools For Studying Parkinson’S Disease, Nathan J. Leroy, Jacob R. Norley, Saranya Radhakrishnan, Mathew Tantama

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease with over 200,000 new cases each year. In general, the cause of the disease is unknown, but oxidative stress inside of neurons has been associated with the disease’s pathology for some time. Currently, techniques to study the onset of PD inside of neurons are limited. This makes treatments and causes difficult to discover. One solution to this has been fluorescent protein biosensors. In short, these proteins can be engineered to glow when a certain state is achieved inside a cell. The present research discusses the engineering of a genetically-encoded fluorescent protein (FP) …


Synthesis Of Hydroxybenzylidene-Indolinones, Schiff Bases And N-Substituted Analogs And Their Effects On Bacterial Physiology., Catherine Eliana Cabrera, Neetu Dayal, Moloud Aflaki, Herman Sintim Aug 2017

Synthesis Of Hydroxybenzylidene-Indolinones, Schiff Bases And N-Substituted Analogs And Their Effects On Bacterial Physiology., Catherine Eliana Cabrera, Neetu Dayal, Moloud Aflaki, Herman Sintim

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

c-di-AMP is a global stress response regulator involved in some processes of biofilm formation and antibiotic resistance. It has become a candidate target for the development of new antibacterial treatments. Previous studies have shown that hydroxybenzylidene-indolinones can act as c-di-AMP synthase inhibitors. They also act as antibacterial and anti-biofilm inhibitors and re-sensitize resistant bacteria to methicillin and vancomycin. In this project, potent analogs of these compounds, including Schiff bases and N-substituted compounds, have been synthetized. The objective of this work is to explore the effect of these modifications on their biological activity. Base-catalyzed condensation and acid-catalyzed reactions were performed in …


Development Of Self-Assembling Nanoparticles For Drug Delivery Applications, Young Chan Kim, Craig Sweet, Helen Margaret Flynn, David H. Thompson Aug 2017

Development Of Self-Assembling Nanoparticles For Drug Delivery Applications, Young Chan Kim, Craig Sweet, Helen Margaret Flynn, David H. Thompson

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Bladder cancer is the ninth most common cancer in the world, and occurs in nearly four percent of all men. Although many cases are diagnosed as early stage cancer and the tumor can be removed by surgery, reoccurrence rates are high making treatment difficult and thus one of the most expensive cancers. To address this problem, drugs are injected intravesically after tumor removal to kill any residual cancer that may cause reoccurrence. While this was a significant improvement over surgery alone, high toxicity along with short residence times in the bladder limited its effectiveness. To combat these shortcomings, we will …


Effects Of Stroma On Er+ Breast Cancer Cell Metastasis, Shipeng Xu, Luis Solorio, Sarah Calve Aug 2017

Effects Of Stroma On Er+ Breast Cancer Cell Metastasis, Shipeng Xu, Luis Solorio, Sarah Calve

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Breast cancer is one of the most wide-spread diseases among women in America. If the cancer is local, it is easily controlled by surgical resection. However, if the cancer cells metastasize, patient survival is significantly reduced. 70% of breast cancers can be targeted through estrogen receptors (ER) on the membrane, with compounds such as tamoxifen. However, tamoxifen shows unreliable outcomes on different patients and it is believed that the ineffectiveness of tamoxifen is related to the epithetical-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of cancer cells. To address this problem, we are designing a system that stimulates metastasis activation with the aim of incorporating …


Three-Dimensional Microfluidic Tumor Vascular Model For Investigating Breast Cancer Metastasis, Anastasiia Vasiukhina, Brian H. Jun, Luis Solorio, Pavlos P. Vlachos Aug 2017

Three-Dimensional Microfluidic Tumor Vascular Model For Investigating Breast Cancer Metastasis, Anastasiia Vasiukhina, Brian H. Jun, Luis Solorio, Pavlos P. Vlachos

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Metastasis is one of the primary reasons for the high mortality rates in female patients diagnosed with breast cancer. It involves the migration of cancer cells into the circulatory system allowing for the dissemination of cancer cells in distal tissues. Understanding the major processes that occur in cells and tissues during metastasis can help improve currently existing therapeutic methods. In order to understand such mechanisms, developing physiologically relevant tissue models is crucial. Advancements in microfluidics have led to the fabrication of 3D culture models with shear stress gradients and flow control that can recapitulate aspects of the tumor microenvironment in …


Computational Drug Design: A Multitargeted Approach In Bladder Cancer, Travis C. Lantz, Joydeb Majumder, Gaurav Chopra Aug 2017

Computational Drug Design: A Multitargeted Approach In Bladder Cancer, Travis C. Lantz, Joydeb Majumder, Gaurav Chopra

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Cancer is a complex, robust disease with multiple redundant disease pathways which lead to tumor development, growth, and eventually even death. Despite known redundancies, cancer therapeutics continue to be developed against a single protein target. Initial disease regression occurs followed by relapse in a drug resistant disease state. In response, combinational drug clinical trial targeting multiple pathways began, and have failed due to increased toxicity caused by adverse drug interactions. Development of a single drug that differentially targets multiple disease pathways will result in a more potent therapeutic while inducing minimal toxicity. This was done computationally through in-lab software packages, …