Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Effect Of Kalanchoe Pinnata In Astrocitome Metastasis, Jorge Rosa

The International Student Science Fair 2018

Astrocytomas, from cell line 1321N1,are cancerous astrocytes. These are a type of glial cell in the brain which is responsible for maintaining synaptic contact and the signaling capacities among neurons. They also represent a fundamental element in controlling blood flow and defining brain micro structure. Due to the fact that this variant is cancerous, a condition commonly described as an abnormal cell cycle and uncontrolled reproduction of cells, they have the ability to metastasize.

In the metastatic process of cancer cells the initial phase is know as tumor invasion. This stage consists mainly of the cells migrating away from the …

Investigating Sports Drinks. Are They Worth The Money?, Ross Winter, Jamie Burnell

The International Student Science Fair 2018

Investigating Sports Drinks. Are they worth the money?

The sports drinks industry is a huge global business which shows no signs of slowing down. The inspiration to conduct this investigation came from an observation that there is an increasing consumption of sports and energy drinks within our community, particularly amongst children. The message from the advertisers is clear- athletes should replace lost body fluid with drinks that contain electrolytes, such as sports drinks. However, there are conflicting suggestions from conducting literature reviews; that, not only are these drinks unhealthy in terms of the high sugar content, but instead water …

Cellphone Usage And The Risk Of Cancer, Mia Ye

The International Student Science Fair 2018

Introduction: As the use of cell phones have increased immensely in the last two decades, so has public concern regarding cell phone and its relationship to cancer. Cell phones emit radio frequency waves, a type of electromagnetic energy. Theoretically, these radiofrequency waves are considered as a form of non-ionizing radiation, and do not contain enough energy to damage DNA. However, human and animal studies on cell phone use and cancer risk have shown mixed results. The Danish cohort study, one of the largest long-term studies to date, compared everyone in Denmark with cell phone subscriptions between 1982 and 1995, and …

The Effect Of The Oxytocin Hormone In Cocaine Addicted Rats Suffering From Abstinence Syndrome, Juan Padilla

The International Student Science Fair 2018

This study aimed to understand the effects of oxytocin in cocaine-addicted rats to prove its ability to help recovering drug addicts overcome the extreme anxiety and craving that makes them relapse during their rehabilitation.

The Effect Of Hyperthermia On Liver Cell Viability, Jada Grant

The International Student Science Fair 2018

Hyperthermia is a treatment for liver cancer where the tumor is exposed to a relatively high heat temperature. This process is designed to make the tumor more susceptible to chemotherapy. My thought process was that if hyperthermia can kill cancerous cells, then there will be negative long term effects on the noncancerous cells surrounding the tumor. The project experimented on Kidney cells because the Kidney and Liver both go through the process of filtration. This means that the Kidney cells should give similar results that Liver cells would. Kidney cells were heated at 40 degrees Celsius for time amounts of …

Cloning Of An Overexpression Vector For The Rare And Uncharacterized Kras Mutant R164l, Julliane Jeanne Negre

The International Student Science Fair 2018

Mutations in the coding DNA of KRAS, which encodes for an active protein in the Ras signaling pathway regulating cell proliferation and growth, may be critical in the development of lung and colorectal cancer in humans. Clinical tests and therapies for cancer specifically target mutations, some of which may cause erroneous prognosis and prescription of cancer therapy posing more danger for patients with unique mutations. Therefore, characterization of non-hotspot mutations is becoming more important, where, KRAS R164L is an existing uncharacterized mutation identified through the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC). The project aimed to clone a pTarget overexpression …

A Humanized Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Model To Elucidate Molecular Mechanism In Disease Pathology, Ragavi Vijayakumar, Maxine Hong

The International Student Science Fair 2018

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), that clinically manifests as an enlarged heart is a highly prevalent cardiac disorder with propensity towards arrhythmia-induced sudden cardiac death. The mechanism of HCM remains poorly defined, necessitating further understanding of the disease for improved therapeutic strategies. As it is challenging to obtain cardiac biopsies from human subjects, using induced pluripotent stem cells technology, we generated cardiomyocytes (CMs) in a dish from HCM patients. These HCM-CMs presented the clinical manifestation in that they were significantly larger in size in comparison to control (healthy)-CMs. Furthermore, gene expression profiling of cardiac ion channels revealed increased transcripts encoding for calcium …