Digital Commons Network^™

Characterization Of Potent Antibiotic Compounds Produced By Bacteria Found In The Soil Around Byu Campus, Michael Moran, Hogan Turner

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

Preliminary data suggest that Paenibacillus species found around BYU campus produce novel antibiotic compounds.

Exploration Of The Mechanisms Underlying Cortical Spreading Depolarizations Associated With Familial Hemiplegic Migraines, Brit Hepworth, Ryley Parrish

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

Cortical Spreading Depolarization (CSD) - wave of cellular depolarization followed by wave of depression/inhibition • Familial Hemiplegic Migraine (FHM3) - monogenic subtype of migraine with aura; caused by Scn1A mutation, leading to gain-of-function of Nav1.1 (voltage gated sodium channel) • Hm1a - compound which potentiates the persistent current in Nav1.1; mimics the Scn1A gain-of-function mutation observed in patients with FHM3 • It is commonly hypothesized that CSDs are triggered via raised extracellular potassium, threshold for induction ~12mM • Modifications of Hm1a compound in development for treatment of Dravet Syndrome, but has been shown in a few cases to induce CSDs.

Identifying Deep Brain Photoreceptors In The Larval Zebrafish Optic Tectum, Emalie A. Christensen, Allison G. Pickens, Sarah Y. Jarrett, Maurice Hunt, Arminda Suli

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

Deep brain photoreceptors (DBPs) are light sensing neurons present in mammals and non-mammalian vertebrates. In non-mammalian vertebrates, studies have shown DBP involvement in various time and light dependent behaviors including circadian rhythm, phototaxis, and seasonal reproduction. In adult teleosts, DBPs are present throughout the brain, including the optic tectum (OT). While their approximate location in teleosts is known, DBP’s function is relatively unknown. In this study, we focused on DBPs present in the larval zebrafish OT, a multilaminated midbrain structure responsible for multisensory integration. Single-cell RNA sequencing of the larval zebrafish OT showed the presence of several opsins. We focused …

Salty Genes: Rapid Discovery Of Salt Tolerance Genes In The Bacteria Kushneria, Andrew Jenkins, Brent Nielson, Jonathon T. Hill

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

1st place poster design

Global rising levels of soil salinity have led researchers to seek microbial solutions to increase agricultural plant viability in high salt soils.

Kushneria increases growth of inoculated alfalfa in high salt soils, but little is known about how Kushneria survives in these environments1 or how it can be used to reduce the economic burden of salted soil.

Coloration Strategies In Sympatric Vietnamese Damselflies, Eva J. Driggs, Seth M. Bybee

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

Odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) have evolved vibrant coloration for various reasons. Odonates use color signals to identify their own species from others and potential mates. Some Odonates use blue color to blend into the water while others are only active when their color can best be seen. Different selective pressures will evolve a specific color strategy. Color is a key to understanding the evolutionary pressures for damselflies. Color has not been studied in depth for Vietnamese Odonates, even though Vietnam is a top 15 biodiversity hotspot. We hope to better understand color evolution in Vietnamese damselflies and the role …

Characterization Of E. Coli Specific, Fhua Dependent Bacteriophage, Colton B. Hansen, Jessica M. Lewis, Kathryn E. Janda, Ian W. Bateman, William R. Mccleary

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

The extensive use of antibiotics since their discovery has led to the selection of antibiotic resistant pathogenic strains to become more common. This has increased the interest in bacteriophages to be used to fight these resistant bacteria. In Dr. McCleary's lab we have been investigating the relationship between Escherichia coli and some novel bacteriophage dependent on the ferrochrome hydroxamate transporter FhuA. These iron siderophore transporters allow E. coli to flourish in competitive low iron environments. Using an abundant transport protein such as FhuA likely confers an evolutionary advantage to phage that can target this with their receptor binding protein. This …

Effects Of Post-Translational Histone Modifications On Transcription Rate, Aaron Bohn, Sarah Hodson, Sarah Ricks, David Bates Ph.D, Steven M. Johnson Ph.D

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

The structural organization of DNA in eukaryotic cells is greatly implicated in the regulation of gene expression and thus cellular properties and behavior. At the most fundamental unit of this organization, ~147 bp of DNA wraps 1.7 times around a histone octamer core, forming a collective unit called the nucleosome. The positioning and occupancy of these nucleosomes around the promoter elements of genes is known to be a strong regulator of transcription in eukaryotic nuclei, and post-translational modifications (PTM’s) to the protruding N-terminal tails of histone proteins are known to influence chromatin structure and thus gene expression; however, relatively little …

Sperm Dna Damage Shown To Correlate With Dna Alterations, Hailey E. Johnson, Chad Pollard, Timothy Jenkins

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

DNA methylation is a biological process where methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule, changing the physical structure

Sperm DNA methylation has shown to predict pregnancy outcomes for those with infertility

DNA damage can happen through single and double stranded breaks. The Comet and TUNEL assay are two different and common ways to quantify levels of sperm DNA damage.

It is suggested DNA damage might relate with global DNA methylation patterns in sperm genome, however regional differences have been overlooked.

We wanted to assess the relationship between sperm DNA damage and regional DNA methylation, and compare the outcomes of …

Find Gene Expression Data Quickly, Grace Salmons, Aaron Joyce Fabelico, James Wengler, Stephen R. Piccolo

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

Public repositories are:

• vital for validating studies

• incredible for addressing novel hypothesis.

However, it can be difficult to find data related to discrete topics due to:

• large quantity of data

• heterogeneity in how researchers describe their data and study designs.

Manual annotation of data cannot keep pace with the rapid pace of science. We turned to Natural Language Processing (NLP) for a solution!

Team Moms And Tiger Moms: Formal Sports Participation And Closeness To Mothers: Supplementary Materials, Tom R. Leppard, Mikaela J. Dufur

Faculty Publications

Recent research highlights that relationships with parents are among those strengthened when youth play sports. This recent work, however, largely focuses on fathers, arguing that because of the persistent emphasis on masculinity in sporting spaces, youth sports might be especially effective at facilitating stronger relationships between fathers and children. This chapter asks how the mother-child dyad is influenced by youth formal participation in sports during their adolescence, including whether these patters differ for daughters and sons. The intense time investments the entire family unit incurs to support youth sport participation might be borne primarily by mothers; this in turn might …

Developing Methods For Measuring In Vivo Lipid Metabolism, Russell L. Denton

Theses and Dissertations

Lipid metabolism is critically important to the normal function of individual cells and for signaling between tissues of the human body. There is a great need to quantify changes in lipid metabolism because of its implications in both normal healthy conditions and during disease development. In our first study, we developed a liquid chromatography mass spectrometry based workflow to assess in vivo metabolism of murine brain lipids. This involved sample preparation, data acquisition, and analysis software development and improvements. Regarding sample preparation, we maintained the mice at 5% body water for the duration of the experiment. As mouse metabolism proceeds, …

Effect Of Carpobrotus Edulis Invasion History On Plant Communities, Claire Savage, Kelly Savage, Kane R. Keller

Western North American Naturalist

Invasive species can cause drastic changes to plant communities. In many cases, removal of invasive species fails to reverse these changes, perhaps due to side effects of removal strategies, changes that co-occurred with invasion, or legacy effects. Carpobrotus edulis is a notorious invasive species in Mediterranean-type climates around the world that alters plant communities and may generate legacy effects. We investigate the impact of C. edulis invasion, removal, and potential legacy effects on coastal plant communities. We assessed community composition, species richness, diversity, and native and exotic species cover at 5 sites differing in C. edulis invasion and removal history. …

Hard To Be Won: A Theatrical Interpretation Of Elizabeth Keckly’S “Behind The Scenes, Or Thirty Years A Slave And Four Years In The White House”, Selah Degering

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hard to Be Won is a musical adaptation of a memoir by Elizabeth Keckly, a black woman of considerable success who earned the confidence of Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary, in war-torn 1860s America. My adaptation of this story showcases a new perspective: that of Elizabeth herself. Despite her memoir narrating these events in her own voice, Elizabeth as an individual has been largely ignored or misrepresented in modern, idealistic, and racially ignorant retellings and criticism. Elizabeth as a token black person in the narrative of the Lincoln household cannot stand as representation of this woman’s legacy when she …

Analysis Of Electromyographic Effects Of Peripheral Sensory Stimulation On Essential Tremor In Tremor Suppression Study, Christian Jakob Metzner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Electrical stimulation of peripheral muscles below motor neuron threshold (sensory stimulation) has shown potential as an effective, low-cost, and minimally invasive treatment for Essential Tremor (ET), one of the most common movement disorders. Past studies have shown that asynchronous sensory stimulation of antagonist muscles out of phase with tremor can suppress ET. Synchronous sensory stimulation, which stimulates antagonists simultaneously and is easier to implement, has yielded mixed results. To optimize available therapies and to understand tremor suppression mechanisms better, I investigated the effects of synchronous sensory stimulation with different stimulation frequencies on electromyographic tremor-band power and frequency in ET patients, …

Territorial Intrusion By Resident Male Wilson's Warblers: Breeding Stages Of The Intruders And Distances They Travel, William M. Gilbert

Western North American Naturalist

It now is generally recognized that genetic monogamy is the exception in birds, and that extrapair paternity in territorial species requires that one or the other sex involved in such an extrapair mating travel off its own territory to obtain an extrapair copulation. However, which sex or sexes travel off their home territories, the distances they might travel to obtain extrapair copulations, and the breeding stages during which they might make such off-territory forays are poorly understood for most species. I explored these issues in Wilson’s Warblers (Cardellina pusilla) in central, inner-coastal California. Male Wilson’s Warblers frequently intruded …

Full Issue

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Scholars Speak At Fair Conference

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Scholars from BYU spoke at the recent FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research) LDS Apologetics Conference held in August at Utah Valley State College, in Orem, Utah. FAIR, which is not affiliated with BYU or the Institute, is an organization dedicated to defending LDS beliefs and practices with sound scholarship. The theme of the conference was "Turning Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones: Responding to Challenging Issues in Mormonism."

First Volumes In New Meti Series Published

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The Institute's Middle Eastern Texts Initiative has published the first two volumes in its Graeco-Arabic Sciences and Philosophy series: Moses Maimonides' On Asthma and Averroes' Middle Commentary on Aristotle's De anima.

Active Control Of Equilibrium, Near-Equilibrium, And Far-From-Equilibrium Colloidal Systems, Mark N. Mcdonald, Qinyu Zhu, Walter F. Paxton, Cameron K. Peterson, Douglas R. Tree

Faculty Publications

The development of top-down active control over bottom-up colloidal assembly processes has the potential to produce materials, surfaces, and objects with applications in a wide range of fields spanning from computing to materials science to biomedical engineering. In this review, we summarize recent progress in the field using a taxonomy based on how active control is used to guide assembly. We find there are three distinct scenarios: (1) navigating kinetic pathways to reach a desirable equilibrium state, (2) the creation of a desirable metastable, kinetically trapped, or kinetically arrested state, and (3) the creation of a desirable far-from-equilibrium state through …

Period Poverty In The United States, Katie Krumperman

Ballard Brief

Period poverty is the lack of access to menstrual products and inadequate education surrounding menstruation. Period poverty affects menstruators worldwide, including those in the United States. In a 2019 study, 64% of menstruators noted that they struggled to afford menstrual products within the last year. Stemming from the cost of products, stigmas, education, and the world pandemic, those who menstruate struggle to afford menstruation products and have adequate education on the subject. The effects of period poverty include effects on menstruators' physical and mental health as well as their productivity at work. Lawmakers are fighting to end period poverty with …

Steering Particles Via Micro-Actuation Of Chemical Gradients Using Model Predictive Control, Mark N. Mcdonald, Cameron K. Peterson, Douglas R. Tree

Faculty Publications

Biological systems rely on chemical gradients to direct motion through both chemotaxis and signaling, but synthetic approaches for doing the same are still relatively naïve. Consequently, we present a novel method for using chemical gradients to manipulate the position and velocity of colloidal particles in a microfluidic device. Specifically, we show that a set of spatially localized chemical reactions that are sufficiently controllable can be used to steer colloidal particles via diffusiophoresis along an arbitrary trajectory. To accomplish this, we develop a control method for steering colloidal particles with chemical gradients using nonlinear model predictive control with a model based …

Origami-Based Design Of Conceal-And-Reveal Systems, Bryce P. Defigueiredo, Kyler A. Tolman, Spencer P. Magleby, Nathan A. Pehrson, Erica Crampton, Larry L. Howell

Faculty Publications

This work introduces a type of motion termed “conceal-and-reveal” which is characterized by a state that protects a payload, a state that exposes the payload, and coupled motions between these two states. As techniques for thick, rigid origami-based engineering designs are being developed, origami is becoming increasingly more

attractive as inspiration for complex systems. This paper proposes a process for designing origami-based conceal- and-reveal systems, which can be generalized to design similar thick, rigid origami-based systems. The process

is demonstrated through the development of three conceal-and-reveal systems that present a luxury product to the consumer. The three designs also confirm …

Horizontal Gene Transfer Of Antibiotic Resistance In Staphylococcus Aureus Biofilms, Elisa Mcrae, Ashley Ball, Brad Berges

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

Staphylococcus aureus is known to acquire much antibiotic resistance (AR), though the mechanisms by which AR is conferred between bacteria is still unknown. Many theories propose that biofilms play a role in the sharing of genetic information between bacteria, or horizontal gene transfer (HGT 1,2 . However, studies have yet to confirm under what conditions HGT is most likely to occur, as well as when it is most efficient. Analyzing HGT will contribute to a fuller understanding of how antibiotic resistance is conferred and how to combat this issue in our society.

The Effect Of Alcohol On Lipid Membrane-Membrane Fusion And Snare Proteins, Robert E. Coffman

Theses and Dissertations

Currently the treatment of alcohol use disorder is very difficult and often requires the combination of therapy and medications, with many who undertake treatment experiencing relapse over time. There is also no treatment in use to prevent the development of alcohol use disorder. It is the aim of this work to provide information that may be useful for the development of a preventative treatment for developing alcohol use disorder by elucidating more of the acute effects of alcohol use. It is known that these effects originate in the brain. Within the brain are circuits made up of neurons that communicate …

Habitat Suitability Models For Endangered Hawaiian Flora, Bronwyn Meldrum, Richard Gill

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

Hawaii contains the highest percentage of endangered and threatened flora in the United States. Restoration is expensive and time-consuming, and most replanting failures are mainly due to incorrect habitat. Without understanding the ideal habitat of endangered plants such as ohai (Sesbania tomentosa) and aweoweo papa (Chenopodium oahuense), it is impossible to know what areas the Molokai Land Trust should prioritize in conservation and restoration.

Do Regional Dna Barcode Databases Lead To More Efficient Specimen Identification?, Michael Kerr, Steven D. Leavitt

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

DNA barcoding is a method for identifying specimens from specific regions of DNA. 1 Metabarcoding focuses on large, multi specimen scales. 2 These approaches rely on DNA databases for sequence identification, 2 but these databases often lack data from many species, 3 especially from poorly studied groups such as fungi 4 and lichens, which can lead to failure in specimen identification.

Enlisting School Faculty To Help Identify Childhood Sexual Abuse In Elementary Students And Prevent Personality Disorders In Adolescents, Mckell Lindsay

Student Works

One out of 10 children are abused before the age of 18 (Darkness to Light, 2015). They are often abused by parents or family members, demonstrating that elementary school faculty should be enlisted to help recognize and report childhood sexual abuse (Alvarez et al., 2004; United States Government Accountability Office, 2014). Trainings should be provided to educators on how to best help children in this situation (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2003). Once teachers report abuse, children can receive the help they need through CBT, TF-CBT, art therapy, and group therapy (Devlin et al., 2019; Kim et al., …

Engineering At-Home Dilution And Filtration Methods To Enable Paper-Based Colorimetric Biosensing In Human Blood With Cell-Free Protein Synthesis, Tyler J. Free, Ryan W. Tucker, Katelyn M. Simonson, Sydney A. Smith, Caleb M. Lindgren, William G. Pitt, Bradley C. Bundy

Faculty Publications

Diagnostic blood tests can guide the administration of healthcare to save and improve lives. Most clinical biosensing blood tests require a trained technician and specialized equipment to process samples and interpret results, which greatly limits test accessibility. Colorimetric paper-based diagnostics have an equipment-free readout, but raw blood obscures a colorimetric response which has motivated diverse efforts to develop blood sample processing techniques. This work uses inexpensive readily-available materials to engineer user-friendly dilution and filtration methods for blood sample collection and processing to enable a proof-of-concept colorimetric biosensor that is responsive to glutamine in 50 µL blood drop samples in less …

Effects Of Plastic And Waste Pollution On Ocean Communities In The Asian Pacific Region, Whitney Kingsolver

Ballard Brief

Plastic and waste pollution is a global problem, but it affects ocean communities in the Asia Pacific Region (APR) the most due to their lack of resources to process the pollution. Additionally, low-income areas in these countries need access to sustainable non-plastic packaging options, which increases the amount of plastic generated. Direct pollution leads to poor ocean health and the disruption of important industries like tourism or fishing. Plastic pollutants eventually break down, which creates microplastics and releases toxic chemicals. These pollutants damage ecosystems and severely harm marine life. The overwhelming amount of waste pollution in the APR also damages …

The Costs Of A Free And Public Education: An Analysis Of A School District's Student Fees, Jacob D. Skousen, Ellianna Rodriguez

BYU Education & Law Journal

Since the late 1800s U.S. states have provided a “centrally administered organization of public schools, overseen by a state superintendent or department of education and financed by state income tax revenues in addition to local taxes.” States have governed a system of public schools through the states’ constitutions. Each state’s constitution has a statement identifying the state as being responsible to provide its citizenry with a public education and in the majority of states’ constitutions there is further clarification noting that this education is provided free of charge. An example of this statement can be found in Nevada’s State Constitution, …