Life Sciences Commons^™

Anxiety- And Compulsivity-Linked Differences In Reinforcement Learning In A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Game, Tessa Medeiros

Neuroscience Program Student Scholarship

Tessa Medeiros ’26, Biology & Psychology major

Faculty mentor: Dr. Andra Geana, Psychology and Neuroscience

Reinforcement learning (RL) mathematically describes how agents learn to maximize the reward of their environment by understanding and comparing their choice options. This project investigates how anxiety and compulsivity impact the selection of these options and to what extent a text-based, narrative (rather than a game-like environment) changes RL processes in humans.

Using Enviromental Dna To Detect And Quantify Atlantic Silversides In Rhode Island, Owen Finnegan

Biology Student Scholarship

Owen Finnegan ’25, Environmental Biology major

Faculty mentor: Dr. Jeffrey Markert, Biology

Here we test whether eDNA concentrations consistently reflect the abundance of fish in a given area. We compare physical catches to the levels of eDNA in the water using quantitative PCR (qPCR) at three sites in Rhode Island. A native and plentiful species like Atlantic Silversides is the perfect organism to for calibrating our methods as recorded catches of Atlantic Silversides from our collections range from 0-1500+ individuals.

The Effect Of Salinity On Mangrove Growth In The Florida Everglades, Olivia Macaluso

Biology Student Scholarship

Mangrove forests are highly productive ecosystems that provide benefits to humans, such as storm protection, in the intertidal regions of tropic and subtropic climates. Mangroves grow primarily in shallow brackish water where fresh and salty water sources meet, but frequent hurricanes mean that once stable brackish environments are vulnerable to fluctuations in salinity levels. A previous study on the effect of salinity on mangroves found a negative relationship between salinity increase and root biomass growth. However, little research has gone into the effects of salinity changes on mangrove growth and productivity. Here, I used data from the Wetland and Aquatic …

Environmental Racism In Ri: The Presence Of Toxic Waste Sites In Low Income And Minority Communities (19), Julienne Walsh

Biology Student Scholarship

Environmental racism refers to the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on communities of color and low-income populations. Across the U.S., studies have shown that polluting facilities are more likely to be in or around communities with higher percentages of non-white residents or lower socioeconomic status. Scholarship regarding these patterns in small states like Rhode Island is relatively limited. By analyzing how these sites are spatially distributed in relation to racial and economic demographics, this research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of local environmental inequities. I hypothesize that if you live in a low-income or more diverse town, national …

Microneedles Potentiate Skin Cell Rejuvenation Via Modulation Of Mitochondria And Epigenetic Activities, Alexandra Delano, Angelika Kartsagoulis

Biology Student Scholarship

Alexandra Delano ’25, Biology major

Angelika Kartsagoulis ’25, Biology major

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Yinsheng Wan, Biology

Characterizing The Functional Diversity Of Southern Ocean Chordates, Lillian Stern

Biology Student Scholarship

Lillian Stern ’26, Biology major

Faculty mentor: Dr. Roxanne Banker, Biology

Biological invasions are… Invasion events can alter ecosystem properties like species interactions, trophic rank, and abundance. Current scientific research struggles to quantify the effects of biotic invasions effect on ecosystem structure and function. Measuring functional diversity, or the diversity traits such as feeding and living habits, in an ecosystem can provide important information about how organisms and the environment respond to environmental change. Here, we investigate functional diversity of the Chordates in a marine Southern Ocean community that has already been affected by biological invasion. By characterizing how these …

Data From: The Dynamic Responses Of The Mouse Gut Microbiome To Dietary Supplementation With Various Anthocyanin-Rich Foods In The Context Of A Western Diet, Abby D. Benninghoff

Browse all Datasets

Background/Objectives: Anthocyanin (ACN)-rich foods may support gut health by modulating the microbiome and reducing inflammation, potentially lowering the risk of colitis-associated colorectal cancer. However, the dynamic response of the gut microbiome to ACN-rich diets is not well characterized, including in the context of structural and compositional differences among ACN-containing foods. This study examined the temporal response of the mouse gut microbiome to dietary ACNs, focusing on the impact of structural variation. We hypothesized that microbiome shifts would occur rapidly but require sustained dietary ACN intake to persist. Methods: C57BL/6J mice were fed the total Western diet (TWD) supplemented with freeze-dried …

Diversity And Habitat Use Of Bats In Modified Suburban Landscapes, Brittany Morgera

Biology Presentations

Bats occupy critical ecological niches and perform important ecosystem services like controlling insect populations. However, humans have altered bat habitat substantially, resulting in the reduction of bat populations. The goals of this research are to assess bat diversity and habitat use across different levels of suburban habitat modification. To accomplish this, we deployed passive acoustic recorders at twelve locations with varying human impact in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In accordance with The North American Bat Monitoring Program’s standards, acoustic analysis software was used to identify bat species. Manual identification methods from The Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative were used to verify these …

Dosage-Dependent, Carboplatin And Ng52 Show Synergistic Effect On Inhibiting Cell Proliferation In Breast Cancer Cell Line, Ben Couture, Ryan Zhuge

Biology Presentations

BT-549 (Breast Cancer), a highly invasive epithelial breast cancer cell line, was used to investigate the effects of two drugs: NG52, a selective kinase inhibitor and Carboplatin, a platinum-based DNA-alkylating agent. Using cell counting assays and calculating IC50 values, we examined their combined impact on cell proliferation. Results revealed both an antagonistic and synergistic effect dependent on concentration. Where the individual agents inhibited cell proliferation less effectively than expected. These findings show the complexity of drug interactions and provide insights into optimizing therapeutic strategies for highly invasive cancer types.

Fighting Modern Battles, Brawling A Breast Cancer From The Past: A New Combination Therapy Technique Combining A Platinum-Based Agent And Hdac Inhibition Agent, Matthew I. Hyder, Jackson D. Southern

Biology Presentations

Carboplatin and tucidinostat are two often-used chemotherapeutic drugs in combating cancers. After seeding BT-549 cells in vitro and single-drug treatments were completed, IC50 values and treatment curves were determined for both drugs with CompuSyn software. The Tucidinostat IC50 value of 0.28614 µM indicates effective 50% inhibitory activity at less than one micromolar. Carboplatin treatment revealed an IC50 value of 273.792 µM, indicating ineffective treatment. Combination therapy revealed an antagonistic effect with a CI50 value of 210.406. This may be due to experimental errors with pipetting or cell seeding, or drug-ailment mismatch.

Finding Patterns In Disturbance: Modeling Ecosystem Recovery Using A Machine Learning Approach, Paden D. Allsup

Theses and Dissertations

Some of the most visible effects of Anthropogenic climate change are shifts in resource (water) availability, and disturbance regimes across the world. Ecosystems across the world are now being forced to adapt to amplified disturbances, or in some cases, completely new disturbance types. These shifts have major implications for ecosystem stability and functioning, and more broadly for nutrient cycling across the world. In the western USA, wildfire is playing a larger and more dramatic role than before, altering vegetation communities, landscape stability, and soil and stream chemistry. While fire has always played an important role in semi-arid ecosystems, the scale …

Assessing Innovations In Wildlife Monitoring: Estimating Abundance And Inferring Parturition Of Ungulates With Technology, Elicia Cotcher

Theses and Dissertations

Enhancements in technology are creating opportunities for novel methods of wildlife monitoring. Traditional methods of wildlife monitoring are often costly or time-consuming, and new technological advancements such as remote cameras and GPS collars are creating opportunities for exploration as these technologies become more accessible and reliable. We sought to assess the efficacy of two novel methods of ungulate monitoring. The first is an abundance estimation method using remote cameras termed Instantaneous Sampling (IS). IS seeks to estimate abundance using time lapsed remote cameras on a population of unmarked individuals. Our goal was to compare IS estimations against the true observed …

Dna And Bioinformatics Tools For Estimating Biodiversity In The Narragansett Bay, Emma Barry

Biology Student Scholarship

Emma Barry ’25, Environmental Biology major

Faculty mentor: Dr. Jeffrey Markert, Biology

Functional And Comparative Genomics Of The C.Sojina- Soybean Interaction, Alejandra Maria Vargas Oyuela

LSU Master's Theses

Frogeye leaf spot (FLS), caused by Cercospora sojina, is a significant foliar disease of soybean (Glycine max) and is responsible for substantial yield losses worldwide. While management strategies rely on host resistance and fungicide applications, the emergence of new virulent races and fungicide-resistant isolates necessitates a deeper understanding of C. sojina host interactions and genomic variability. Here, we employed comparative and functional genomic approaches to decipher the molecular mechanisms underlying the C. sojina-soybean interaction. A dual RNA sequencing approach was used to identify transcriptomic changes in G. max cultivars Blackhawk (susceptible) and Davis (resistant) across multiple …

A Natural Short Sleep Mutation Promotes Longevity Through Mitochondrial Respiration In Drosophila, Pritika Pandey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Aging is an irreversible process characterized by progressive physiological decline and an increased risk of metabolic disorders, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodegeneration. Disruptions to the circadian clock—whether due to genetic mutations or behavioral factors—accelerate aging and age-related pathologies, highlighting a strong link between circadian regulation and longevity. However, certain individuals harbor a dec2^P384R mutation, which enables natural short sleep without the detrimental effects of chronic sleep deprivation. This suggests that these individuals have evolved adaptations that activate pro-health pathways, allowing them to function optimally with reduced sleep. To investigate the genetic mechanisms underlying these changes, we developed a …

5-Ht Receptors: Pharmacology And Functional Selectivity, Benjamin R. Cummins, Gerald B. Billac, David E. Nichols, Charles D. Nichols

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Serotonin 5-HT receptors were one of the first serotonin receptors to be pharmacologically characterized. In mammals, they are expressed throughout the body in nearly every cell and tissue type, with the highest density in cortical layer V of the brain. They are involved in several aspects of normal physiological processes and behaviors and have been implicated in the etiology of neuropsychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia. Atypical antipsychotics have targeted blockade of 5-HT receptors as part of their therapeutic mechanism. More recently, 5-HT receptors have come to prominence for their role as the primary target for psychedelic drugs, which activate this …

Effects Of Novel Fire Regimes On Plant And Animal Communities, Ryan Pienaar

Theses and Dissertations

Human actions are threatening global biodiversity through changes to ecosystems to which species are not well adapted. One of the main pathways by which humans affect change is through altered disturbance regimes. This includes changes in the size, frequency, and severity of wildfires. The impact of wildfires on native plant and animal communities varies across ecosystems as species in a community have adapted relatively predictable fire patterns over time. Changing fire patterns alters successional dynamics that can favor certain species over others and thus have a negative impact on biodiversity. This dissertation evaluates responses of different plant and animal species …

Analysis Of Differentially Expressed Genes (Deg) And Upstream Regulator Proteins Indicates That Inhibition Of Transforming Growth Factor Beta 1 (Tgfb1) Is A Potential Target For Acne Inversa, Weri Veranita, Siva Fauziah, Siti Nurbaya

Indonesian Journal of Medical Chemistry and Bioinformatics

Acne inversa (AI) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease characterized by painful nodules, abscesses, and scarring, primarily in intertriginous areas. This study aims to identify potential therapeutic targets for managing acne inversa based on the analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEG). The expression targets of these genes were then validated for their potential as biomarkers, and upstream regulator proteins (URPs) were identified from the resulting DEG. DEG analysis on the GEO dataset GSE122592 (acne inversa vs. healthy donor skin) revealed five DEG that can serve as biomarkers for acne inversa, with a sensitivity and specificity of (100%). These DEG—IL10, GZMB, …

Passive Integrated Transponders: An Effective Marking Technique For Individual Identification Of Anaxyrus Fowleri?, Emily Leprell

Honors College Theses

With the rise of fungal disease such as Chytridiomycosis, known as chytrid, causing massive population declines for many species of frogs and toads (order Anura), specific conservation strategies are needed now more than ever. In many cases, being able to mark and identify individuals is a necessary step in developing an effective conservation plan. Individual identification allows researchers to obtain accurate population estimates, which are needed to test the progress and validity of conservation management decisions. However, due to their unique life history, including cutaneous respiration and a dichotomous lifestyle, anurans are among the most difficult wildlife species to …

Thinking Beyond Association Tests: Using Mathematical Models To Identify Genes Influencing Exceptional Longevity, Sandeep Acharya

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The main goal in the genetic study of trait biology is to identify genetic factors, such as variants and genes, that causally influence traits and to understand the downstream mechanisms through which they exert their effects. This dissertation improves our understanding of trait biology by building on widely applied omics-wide association studies (omics-WAS), such as GWAS and TWAS, and proposing methods that (1) combine association statistics from multiple omics modalities and (2) systematically incorporate prior knowledge from biological networks and functional annotations with omics-WAS summary statistics. First, we apply meta-analysis to integrate gene-level p-values from GWAS, TWAS, and rare-variant analyses …

Retrospective Analysis Of Cement Extravasation Rates In Vertebroplasty, Kyphoplasty, And Bone Tumor Radiofrequency Ablation, Soun Sheen, Prit Hasan, Xiaowen Sun, Jian Wang, Claudio Tatsui, Kent Nouri, Saba Javed

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Percutaneous vertebral augmentation techniques, including vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty, and bone tumor radiofrequency ablation (BT-RFA), are commonly used to treat painful vertebral compression fractures (VCFs). While generally safe and effective, they carry risks, including cement extravasation, which can lead to pulmonary embolism or spinal cord compression. This study aims to compare the rate of cement extravasation across different vertebral augmentation techniques and identify potential risk factors.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted at a comprehensive cancer center on 1002 procedure encounters in 888 patients who underwent vertebral augmentation for painful VCFs. Data were collected on patient demographics, fracture pathology, procedure …

Exploring Ddr2’S Role In Caf Extracellular Matrix Production And Tumor Progression, Favour Ayomide Akinjiyan

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Ovarian cancer has poor survival outcomes particularly for advanced stage, metastatic disease. Metastasis is promoted by interactions of stromal cells, such as cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in the tumor microenvironment (TME), with tumor cells. CAFs play a key role in tumor progression by remodeling the TME and extracellular matrix (ECM) to result in a more permissive environment for tumor progression. It has been shown that fibroblasts, in particular myofibroblasts, utilize metabolism to support ECM remodeling. However, the intricate mechanisms by which CAFs support collagen production and tumor progression are poorly understood. In this study, we show that the fibrillar collagen receptor, …

Examining The Effects Of Symbiotic State And Environmental Pollution On Wound Healing In Coral, Jonathan De Montagnac

College Honors Program

Understanding coral reef health requires comprehension of the biological processes that support live coral cover. Corals are frequently exposed to physical abrasion from various sources, thereby necessitating vital resources be directed towards wound recovery. For corals and other organisms that harbor photosynthetic symbionts, the balance between autotrophic versus heterotrophic energy contributions influences their fitness. Experimentally disentangling the individual effects of environmental stress and symbiotic state on coral health is difficult in most tropical corals due to the obligate nature of their symbiosis. However, determining how nutritional dynamics, environmental stressors, and health interact is crucial to understanding coral resilience. To examine …

Passive Integrated Transponders: An Effective Marking Technique For Individual Identification Of Anaxyrus Fowleri?, Emily Haner

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

With the rise of fungal disease such as Chytridiomycosis causing massive population declines for many species of frogs and toads (order Anura), specific conservation strategies are needed now more than ever. In many cases, being able to mark and identify individuals is a necessary step in developing an effective conservation plan. Individual identification allows researchers to obtain accurate population estimates, which are needed to test the progress and validity of conservation management decisions. However, due to their unique life history, including cutaneous respiration, Anurans are among the most difficult wildlife species to effectively mark for individual identification. In a mesocosm …

Crossword: Test Your Biology!, Sukie Weinger

Osmosis Magazine

Biology themed Crossword Puzzle.

Intelligence Without An 'I': "I Think, Therefore I Am", Darshan Shah

Osmosis Magazine

From Billie Eilish hits to corny Pinterest tattoos, Rene Descartes’ famous dictum is embedded in modern Western consciousness. But, like all philosophy, it operates within a paradigm of assumptions about the world that remain open to challenge. Over centuries of Cartesian influence, these assumptions have become invisible in our philosophies and sciences, informing the very questions we ask about intelligence and where we search for it in the world.

Zealandan Interview With Dr.Kristine Grayson From Aotearoa New Zealand, Paxton Mills

Osmosis Magazine

ZealandDr. Kristine Grayson, Associate Professor of Biology, has been passionate about science and travel, particularly toAotearoa New Zealand, for some time.

The Undergraduate Research Experience At Ur, Eve Snyder

Osmosis Magazine

toAnyone who has attended the University of Richmond (UR)can attest to the unparalleled experience that is conducting research. Here, the focus is on nurturing well-versed scientists that are capable of critical thinking, deductive reasoning, and problem solving.

Campus As A Living Lab At Ur: What’S Working & What’S Next, Jack Dupuy

Osmosis Magazine

Living labs—real-world experimental environments where diverse stakeholders ranging from local communities and businesses to universities and governments can collaboratively develop, test, and refine solutions—have become an increasingly popular method for tackling complex societal challenges in areas such as energy, urban planning, and environmental sustainability. Unlike controlled laboratory settings, living labs leverage real-world conditions to test innovations in authentic contexts, fostering systemic change by aligning research with local needs.

Droughts, Destruction, And Displacement: How Climate Change Exacerbates Violence In The Sahel, Stevi Dugas

Osmosis Magazine

February 2023 through January 2024 marked the first 12- month period that global average temperatures exceeded the 1.5°C benchmark proposed in the Paris Climate Agreement, indicating early signs of coming dangerously close to exceeding a permanent 1.5°C increase in global average temperatures. Permanently exceeding the 1.5°C benchmark is expected to lead to increasingly frequent and dangerous extreme weather events such as droughts and wildfires, while also increasing the risk of climate tipping points such as collapse of coral reef systems (UN, n.d.). Though no place is safe from the effects of climate change, few places on Earth will be hit …