HHMI Undergraduate Research Fellows

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HHMI Undergraduate Research Fellows

• Mentor Presentations
• Monday, November 10 2008

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Fellows Program

• Stipend and housing provided by the university in
  summer 2009
• Academic year stipend 2009-2010
• HHMI May Experience research course (2 credits),
  or a departmental equivalent, in May 2009.
• Work on the research problem during the summer of
  2009 on a full-time basis (a minimum of 40 hours
  per week for 10 weeks).
• HHMI Seminar series course through the 2009-2010
  academic year (1 credit/semester).
• 10 hours per week during the academic year
• Celebrate Research day in Spring 2010.
• Present the research at a professional conference
  off campus.

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Application Process

• Application due January 23, 5 P.M.
• Includes description of project as decided
  between you and your potential mentor
• Letter of support from a math or science
  professor (it is your responsibility to ask them
  to email this to Dr. Hestermann!)

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Dr. Grisel Alcohol alters opioid systems

• Acute EtOH increases opioid gene transcription,
  biosynthesis and release (both in vitro and in
  vivo)
• Possible increase in responsiveness of opioids to
  EtOH in animals and people prone to high EtOH
  consumption

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b-endorphin deficiency on C57BL/6J background
Positive Reinforcement
B-endorphin?
EtOH Drinking
Negative Reinforcement
B-endorphin?
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• Positive Reinforcement

• Negative Reinforcement

• Oral self administration
• Other behavioral responses
• Good feelings associated with EtOH administration
• Neurochemical response

• Reduction in Stress and Anxiety

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Neuroscience with Dr. Turgeon

• Areas of Research
• Spinal Cord Development
• What proteins and receptors are needed?
• Spinal Cord Injury
• How do glial cells react following an injury?
• Neurodegeneration
• Are the same proteins and receptors involved in
  development inaccurately activated in
  neurodegeneration?

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Techniques

• In ovo manipulation
• Microdissection
• Cell culture
• Molecular Biology

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Additional Learning Opportunities

• Lab safety
• Experimental design
• Journal club
• Presentations
• Travel to meetings
• Science is Fun!

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Dr. Dennis Haney -Environmental Physiology

• Effects of urbanization on stream biota
• Changes in fish biodiversity and community
  structure associated with urban growth
• Bioindicators of fish health
• Biochemical measures
• Physiological measures
• Associations between biology, water chemistry and
  stream geomorphology

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What would you do working with me?

• Spend time in the field and in the lab
• Collecting fish
• Habitat measures
• Field data collection
• Fish identification
• Fish anatomy and dissections
• Biochemical and physiological assays

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Additional Information

• Practical experience in doing science
• Experimental design
• Data collection
• Data analysis
• Manuscript preparation
• Presenting your research at scientific meetings
• Have LOTS of fun!

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BioinformaticsIntegrating Biology and Computer
Science (Dr. Gabbert)

• What are the computational issues in
  bioinformatics?
• Large Data Sets
• Parallel Computation
• Data Visualization
• Primary question for the BioJava Project at
  Furman
• Can we build an accurate classifier to
  distinguish gene introns and exons?

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The Biology Genetics

• Large Biological Databases Must be Mined for
  Appropriate Data
• There are over 82,000,000 gene sequences in
  GenBank
• Computational tools help Biologists retrieve
  appropriate data
• The BioJava Project uses approximately 300,000
  sequences from
• 2 different organisms (Drosophila Melanogaster
  fruit fly and
• Caenorhabditis Elegans worm). There are about
  200,000 intron
• sequences and 100,000 exon sequences.

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The Computer Science Classification Algorithms

• Classification Algorithms Create Classifiers from
  Data Sets of Examples
• Challenges for Genetic Applications
• Sequence data (i.e. gtaatc) must be translated
  into features (i.e. Thymine)
• Data sets are too large for traditional
  non-parallel algorithms
• The BioJava Project explores various
  classification algorithms to address
• these challenges.

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Dr. Andersen River Basins Research Initiative
(RBRI) Examining the impact of urbanization on
watershed processes and biodiversity Biogeochemis
try of surface and groundwater (C,N,Fe)
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Urban land cover tends to have different stream
chemical composition than forested land,
suggesting different controls over biogeochemical
processes.
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• Potential projects focusing on basic research in
  biogeochemistry
• Carbon transport in urban and rural watersheds,
  particularly organic carbon.
• Groundwater contribution of carbon to stream
  water.
• Iron transport and storage in streams.
• Combination of field and laboratory work.
  Probable use of isotopic methods in carbon
  research.

Iron flocculating in stream
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Dr. Moss
Body Composition Using Archimedes Principle
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Measuring Metabolic Parameters of Human
Performance
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Foot Strike of Force Plate in Stride
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Ground Reaction Force Graph
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Adventures in DNA
The Buchmueller Lab
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Expanding the Function of DNA
transcription regulation catalytic DNA
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Biochemical Techniques
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Dr. Hanks Nanotechnology atFurman
Nanotechnology is the way of ingeniously
controlling the building of small and large
structures, with intricate properties it is the
way of the future, a way of precise, controlled
building, with incidentally, environmental
benignness built in by design. - Roald
Hoffman, Cornell University Nobel Prize
winner in Chemistry
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Current Projects

• Halogen Bonding
• In collaboration with B. Pennington, Clemson
• Molecular Strain Gauges-
• In collaboration with B. Pennington, Clemson
• Liposome Biosensors
• Gold and Iron Nanoparticles
• In Collaboration with L. Wright
• Janus Particles

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Halogen Bonding

• stray feeler lines of force
  charge-transfer interactions
• incipient valence-shell donor/acceptor
  interactions
• expansions halogen bonding
• electron clutching
• outcasts of our present chemical system
  (Lewis)

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Research Areas

• Biosensors
• Encapsulants

• NLO
• Materials

Thin Films
Synthesis
Liposomes
Self- assembly
heat or light
DA Monomers
Organized DAs
Polydiacetylenes
Crystals and Microcrystals
Mono- and Multilayers

• Light Harvesting
• Biosensors
• Surface Property Modification
• Surface Anchors for Nanoparticles

• Nanoporous Solids
• Sensors
• Tunable NLO materials
• Catalysts

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Janus Particles
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Drugs are getting more complex Pipelines are
running dry
select
molecular evolution
mutate
reproduce
Vancomycin
Springsteen Lab
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new antibiotic
Springsteen Lab
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Dr. Goess
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