95038 research outputs found
Sort by
Chemical Interactions & Protein Chemistry
Get PDFProteins are fundamental to biology because they support and carry out the chemical reactions that make life possible. Therefore, studying protein structure and stability is a central focus of biochemistry and biophysical chemistry. Parts 1 and 2 briefly describe my two publications (Redvanly and Pielak, 2024; Olgenblum, Stewart, Redvanly, Young et al., 2025). Part 3 discusses a project in progress.
In Part 1, I discuss on a special interaction that reveals the first biologically relevant, quantitative case of entropy-enthalpy compensation in protein stability using data from Thomas Record’s group at the University of Wisconsin (Zytkiewicz et al., 2023). This interaction serves as a model for the role of the hydrophobic effect in interactions between the amide groups – the protein backbone, asparagine, and glutamine – and aromatic side chains – phenylalanine, tryptophan, and tyrosine.
In Part 2, I discuss a project conducted in collaboration with Professor Daniel Harries’ group at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on protein-protein interactions involving variants of the B1 domain of streptococcal protein G (GB1) and polyethylene glycol that establishes a general model for quantifying the effects of macromolecular crowding. My role was to measure the modified standard-state free energy of dimer dissociation as function of PEG size, concentration, and temperature using 19F nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and then parse the data into its enthalpic and entropic components.
In Part 3, I discuss my ongoing efforts to quantify the Stokes radius of GB1 by measuring translational diffusion using NMR and viscosities using a viscometer-rheometer-on-a-chip as a function of temperature and protein concentration.Bachelor of Scienc
The Subtle Significance of Sound in "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
Get PDFThis senior honors thesis analyzes The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde, through an auditory lens, focusing on the voices, music, and noises which frame the setting. Through this examination, the thesis reprises Dorian’s homosexuality, his obsession with the aesthetic, and his ultimate Narccissus-like suicide, echoing previous scholarship. However, by studying sound the thesis further illuminates both an inescapability and a fluidity to Dorian’s life. In other words, sound creates both new possibilities for his identity and condemns him to the depravities of his life choices. After pushing several friends and lovers to death, and committing murder himself, sound no longer acts as a catalyst for self-discovery, but finally forces Mr. Gray to understand the scale of his actions.Bachelor of Art
“Barriers to Men’s Enrollment in the Feminized Space of College Sex Education Courses”
Get PDFThere is a notable gender gap in enrollment in college-level sex education classes across the US, with men being reluctant to enroll. This is not surprising because, in an androcentric society, men commonly avoid feminized spaces. Men who do enter feminized spaces tend to view themselves as “good guys” who are more sensitive to gender inequality than other men. Using a grounded theory approach, we analyzed interviews with 17 men college students who had not enrolled in a sexuality education course. We found these men also saw themselves as good guys. They constructed and distanced themselves from an archetypal “hyper-masculinized other,” deploying two central narratives: (1) good guys don’t need sex education and (2) other guys aren’t interested in sex education. Ultimately, when contrasting themselves against a hyper-masculinized other, participants projected their gendered understandings of sexuality onto other men and emerged as good guys who absolved themselves from responsibility for taking action to promote equitable sexual relationships. As long as men who exclude themselves from feminized spaces project inferior forms of masculinity onto other men, they will not enter these spaces nor receive their potential benefits
Politics and COVID-19: Partisanship and Mortality in U.S. States and Counties, 2020 to 2023
Get PDFBackground: The COVID-19 pandemic had devastating but uneven effects across the United States, with marked variation in mortality rates by geographic and political context.
Objective: To examine the relationship between political affiliation at both the county and state levels and COVID-19 mortality rates in the United States, and to evaluate whether Republican affiliation is associated with higher pandemic mortality.
Methods: A multiple linear regression model was used to assess the relationships between COVID-19 mortality rates (defined as deaths per 10,000 population) and five independent variables: percentage of Republican voters in the 2020 presidential election (pctrep), percentage of elderly population (pctelderly), population density (popden), physician density (docsperpop), and the State Partisan Index score (indexscore) reflecting state political alignment.
Results: Statistically significant positive associations were found between COVID-19 mortality and both pctrep ( = 0.145, p < 0.001) and indexscore ( = 0.680, p < 0.001), suggesting that more conservative political orientation at both county and state levels was associated with higher mortality. Physician density was also positively associated with mortality ( = 2.679, p < 0.001), possibly reflecting urbanization or more robust reporting. No significant associations were found for pctelderly or popden. Mean mortality rates were highest in Red and Purple-Leaning Red states and lowest in Purple-Leaning Blue states. The model explained approximately 17% of variation in mortality (adjusted R2 = 0.1684).
Conclusion: Political climate is a significant predictor of COVID-19 mortality in the United States. By incorporating Purple states, this study adds nuance to prior research and shows that political affiliation influenced pandemic outcomes even in states with divided partisan control.Bachelor of Science in Public Healt
Deciphering the behavioral dynamics and neural circuit mechanisms for conflicting memories in D. melanogaster olfactory learning
Get PDFAnimals constantly face choices between competing outcomes – whether to approach a reward or avoid a threat. Understanding how the brain integrates conflicting information to make such decisions is a fundamental question in neuroscience. Drosophila melanogaster is the ideal model for this question based on the recently published connectome and robust genetic tools that allows for specific neuron targeting. The mushroom body in Drosophila integrates sensory stimuli with reinforcement signals to assign valence to odors, but how flies resolve conflicting memories remains unclear. To address the neural basis of choice behavior, we are establishing a novel behavioral framework using a fly-on-a-ball treadmill paradigm that enables precise pairing of sensory stimuli with both appetitive and aversive cues. This setup lays the foundation for future physiological studies by allowing brain activities in tethered, behaving flies to be imaged during memory-guided decision-making. The first portion of the project includes optogenetic activation of reward-signaling dopaminergic neurons and sugar sensory neurons. Behavioral assays revealed a significant increase in the speed of locomotion evoked by an odor paired with activation of the dopaminergic neurons, while a control unpaired odor evoked no significant change. On the other hand, we could not observe an obvious effect of pairing with sugar sensory neurons. The second portion of the project was dedicated to optimizing a method to deliver electric shocks to tethered flies without impeding locomotion, enabling future studies on aversive learning and conflict resolution. By developing a precise and repeatable paradigm for creating and testing conflicting memories, this project establishes the groundwork for future imaging-based experiments on how flies make decisions when faced with competing internal drives.Bachelor of Scienc
Clinically Interpretable Modeling of ACL Reconstruction Outcomes Using Confidence-Aware Gait Analysis
Get PDFBackground/Objectives: Outcomes following Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) reconstruction vary widely among patients, yet existing classification techniques often lack transparency and clinical interpretability. To address this gap, we developed a multi-modal framework that integrates gait dynamics with patient-specific characteristics to enhance personalized assessment of ACL reconstruction outcomes. Methods: Participants, both post-ACL reconstruction and healthy controls, were equipped with inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors on bilateral wrists, ankles, and the sacrum during standardized locomotion tasks. Using the Phase Slope Index (PSI), we quantified causal relationships between sensor pairs, hypothesizing that (1) PSI-derived metrics capture discriminative biomechanical interactions; (2) task-specific differences in segment coordination patterns influence model performance; and (3) recovery duration modulates classifier confidence and the structure of high-dimensional data distributions. Classification models were trained using PSI features, and permutation-based sensor importance analyses were conducted to interpret task-specific biomechanical contributions. Results: PSI-based classifiers achieved 96.37% accuracy in distinguishing ACL reconstruction outcomes, validating the first hypothesis. Permutation importance revealed that jogging tasks produced more focused importance distributions across fewer sensor pairs while improving accuracy, confirming task-specific coordination effects (hypothesis two). Visualization via t-SNE demonstrated that longer recovery durations corresponded to reduced model confidence but more coherent feature clusters, supporting the third hypothesis. Conclusions: By integrating causal gait metrics and patient recovery profiles, this approach enables interpretable and high-performing ACL outcome prediction. Quantitative evaluation measures—including model confidence and t-SNE cluster coherence—offer clinicians objective tools for personalized rehabilitation monitoring and data-driven return-to-sport decisions
Improving training on hepatitis B research in Nigeria: Findings from an innovation bootcamp to strengthen capacity
Get PDFWe organized an Innovation Bootcamp for young people in Nigeria to develop strategies promoting the uptake of the hepatitis B birth dose vaccine among newborns, which remains low, with an estimated coverage of 52%. This event was a collaborative, cross-disciplinary capacity-building platform to generate creative solutions addressing barriers to Hepatitis B vaccine uptake. The purpose of this study was to describe the bootcamp activities that address this gap and evaluate the impact of an Innovation Bootcamp designed to build research capacity among young Nigerians. The bootcamp was informed by Participatory Action Research focused at engaging young people as co-researchers to investigate and address issues affecting their respective communities using the PEN-3 cultural model. Qualitative data from the community needs assessment were analyzed using a thematic analysis framework to identify and synthesize emerging themes. Socio-demographic characteristics of the participants were collected, and a pre- and post-survey was administered. The participants’ knowledge of hepatitis B and research skills were compared using the Wilcoxon test. Our results included five teams composed of fifteen participants with a mean age of 25.5 years, originating from the Southern regions of Nigeria. The post-survey showed significant improvements in participants’ knowledge and research skills, with knowledge increasing by 21.6% (mean score: 39.7 to 48.3, p=0.010) and research skills by 36.4% (mean score: 56.1 to 76.5, p<0.001). Each team co-designed implementation strategies, including referral pathways from traditional birth attendants to formal health centers, comprehensive training workshops, and trusted community leaders as vaccination ambassadors. In conclusion, the bootcamp demonstrated its effectiveness in strengthening capacity and increasing knowledge (although in a small sample size), which contributed to informing the development of implementation strategies. Findings from the pilot studies will ultimately inform future research focused on promoting and sustaining youth-derived vaccination service delivery strategies in Nigeria
Nanobody-drug conjugates for targeting specific GPCR pairs
Get PDFBitopic ligands that engage two distinct binding sites offer exciting opportunities for finely tuned control of G protein-coupled receptor signaling. A recent study in PLOS Biology employed click chemistry to generate novel nanobody-small molecule conjugates and demonstrated their logic-gated activity at co-expressed receptor pairs with improved signaling profiles
Catching Myths: An Analysis of Pokémon as a Modern System of Folklore
Get PDFThis thesis examines how the Pokémon franchise functions as a modern myth-making system within contemporary global culture. Although Pokémon is one of the most widely circulated media franchises in the world, scholarly attention has rarely addressed its mythological dimensions. This study argues that Pokémon constructs a coherent and evolving mythos that rearticulates classical mythic patterns while responding to modern cultural concerns, including environmental crisis, biotechnology, cosmology, mortality, and collective memory. Through a structured mythological methodology - incorporating archetypal analysis, narrative function, symbolic interpretation, comparative mythology, and systemic myth analysis - the thesis analyzes eight Legendary and Mythical Pokémon: Arceus, Mew, Mewtwo, Xerneas, Yveltal, Hoopa, Calyrex, and Eternatus.
Findings show that these entities embody core mythic archetypes such as creator gods, ancestral beings, ecological dualities, tricksters, sacred kings, and apocalyptic forces. The thesis argues that Pokémon constructs a coherent transmedia mythos that reworks classical mythic patterns while addressing contemporary concerns including environmental balance, biotechnology, cultural memory, and existential anxiety. Ultimately, the research demonstrates that Pokémon provides a participatory, globally shared mythological framework through which modern audiences negotiate meaning in the twenty-first century.Master of Science in Library Scienc
Examining the effect of universal testing and treatment strategies for HIV prevention in Zambia and South Africa: generalizing the results of the HPTN 071 (PopART) trial
Get PDFINTRODUCTION: HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 071 (PopART) was a cluster-randomized trial to evaluate universal testing and treatment (UTT) strategies for HIV prevention. HPTN071 compared three arms: (A) combination prevention with UTT; (B) combination prevention with universal testing and antiretroviral therapy initiation according to local guidelines; and (C) standard of care (SOC). Interventions were implemented in entire randomized communities, with impacts on HIV incidence measured in "population cohorts," that is the HPTN071 sample. Unexpectedly, a significantly lower incidence was not observed in arm A relative to SOC. Importantly, rates of participation in the HPTN071 sample differed among population subgroups, for example men were underrepresented. METHODS: To correct for underrepresented subgroups, PopART intervention effects are estimated in a population of interest, adults aged 18-44 in trial provinces, characterized with two nationally representative HIV-focused surveys. The HPTN071 sample is weighted to match the population of interest by demographics and HIV risk factors. Risk of HIV acquisition is compared across arms, both in the trial population (unweighted) and the population of interest (weighted). Both (1) the risk of HIV acquisition between 1 and 3 years and (2) the risk of HIV acquisition by 3 years are compared. RESULTS: In the trial population, estimated risk in arm A is, counterintuitively, slightly higher than SOC (Year 1-3 Risk Difference [RD]: 0.10%; 95% CI: -1.15%, 1.25%). After weighting, risk in arm A is lower than SOC in the population of interest (RD: -0.34%; 95% CI: -2.04%, 0.96%). Weighting also strengthened the estimated effect in arm B relative to SOC (unweighted RD: -0.66%, 95% CI: -1.88%, 0.46%; weighted RD: -1.18%, 95% CI: -2.85%, 0.15%). Weighted year 3 risk difference estimates indicated even stronger possible intervention effects: A versus SOC -0.83% (95% CI: -2.94%, 0.99%), B versus SOC -1.86% (95% CI: -3.80%, -0.09%). CONCLUSIONS: PopART interventions are estimated to be more protective in the population of interest than observed in the HPTN071 sample. These results partially explain the unexpected finding in arm A, providing further support for UTT strategies for HIV prevention. This analysis also highlights the importance of considering heterogeneous treatment effects among population subgroups when measuring the overall efficacy of HIV interventions