School of Biology Undergraduate Research Option Theses
The Research Option offers students majoring in biology the opportunity for a substantial, in-depth research experience. Students are strongly encouraged at the end of their experience to work with their faculty mentor to develop a journal publication or conference presentation on the research in addition to the actual thesis.
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Recent Submissions
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Evolution of Cross-Feeding in a Simple Bacterial Community: Genetic Determinants
Syntrophic interactions, like cross-feeding, are ubiquitous in the microbial world and occur between different species and between different ecotypes of the same species. We seek to understand the conditions that favor ... -
The Relation Between Spatial Navigation and Associative Memory in the Older Adult Population
Navigation strategy and spatial navigation aim to explain how humans engage with the world around them. They are also both a way to understand cognitive differences between age populations. Associative memory is the ability ... -
Neural Activation During Dual-task Processing with Simultaneous Stimulus Presentation
Despite extensive literature regarding response time cost in dual-task processing, the predominant procedures do not isolate task-processing from stimulus processing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the neural ... -
Developing appropriate methodology for assessing anti-pathogen properties of mucus-enriched water from corals
Global coral reef health is in rapid decline. A major contributor to this trend is warming ocean temperatures. As ocean temperature increases, corals become more susceptible to diseases that lead to bleaching and tissue ... -
Glucose protects E. coli from death by the Vibrio cholerae type VI secretion system
Vibrio cholerae, the causative agent of the intestinal disease cholera, interacts with other bacteria in dense multispecies communities within both host and environmental settings. Using the harpoon-like type VI secretion ... -
Determining the effect of SSB on [LSB+] prion-based stress memory
Prions are self-perpetuating protein isoforms, that are usually based on ordered fibrous protein aggregates (amyloids), cause disease in humans and control non-Mendelian heritable traits in yeast. Formation and loss of ... -
Whole-Brain Gray Matter Volume as an Anatomical Predisposition for Cognitive Ability
The human brain is the topic of much interest in recent years, and due to the advent and rising popularity of imaging techniques such as functional MRI, we are able to understand the brain with greater detail than ever ... -
Investigating the aggregation of Alzheimer’s disease-associated proteins in S. cerevisiae
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia and is associated with roughly 500,000 new cases each year (2). AD is associated with the aggregation of two proteins in the brain, A-beta peptide (Aβ) and ... -
Assessing Multiple Myeloma Risk: Differential Expression Analysis
Multiple myeloma is an incurable blood cancer affecting more than 20,000 Americans each year. Sub-classification of heterogeneous subsets of the disease under the broad umbrella of multiple myeloma is likely to increase ... -
Characterization of the electrophysiology of neurons in the central nervous system of Ciona robusta
The objective of this study was to investigate the electrophysiological properties of C. robusta motor ganglion neurons—interneuron 2 (IN2) and the descending decussating neuron (ddN)— and the sensory cells of the papillae ... -
A Novel Vibrio cholerae Type VI Secretion System Gene Cluster is Involved in Interbacterial Competition
The waterborne pathogen Vibrio cholerae inhabits microbiomes on chitinous crustaceans in marine environments and within the gastrointestinal tracts of animals, including humans, after ingestion of contaminated water. All ... -
Allele-specific expression reveals gene-environment interactions driving ecotype divergence in Malawi cichlid crosses
During the early stages of adaptive radiation, species diverge through local adaptation to spatially distinct microhabitats (Streelman and Danley 2003). The evolutionary history of spatial niche differentiation is poorly ... -
Determining how Freshwater Copepods Follow Planar Dextrain Trails
In this study two species of freshwater copepods, Hesperodiaptomus shoshone (H. shoshone), and Hesperodiaptomus arcticus (H. arcticus) will be used to determine how some species of freshwater copepods interact with planar ... -
Developing Tools to Monitor Vibrio cholerae Type VI Secretion During Range Expansion on Solid Surfaces
The waterborne bacterium Vibrio cholerae causes the fatal cholera diarrhea, and thrives in aquatic environments attached to chitinous surfaces with other bacteria. V. cholerae has been used to study natural competence, ... -
Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Chronic Limb Ischemic Myopathy
Critical limb ischemia (CLI), the most advanced clinical manifestation of peripheral arterial disease (PAD), is associated with cycles of ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) that are thought to compromise the bioenergetics of ... -
In-Situ Water Quality Monitoring for Resource-Constrained Areas
Water-borne pathogens and unsafe water supplies are the cause of death for 1.7 million people every year [1]. Many of these people live in the developing world, where it can be difficult to manage water safety. The World ... -
Gastrointestinal Motility: Kinematic Properties of Segmentation Contraction
The kinematic processes of the small intestine play integral roles in overseeing the digestion and transportation of food throughout the gastrointestinal tract. Specifically responsible for governing the flow and digestion ... -
Generalizing Disease Associations to Non-Studied Populations
This study determines whether risk allele frequencies (RAFs) for common diseases can be generalized in genome wide association surveys (GWAS) that are done in different populations other than the original study population. ... -
Catalytic abilities of the Schistosoma mansoni hammerhead ribozyme with mutated substrates in ice
The synthesis of biomolecules in an environment similar to a pre-biotic Earth within the field of evolutionary chemistry has applications in understanding abiogenesis and the evolution of early biological systems on Earth. ... -
Genetics of Captive Naked Mole-Rat Populations
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-06-30)The evolution of highly social behavior (eusociality) represents one of the major transition points in evolutionary history. Naked mole-rats (NMRs), Heterocephalus glaber, are one of the few known eusocial mammals, meaning ...
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