School of Biology Theses and Dissertations
Original work in partial fulfillment of a graduate degree in the School of Biology
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Recent Submissions
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Transcriptomic profiling of human cells destined for therapeutic applications
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-03-21)Cell therapy is a growing field as many diseases are still untreatable. Potential applications of cell therapies include treating cancers, autoimmune disease, urinary problems, and infectious disease, rebuilding damaged ... -
BIOFERTILIZERS FOR SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE: ISOLATION AND GENOMIC CHARACTERIZATION OF NITROGEN-FIXING BACTERIA FROM SUGARCANE
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-01-03)The goal of my thesis research was to explore the use of bacterial biofertilizers, as an alternative or complementary approach to chemical fertilizers, in support of more sustainable agricultural practices. To this end, ... -
MOLECULAR MECHANISMS OF RNA-MEDIATED DNA REPAIR AND MODIFICATION
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-01-13)Genomic stability is essential in maintaining the accurate inheritance of genetic material from mother to daughter cell. However, endogenous and exogenous stresses are continuously attacking and damaging genetic information. ... -
COMMUNITY ASSEMBLY IN HOST-ASSOCIATED AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOMES
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-05-01)Microbes play ecological and biogeochemical roles in all environments, including in host-associated systems. They are central providers of ecosystem services, notably by transforming matter and energy. They also engage in ... -
Genomic and Transcriptomic Characterization of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-04-26)Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic idiopathic disorder resulting in the inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, which encapsulates both Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). There is strong ... -
The Role of Cu, Zn Superoxide Dismutase (SOD1) in Muscle Stem Cell Function
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-05-04)Age-related loss of muscle mass and function often referred to as sarcopenia, dramatically affects the quality of life in the elderly population and predisposes them to an increased risk of morbidity, disability, and ... -
Ecological Community Assembly in the Face of Anthropogenic Environmental Changes
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-11-11)Anthropogenic environmental changes, such as increased nitrogen (N) deposition, changes in precipitation regimes, and habitat loss and fragmentation, are known to affect Earth’s ecosystems. Understanding mechanisms regulating ... -
QUANTITATIVE METHODS TO UNDERSTAND REPRODUCTIVE ISOLATION THAT CONTRIBUTE TO SPECIATION
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-10-29)Ever since Darwin’s qualitative theory of the origin of species, there is growing demand for quantitative methods to study mechanisms underlying the speciation process. One key component towards new species formation is ... -
Bioinformatic platforms and methods for worldwide polygenic risk scores
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-08-20)Genetic diversity underpins much of observed human phenotypic diversity and plays an important role in human health and disease. This dissertation is focused on exploring the genetic architecture of phenotypic diversity ... -
Public health informatics - Strategy and decision modeling
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-08-21)My research is composed of three studies focused on providing decision modeling and analytical tools with the objective of protecting public health. The first study introduces an agent-based simulation platform that serves ... -
Building a systematic analytic pipeline – big data innovation in healthcare
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-08-27)Electronic Health Records (EHR) containing large amount of patient data present both opportunities and challenges to industry, policy makers, and researchers. Data-driven healthcare utilizing big data in EHR has the potential ... -
Biochemical characterization and cryo-EM studies of a highly active spinach photosystem II complex
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018-11-13)Photosystem II (PSII) is a large, photosynthetic membrane protein complex responsible for water oxidation and the formation of oxygen on Earth. Understanding the structure of this protein is important for studying ... -
Probing pseudomonas aeruginosa physiology during infection using –omics techniques, phenotypic assays and mouse models
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-07-22)The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes severe disease in people with compromised immune systems or co-morbidities such as diabetes or cystic fibrosis. Since even intense antibiotic regimens are often ... -
Fine-mapping of human genetic regulatory variants
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-05-13)The majority of GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Study) identified common genetic variants map to regulatory regions of gene, and are likely to influence disease risk by affecting gene expression. One of the most important ... -
Analysis of the impact of a p53 mutation in a homogeneous genetic background
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-04-21)In more than 50% of cancers, p53, a tumor suppressor gene involved cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, has been seen to be heavily mutated making it an important gene to study. There are several studies on p53 and its role ... -
Climate change & the physiology, ecology, and behavior of coral reef organisms
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-03-16)The magnitude of ocean acidification (OA) and warming predicted to occur within the next century could have significant negative effects for organisms that inhabit coral reefs. Our understanding of how these stressors ... -
Efficient alignment-free software applications for next generation sequencing-based molecular epidemiology
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-01-09)Public health agencies increasingly couple next generation sequencing (NGS) characterization of microbial genomes with bioinformatics analysis methods for molecular epidemiology. The overhead associated with the bioinformatics ... -
Evolutionary benefits of latency in within-host HIV infection dynamics
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-04-30)HIV is a retrovirus that infects helper T cells (CD4 + T cells) in the human immune system. At the cellular scale, HIV generates both actively and latently infected cells. Ac- tively infected cells produce mature virions ... -
Analysis of the role of miRNAs in ovarian cancer metastasis
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-03-27)Cancer mortality is primarily due to metastasis. Metastasis is a complex multi-step process involving, on the molecular level, regulatory control of two key development pathways: epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) ... -
Integrative immunotranscriptomic analysis of long-lived plasma cells
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-05-21)Long-lived plasma cells are a key component of serological memory encoded by the adaptive immune response. To date, prior studies of these cell types have largely assessed plasma cells as one homogenous population. The Lee ...
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