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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Computational Analysis Methodologies for Evaluating Metabolism Changes In iPSCs Undergoing Differentiation
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-12-14)Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) hold great promise as a regenerative medicine tool, allowing the creation of any type of tissue from a patient’s own cells. Clinical applications of iPSCs are still hampered by the ... -
R-Pyocin Regulation, Release, and Susceptibility in Pseudomonas aeruginosa
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-12-09)Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen and a major determinant of declining lung function in individuals with cystic fibrosis (CF). P. aeruginosa possesses many intrinsic antibiotic resistance ... -
Genetic, Molecular, and Environmental Effects on Survival Outcomes and Disparities
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-11-21)While disease mortality rates have steadily decreased over the last century, survival disparities among racial and ethnic population groups persist. Research on population survival disparities tends to be focused on ... -
Evolution of Bacterial Type VI Secretion System Regulation and Defense
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-08-23)Bacteria in nature live in communities with other organisms where resources and space are typically lacking. To compete, bacteria have evolved strategies to increase fitness by eliminating unwanted competitors with secreted ... -
Collective behavior and morphological complexity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-08-23)In nature, many animals are capable of performing complex behaviors without centralized coordination. A well-studied focus is collective motion in flocks of birds and shoals of fish, both of which are capable of changing ... -
Evolution and Architecture of Epigenetic Regulation in the Genome
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-12-14)Epigenetic modifications are genomic alterations which regulate the expression and activity of genes by changing the structure of chromatin. These mechanisms of regulation expand the proportion of the genome that is ... -
The impact of copper oxide nanoparticles on bacterial community assembly
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-11-22)A growing amount of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) has been released into the environment. CuO NPs are known to be toxic to various organisms, but their impacts on the assembly of ecological communities are poorly ... -
Epigeneti Analyses of Human Brain Evolution and Aging
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-12-10)One of the central questions in modern biology is to understand the molecular basis of phenotypic variation. This question can be partially answered by examining (epi)genomic variation between species or between individuals ... -
Temporal encoding, precision, and coordination in a comprehensive, spike-resolved motor program
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-10-12)Animals must execute robust, agile movement in a variety of biomechanical and environmental contexts. The nervous system must encode information for movement across multiple muscles in the "all-or-none" messages of action ... -
Characterization of biological signatures of ribonucleotides incorporated into DNA using the Ribose-Map bioinformatics toolkit
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-07-30)The incorporation of ribonucleoside monophosphates (rNMPs) into DNA is one of the most frequently occurring errors during DNA synthesis. To maintain genome integrity, the ribonuclease (RNase) H enzymes efficiently remove ... -
Unsupervised Algorithms for Automated Gene Prediction in Novel Eukaryotic Genomes
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-07-29)Gene prediction, the identification of the location and structure of protein-coding genes in genomic sequences, is one of the first and most important steps in the analysis of assembled genomes. The exponential growth of ... -
Computational Genomics to Characterize the Distribution, Diversity and Drug Resistance of Fungal Pathogens
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-07-26)Molecular strain typing of pathogenic fungi has been the “gold-standard” of epidemiology and laboratory-based surveillance in public health mycology providing information on the geographic distribution among groups of ... -
IDENTIFYING MICROBIAL BIOMARKERS OF CYSTIC FIBROSIS HEALTH AND DISEASE
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-07-06)Chronic, polymicrobial respiratory infections remain the primary driver of morbidity and mortality in cystic fibrosis (CF). This thesis leverages experimental data and large-scale public datasets to investigate the ... -
EARLY PREDICTORS OF POST-STROKE MOTOR RECOVERY
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-12-06)Stroke is a leading cause of long-term disability worldwide. Despite robust spontaneous biological recovery mechanisms and provision of intensive rehabilitation therapies, most stroke survivors experience persistent loss ... -
CELLULAR MECHANISMS OF ECOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS AMONG MARINE PHYTOPLANKTON
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-07-27)The current body of work investigates the chemical mechanisms involved in predator-prey interactions using species from the chemically defended phytoplankton genus Alexandrium and cues from one type of predatory zooplankton, ... -
Assay development for and evaluation of sphingomyelinase D and associated activities in venoms from Loxosceles reclusa and Kukulcania hibernalis and in isolated soil bacteria
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-08-02)Since a sphingomyelinase D (SMase D) enzyme is presumably the major agent in the necrosis and toxicity of the brown recluse spider venom by cleaving sphingomyelin (SM) to ceramide 1,3-cyclic phosphate (Cer(1,3)P), a rigorous ... -
Quantitative analysis of ChIP-seq signals and transcriptomes
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-07-21)Chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by massively parallel DNA sequencing (ChIP-seq) is commonly used to analyze the in vivo interactions between proteins and DNA across the genome. Analysis of ChIP-seq data has largely ... -
THE ROLE OF OBSERVATION ON THE SPATIOTEMPORAL ORGANIZATION OF NEUROBEHAVIORAL PATTERNS IN GOAL-DIRECTED ACTIONS
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-07-28)The performance of complex, goal-directed actions is an essential skill that is developed and refined through continuous practice and careful observation. Tool-use is an ideal task to examine action organization and ... -
Novel Bioinformatic Approaches To Assess Genetic Relatedness, Degree Of Endemicity And Associations Among Viral And Bacterial Communities Along The Chattahoochee Riverine System
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-06-17)Bacteriophages, the most abundant biological entities on earth, play a major role in biogeochemical cycling by infecting and killing millions of bacterial cells daily. Not only they affect the flow of nutrients, but also ... -
Yeast Model For Seeding and Cross-seeding Of Protein Aggregation In Proteopathies
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-07-28)A variety of human diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and tauopathies, are associated with the accumulation of misfolded protein aggregates. These protein aggregates are composed of amyloids, fibrous highly ordered ...
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