Antibiotic Resistance in Staphylococcus Aureus from Commercially Available Meat

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Samuel Schriever and Faculty Mentor: Bradford Berges M&MB Introduction Bacteria can be found everywhere. While some bacteria can help humans to make medicine and clean up environmental disasters, other bacteria can cause horrible disease. After the discovery of antibiotics in the early twentieth century humans have been using them to treat human and animal disease. […]

LCTSR: The New Path to Academic Success

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Faith Hathenbruck and Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jamie Jensen, Department of Biology Introduction: The Lawson’s Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning1(LCTSR) is a content-independent measure of scientific reasoning abilities including conservation, proportional reasoning, identifying and controlling variables, probabilistic reasoning, correlational reasoning, and hypothetico-deductive reasoning. A relationship has been seen between scores on this test and a student’s […]

Engineering a Cancer Specific 3rd Generation CAR Immunotherapy

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Josie Tueller and Faculty Mentor: K. Scott Weber, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology This project aimed to develop a cancer-specific immunotherapy that will target and destroy cancer cells without killing healthy cells. Current cancer treatments struggle to successfully target cancer cells and commonly target all rapidly dividing cells (both healthy and cancerous). Chimeric antigen […]

Development of a Quasiclassical Direct Dynamics Program and Graphical Interface

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Nathan Wohlgemuth and Dr. Dan Ess, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Introduction Organic and organometallic reactions are generally assumed to follow statistical mechanical models of reactivity and selectivity that correspond to transition state theory. However, in recent years there have been several organic reactions that have been shown to be controlled by post-transition state reaction […]

Creation of Non-Electric Cooling System for Food Preservation in Peru

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Eleanor Ott and Dr. Randy Lewis, Chemical Engineering Department Introduction Food preservation is an issue in third-world countries around the world where electricity and monetary means are not present to maintain a modern refrigerator. The short shelf life of unrefrigerated food items creates waste, requires time and energy with frequent trips to buy food, and […]

Rigidly Foldable Origami Flashers Based on Curved-Fold Model

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Jacob Badger and Dr. Larry Howell, Mechanical Engineering Department Introduction The purpose of my research was to explore the application of curved folding in designing rigid-foldable deployable mechanisms. In recent years, origami fold patterns known as “flashers” have been investigated for their ability to efficiently pack deployable surfaces. While many patterns have been investigated, none […]

Gas Detection System for Biomass Cookstove Emissions

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Cyra Bishop, Jeffery Smith, and Dr. Matthew Jones, Mechanical Engineering Department Project Purpose The purpose of this research project is to explore Peruvian social and cultural behaviors that typically prevent successful improved cookstove adoption in resource-limited settings as well as suggest ways to educate locals about the benefits of improved cookstoves. This will be done […]

Above Knee Prosthetic Socket for Developing Countries

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Colton Graham and Dr. Mark Colton, Mechanical Engineering Department Motivation Due to a civil war in Sierra Leone many have been left with amputated limbs. In order to provide the required prosthetic limbs for victims who have above the knee amputations they need a quality custom fit socket. Custom fit sockets are very expensive so […]

Carbon Nanotube Filtration Device: Separating Oil from Fracking Waste

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Phillip Ng and Dr. Anton Bowden Mechanical Engineering Department INTRODUCTION Pyrolytic Carbon Infiltration Carbon Nanotubes (CI-CNTs) can isolate water and oil molecules due to its superhydrophobic and oleophilic properties, unique cylindrical nanostructure, and functional groups1. Because the waste produced from fracking is nonreusable due to the molecular oil droplets contained in it, the waste is […]

Examining how the CD5 co-receptor alters T helper cell activation in response to bacterial infection

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Garrett Hamblin and Faculty Mentor: Scott Weber, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology Properly functioning helper T cells are crucial in a response to an infection. The adaptive immune response is orchestrated by T helper cells and their function is dependent upon interactions between the T cell receptor (TCR), peptide MHC (pMHC) and co-receptors. Upon […]