The Role of Nectin In Zyxin Localization

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Jace Bullard and Dr. Marc Hansen, Department of Physiology & Developmental Biology Abstract A major difficulty of treating cancer rises from its ability to metastasize. During metastasis, strong adhesions between cells break, allowing individual cells to separate and migrate to different locations in the body. Strong cell-cell junctions are formed by protein interactions between actin […]

Selenium’s Effect on Insulin Resistance

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Scott Brunson and Professor Chad Hancock, Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science Background Due to dramatic increases in type II diabetes, studies on insulin resistance are especially applicable to this current health issue. Previous epidemiological studies examining selenium’s effect on prostate cancer observed a possible correlation between increased risk for type II diabetes mellitus and […]

Biophysical Cell Membrane Changes During Chemotherapeutic Drug-Induced Apoptosis

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Amanda Berbert and Dr. John Bell, Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology Overview Our project provided us the opportunity to gain insight into how chemotherapy drugs affect the cell membrane and how secretory phospholipase A2 (sPLA2) can work in tandem with these drugs to accelerate the cell death process. The enzyme sPLA2 produces a pro-inflammatory […]

Determining the effect of Toll-like Receptor-7 on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Development

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Douglas Baumann and Dr. Brian Poole, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (Lupus) is an autoimmune disease that afflicts over 250,000 citizens of the United States. Although much remains to be learned about Lupus, the information gathered so far has proven to be extremely valuable in increasing survival rates and improving the […]

A Nuclear Variant of Gdf5 may Present Novel Insights on Arthritis Formation

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Michael Baldwin and Dr. Laura Bridgewater, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology Introduction More than 40 million Americans suffer from the pains of arthritis. Arthritis is characterized by joint inflammation and cartilage deterioration (3). For many years growth differentiation factor 5 (Gdf5) has been associated with cartilage formation and maintenance (4, 1). GDF5 has been […]