Health Sciences – Page 5 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Health Sciences

A survey of Childhood Cancer Patients and Caregivers Experience during COVID

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented change in healthcare delivery. In pediatric oncology, patients and providers were challenged to adapt to evolving circumstances while balancing adherence to well-established oncology treatment and monitoring plans in order to decrease exposure and prevent serious infections in this potentially immunosuppressed population. These changes may have affected healthcare behaviors. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of the first 4 months of the COVID-19 pandemic on the timing of oncologic care and the overall experiences of pediatric oncology patients and families.

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Comprehensive Cataloguing of Clinically Identified MUTYH Variants in Cancer Patients

Grace Clark Pronouns: she.her Research Mentor(s): Shelby Hemker, Postdoctoral Fellow Research Mentor School/College/Department: Human Genetics, Michigan Medicine Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021 Session: Session 5 (3pm-3:50pm) Breakout Room: Room 7 Presenter: 8 Event Link Abstract For privacy concerns this abstract cannot be published at this time. Authors: Grace Clark, Shelby Hemker, Jacob Kitzman Research

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Mind-Body Therapies for COVID Related Stress

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a global mental health crisis. Studies in the US in December 2020 revealed that more than 42% of adults reported symptoms of anxiety and depression compared to 11% the year prior1. Long-term effects of the pandemic’s physical and emotional stressors are unknown. Our study is a randomized control trial that examines the efficacy of remotely-administered mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) in improving mood symptoms and resilience among communities of color most impacted by COVID. Our study population includes Michigan residents who self-report pandemic-related stress and anxiety and live in zip codes with high rates of COVID infection and a significant non-White population.

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Functions of Newly Evolved Proteins in Meiotic Drive

Leila Brandt Pronouns: she/her/hers Research Mentor(s): Jacob Mueller, Assistant Professor Research Mentor School/College/Department: Human Genetics, Michigan Medicine Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021 Session: Session 5 (3pm-3:50pm) Breakout Room: Room 7 Presenter: 2 Event Link Abstract For privacy concerns this abstract cannot be published at this time. Authors: Jacob Mueller, Leila Brandt, Lucy Zhang Research

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Mass spectrometry based assessment of the Tryptophan catabolism in Chronic Kidney Disease accelerated heart disease

Despite the improvements in renal replacement therapies, cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains one of the leading causes of mortality for chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients with a 10-fold increase in mortality rate compared to individuals without CKD. The reason behind this increased risk is not fully explained through classical risk factors; however, non-traditional risk factors like inflammation play an important role in the pathogenesis of CKD atherosclerosis. More specifically, tryptophan metabolism has been linked to inflammation in CKD patients through the kynurenine pathway (KP). In our previous study, tryptophan metabolite levels were associated with incident CVD in CKD patients. With this knowledge, this current study intends to prove that tryptophan catabolism is disproportionately upregulated in atherosclerotic lesions of CKD patients. Plasma and aortic tissue of CKD patients varying in CKD stage will be matched with CVD patients with normal renal function with the objective of finding the disproportionate tryptophan catabolism in atherosclerotic lesions. Aortic tissue will be homogenized and both plasma and tissue lysates will be extracted for tryptophan metabolites using organic solvents. We will use Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry to measure a panel of tryptophan catabolites from these extracts. We expect to find significant differences in KP metabolites in atherosclerotic lesions compared to controls, and correlate lesion KP metabolites to circulating KP metabolites and further prove the strength of using KP metabolites as prospective measures for detecting CVD in CKD patients.

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The Effects of Radiation on Porcine Submandibular Glands

Roughly 600,000+ cases of head and neck cancer are diagnosed annually with the majority of these patients being treated with therapeutic irradiation (IR). Unfortunately, IR often causes irreversible salivary gland (SG) damage, hyposalivation, and permanent xerostomia (dry mouth syndrome). A lack of saliva negatively impacts the oral cavity by increasing tooth decay and infections, as well as impairing swallowing, speech, and sense of taste. To address the underlying mechanisms causing SG dysfunction, and to ultimately bring new therapies to treat this condition to the clinic, preclinical test models are needed. Unlike small rodents, minipigs serve as an ideal model as they are more closely related to humans based on the anatomy and location of the SGs in the head and neck area. Most pig models focus solely on the parotid gland and do not include the SMG. As both glands can be affected by radiation and may require repair, we applied two different radiation doses and evaluated the submandibular glands (SMGs) for morphological damage using immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining. Our overall goals are to determine which radiation dose most closely mimics the damage observed in human studies and to establish a preclinical minipig model for xerostomia that affects the SMG.

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Dysfunction of insulin producing pancreatic beta cells – The Central Problem in Diabetes

This lab and experience over the past school year has involved two separate components. The first component was in a wet lab doing actual work. The work I was doing was genotyping different mice and their offspring to test for genetic mutations. This was done through a tail snip being taken from the mice and digested to release the DNA. The DNA is then placed in a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to replicate the DNA strand. The results of this PCR were then ran through a Gel electrophoresis system in order to measure the base pair lengths of genes being investigated. This in person lab research coincides with the auxiliary research I was doing. I was told to investigate how Beta cells measure the glucose level of blood and release the correct corresponding amount of insulin. This knowledge can then be used to see if certain genetic mutations in different mice result in differing insulin production or even a stop of insulin production.

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Developing a Liquid Biopsy Diagnostic Technique for Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer in the United States and has one of the highest recurrence rates. The cancer is frequently caught late, especially in recurring cases, as most diagnostic techniques are highly invasive. Research was conducted to develop a liquid biopsy technique which would use circulating tumor (ct)DNA, also known as cell-free DNA, to track cancer markers in the blood. This technique could be used as both a prognostic and diagnostic technique for patients with HNSCC or those who have a chance of recurrence. We have had success using cell-free DNA extraction procedures to separate the ctDNA from patient blood samples. Now we are looking towards developing a diagnostic technique using this data. This technique would be incredibly useful for monitoring HNSCC patients’ responses to treatment because it would be fast and non-invasive. Particularly, the research is currently focused on HPV positive patients because the HPV ctNDA marker can be easily identified in patient blood. The liquid biopsy technique could also be extended and used for the detection of other types of cancers. This could significantly improve cancer diagnosis times and would help provide frequent and non-invasive tracking of the responses of cancer patients to treatments.

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Women’s Wave

Women’s Wave A lot has changed in recent years. Grassroots protests have existed for a while, but with the addition of the internet and technology, it hasn’t been the same since the Occupy movement. Politicians have run their campaigns in support of these movements, against these movements, and as a piece of these movements. What we don’t know is what effect grassroots action has on the elections. The research analysis pieces together candidate information from the 2018 elections such as; age, gender, party, prior office, and sexual orientation. Most importantly the data contains any activist history (including the type of activism) and whether or not they won. Analysis from this research is expected to find one very important relation between political candidate’s involvement in women’s activism or activism in general, and their success in an election year widely regarded as “the year of the woman.” This research can be used in the future to help predict the outcomes of elections and aid activists’ efforts to effect change. This is part of a growing amount of research as politics begins to consume a larger portion of our lives.

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Residue Depth Computation

Proteins, a class of macromolecules essential to biological processes, are characterized by their structure which directly correlates to functionality. Residues are considered the building blocks of proteins and studying their positions has been crucial in understanding the role a protein plays in a biological system. This research project investigates different measures of residue depth through calculations of RSA, DPX, Residue Depth, HalfSpace Depth, and L1 depth. The L1 depth function surpasses other residue structure predictors in that it can obtain positions of residues buried under the protein surface, or nested in pockets. In addition, the function uses O(N) time complexity, making it much more efficient than the HalfSpace predictor. Values of depth have strong correlations with properties such as physiochemical propensities, flexibility and polarity. Data was obtained from CULLPDB, Phospho3D, and PLB datasets. After reading in necessary information into an IDE, residue depth of each protein in the datasets and the correlation coefficients between the means of depth values of amino acids and hydrophobicity index of amino acids were calculated through an algorithm written in C++. These results showed that the means of depth values were strongly relative with hydrophobicity of amino acids. In addition, the secondary structures of the residues are also associated with L1 depth values, as residues in sheets are deeper under the surface in comparison to residues in coils and helices.

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