Undergraduate Research Day Projects
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Organized by the University of Houston Office of Undergraduate Research and Major Awards, Undergraduate Research Day is an annual event showcasing exceptional scholarship undertaken by the UH undergraduate community.
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Browsing Undergraduate Research Day Projects by Department "College of Pharmacy"
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Item A General Approach to Kinase Inhibitors(2023-04-13) Nguyen, TheresaThe biomolecular pair, composed of either two proteins or two nucleic acids, forms noncovalent bonds. In previous studies regarding such pairs, optical tweezers or atomic force microscopy were used; however, such force based techniques have proven to be inconsistent and time consuming. In a study by De Silva, Yao and Xu, force-induced remnant magnetization spectroscopy (FIRMS) was found to be a more efficient technique through its use of acoustic radiation force (ARF) (2014). This study sought to explore the applicability of this technique and quantify the effects of ARF on thee dissociation of noncovalent pairs ï¾— in this instance, DNA ï¾— duplexes, with respect to time and degree of voltage. Such DNA duplexes were prepared over the period of 24 hours and placed directly beneath a piezo disk which generated the ARF. Quantification of the duplexes was achieved through the use of ImageJ, an image-based processing program, and contrasted with images analyzed using atomic magnetometry. The initial hypothesis was that the number of duplexes broken by ARF would remain constant until it eventually plateaued around 90 seconds at 100 and 200 mv. This study adds to the current literature of both fundamental biomolecular research and practical applications due to the noncovalent bonds being the most prevalent intermolecular bonds in biochemistry.Item Traumatic Brain Injury Therapeutics Progress(2023-04-13) Sheth, PranjalTraumatic Brain Injury (TBI) currently has no cure. There is research being done on pharmaceutical drugs that would help stop the neurodegenerative processes caused by TBI. Of these, the two drugs I am focusing on are Riluzole which directly stops neurodegeneration, and Etoricoxib, which stops inflammation. To see their effect on the brain and spinal cord, I am targeting the GFAP and UCH-L1 biomarkers. I am using the ELISA kit procedure and previously stored blood samples from Long Evan rats used for Dr. Eureï¾’s dissertation, where he was studying a similar topic to see which effect these drugs have. After reorganizing the samples, I worked to correlate blood samples to previous results and create new ones. The conclusion was that Riluzole, in combination with Etoricoxib, shows a correlation with UCH-L1 levels in the brain. We also found that increasing concentrations of Riluzole in the brain showed a decrease in UCH-L1 levels in the brain within 24 hours. Several pharmaceutical drugs are being tested to see their effect on the brain and spinal cord and how they can help stop neurodegeneration. Though I could only replicate and form some new conclusions on these drugs and their effect on neurodegeneration, continuation in this research could help produce a cure for TBI, which affects nearly 1.5 million people a year.