2022-2023 Senior Honors Theses
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10657/13940
This collection contains theses produced by Class of 2023 Honors students
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Browsing 2022-2023 Senior Honors Theses by Department "Biology and Biochemistry, Department of"
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Item A Historical Review of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: Developmental Advancements Then and Now(2023-04-23) Wade, JoshuaA review of the history of regenerative medicine focusing on the use of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from their initial inception in bone marrow transplantation for blood disorders and diseases to their expanded uses today through advancements in technology. Commonly treated malignant and non-malignant bone marrow transplant conditions include but are not limited to leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and aplastic anemia. Bone marrow transplants are performed by autologous or allogeneic transplantation with multipotent HSCs. The first unrelated allogeneic transplant was performed by Dr. Edward Donnall Thomas in 1957. The initial approaches using stem cells as a form of treatment resulted in great difficulty and failure with few exceptions. However, discoveries such as the major histocompatibility complex within humans known as the human leukocyte antigen (HLA), allowed researchers to identify genetic matches between donors and recipients resulting in an increased rate of successful procedures. Since then, advancements in the field have introduced new techniques that improve the efficacy of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and expanded use to more populations. Such advancements include improved conditioning regimens, matched unrelated donors, umbilical cord HSCs, and more potent immunosuppressants and antimicrobial drugs. For patients that experience tissue damage due to conditioning regimens or cancer malignancy, HSCs use a “homing” mechanism to mobilize to the affected area and release chemical factors that promote tissue recovery. Patients that undergo transplantation are put at risk of several conditions including graft-versus-host disease and opportunistic infections, however, complication-prevention regimens have been put in place to decrease the mortality rate. This literature review serves to roughly gauge how this field of medicine has developed since the 1950s and where future implications lie. Said implications include emerging ways to treat graft-versus-host disease, improved HLA typing matches, and HSC uses in transplantable organs like the liver.Item An Analysis of Colony Movement and The Effects of Movement on Fitness in the Western Harvester Ant, Pogonomyrmex Occidentalis(2023-08-07) Ramsaroop, MaxximusColony movement in ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), is well documented and several studies have explored the fitness costs and causes of colony movement in different species. Attempts to describe the purpose or patterns of colony movement have been made on many species within Pogonomyrmex spp. However, research into these aspects of colony movement has yet to be described in P. occidentalis, The Western Harvester ant. This thesis examines the fitness costs, potential causes, and behavioral syndrome associated with colony movement in P. occidentalis. I analyzed Dr. Cole & Dr. Wiernasz's data from 1993-2023 on colony movement, age, size, distances traveled, and survivorship for 6,066 colonies. Moved colonies were found to have a smaller colony size, shorter colony lifespan, and lower rates of survivorship when compared to unmoved colonies using t-tests and a Kaplan-Meier survivorship analysis. Moreover, moved colonies were compared against 1-year-old colonies, and were found to have a larger colony size. Colonies were also found to have a greater tendency to move later in age, and 16.6% of colonies had moved at least once. These results suggest that colonies that move incur fitness costs, as colony size and lifespan are proxies for fitness, and that colony movement is more costly for younger or smaller colonies. Furthermore, because P. occidentalis is notably long-lived, shows high nest fidelity, and their movements are associated with a loss in fitness, they likely exhibit an adventitious nest relocation syndrome. Through this thesis, we can better contextualize P. occidentalis in the greater scheme of animal architects and the decisions they make.Item The utilization of CRISPR-Cas9 to establish novel ?X?2 knockout cell lines in mice(2023-04-24) Lim, DanielThe ?X?2 integrin functions as an important mediator of the complement system, and undergoes inactive to active state by switching its conformation from bent closed to extended open, contingent on binding of different ligands. This extended open conformation has higher affinity for cognate ligands including iC3B, an important molecule of the complement cascade. Thus, the extended open conformation leads to an inflammatory response, and the bent closed conformation suppresses inflammation. Despite the importance of this integrin in mediating the inflammatory response of the human immune system, there have not been studies of the ?X?2 integrin locked in alternate conformational states in a mouse model due to the lack of cell lines. My project has been to create Cas9-plasmid to knock out ?X and ?2 genes from any mouse cell line. By designing specific oligonucleotides that Cas9 can utilize to make double stranded cuts in the genes for ?X and ?2, novel cell lines can be created from wild-type DC2.4 and RAW264.7 mouse cells through transfection. These novel cell lines can then be used for future research, such as how the ?X?2 integrin in an alternate state can affect the pathophysiology of diseases such as cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.