MU-COM Research Day is an annual showcase of the the research engagement of the students within the College of Osteopathic Medicine. Content on display are typically poster presentations along with faculty-led discussions of research projects. This event is coordinated by the MU-COM Research Club as well as the Faculty-led Research Club Committee.
Objective Adolescent and young adult cancer survivors (AYACS: ages 15-39) have an 84.5% five -year survival rate. AYACS have a 10 times greater risk to develop cardiac disease compared to healthy peers. This is in part due to their lower physical activity. Structured exercise in adult cancer survivors improves strength, fatigue, VO2, and antioxidant levels and it decreases markers of cellular damage. AYACS could benefit similarly, reducing long-term health effects. Although evidence suggests exercise is beneficial in older cancer survivors, this has not been demonstrated in AYACS. We hypothesized that a 12-week one-on-one multi-modal, community-based exercise program would improve AYACS outcomes compared to baseline or inactive AYACS. The current study hopes to demonstrate the feasibility of an exercise intervention in a community setting within Indianapolis. Methods Six individuals were included in a feasibility trial for a larger pilot study of 374 participants. On day 1, baseline assessments were performed for experimental outcomes: body composition, strength, flexibility, VO2peak, balance, plasma biomarkers, PA, psychological health, health-related quality of life, and fatigue. Mini reassessments were performed at week 5, measuring strength and VO2peak with an estimated 1-rep maximum and 6-minute Walk Test respectively; in the larger pilot study participants will be reassessed at weeks 12 and 24. Participants train for 60 minutes (20 cardio, 30 weights, 10 stretching) 3 times a week for 12 weeks, one-on-one with a cancer exercise specialist. Results The average change in VO2peak was +25.3% and in strength was +17.5% (no statistical analysis). Adherence was 90.9%. Conclusions This trial suggests the feasibility of a pilot larger study. The greatest limitation was that the population sample was not within the AYACS age range. However, as the goal was to show feasibility rather than to prove efficacy, the sample gave useful information.
Indixanol contrast medium partially separates infectious strains of Candida into persister and non-persister populations
Créateur:
Larsen, Bryan and Schaut, Dominic
La description:
Candida albicans and Candida glabrata, are two clinically relevant strains of yeast. They make up a majority of commonly seen pathologies such as vaginal yeast infections, nosocomial infections, and infections of immunocompromised patients. Candida stains can form perisiter colonies, which have reduced metabolic activity and increased resistance to antifungal treatment. Observing survival after a heat challenge provides a method for demonstrating the persister state among yeast and allows investigation of environmental conditions that increase or decrease the persistership of a microbial culture. Persisters are also resistant to antifungals like Amphotericin. It has been demonstrated that Saccharomyces could be separated into perisiter and non-persister populations by centrifuging a culture atop a 30% indixanol density cushion. The applicability of this technique to the more clinically relevant Candida albicans became the principal aim of this study. The indixanol separation, following assiduously the reported protocol, was applied to two strains of C. albicans as well as one C. glabrata. The protocol for Saccharomyces used 7 day-old cultures to enhance the number of persisters. In our hands, most of the organisms were found in the pellet, which was purported to be the persister portion of the population. Flow cytometry was used to quantify the percent of the culture found in the upper versus the pellet layer. Viability demonstrated by growth on agar plates following heat treatment revealed that vegetative cells were found in both layers, but most vegetative cells remained in the upper layer. Amphoteri-cin B treatment for 30 minutes followed by heat treatment reduced the number of per-sisters. A shorter growth time (2 days increased the number of vegetative cells and substantially reduced the size of the pellet. Conclusion: This method provides an incomplete separation of persisters and vegetative cells but may have utility in screening compounds for anti-persister activity.
Intramuscular versus Subcutaneous Injections of Testosterone in Transgender Men
Créateur:
Palmer, Adrian and Hum, Julia
La description:
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is a common treatment for gender dysphoria, a condition where a person’s gender assigned at birth does not match their gender identify. For transgender men seeking to achieve virilization, HRT is included in the standard of care as set forward by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). There are several routes of HRT administration including injection, pellet, gel, and patch. Many transgender men opt for the injectable testosterone for a variety of reasons including cost, insurance coverage, and impact on lifestyle. While the WPATH standards of care do include injectable testosterone as one of the HRT options, only intramuscular injections are mentioned in the most recent edition of standards published in 2012. Research has been put forth within the last several years exploring the effectiveness of not only intramuscular injections, but also subcutaneous injections. Though intramuscular injections continue to be the standard route by which testosterone is administered, there is substantial research that subcutaneous injections are equally, if not more, effective with a much higher patient preference. This primary literature review focuses primarily on the injectable methods of HRT and directly com-paring the effectiveness of intramuscular and subcutaneous testosterone for transgender men.
Intravenous Ketorolac and Intravenous Acetaminophen Effect on Kidney Function and Morphine Intake During Postoperative Laparoscopic Bariatric Surgery at Maui Memorial Medical Center
Créateur:
Machida, Chelsea, Chasen, Arthur, York, Dan, and Chasen, Joseph
La description:
Context: Obesity is a prevalent disease that presents with fatal comorbidities. However, Laparoscopic Roux-en Y gastric bypass surgery patients lose all excess weight within 2 years with proven remission of comorbidities like type II Diabetes Mellitus. Despite this success, surgeons at Maui Memorial Medical Center have cited rising postoperative creatinine and BUN levels resulting in increased hospitalizations. Objective: To compare renal function and opioid usage between IV ketorolac and IV acetaminophen during bariatric postoperative recovery. Setting: This is a cohort analysis of kidney function and morphine usage comparing two patient groups. Currently, in this context, these drugs are chosen by physician preference. Methods: Patients admitted to this study had comparable age, BMI, and sex at 95% confidence. To reduce variations in surgical trauma, the same surgeon performed all 107 surgeries. Patients eliminated from this study included those with complications during surgery, those with drug allergies or taking drugs known to induce drug interactions, those who required blood transfusions, kidney transplants, or hemodialysis. 2-sample T tests were conducted between the patient groups measuring creatinine, BUN, and hematocrit levels as well as morphine usage over the 24 hours postoperative period. Results: Hematocrit levels were higher with acetaminophen at 95% confidence (P = 0.0158). Creatinine also improved with acetaminophen, however not significantly, with p value of 0.0551. The differences concerning hemoglobin and BUN levels, and morphine usage were not significant. Conclusions: The data indicated that support for the usage of acetaminophen over ketorolac requires further investigation. Staff at Maui Memorial Medical Center are continuing this research using a double-blind cohort analysis aiming for 500 patients under the same parameters. However, they will measure kidney function at both 24 hours and 48 hours after surgery and utilize ANOVA.
Invasive Neurostimulation: Advantages and Disadvantages for Managing and Monitoring of Epilepsy
Créateur:
Miller, Eleri and La Fontaine, Michael
La description:
Epilepsy is one of the most common brain disorders and is characterized by the recurrence of unprovoked seizures. It affects over 70 million people worldwide, 3.4 million in the U.S. alone, and it is estimated 1 in 26 people in the U.S. will develop the disease at some point in their lifetime (Epilepsy Foundation).
The current need for further intervention in Epilepsy treatment is made clear by the amount of refractory cases to pharmacological management. With 2/3 of epilepsy able to be properly managed with treatment, 1/3 is considered drug resistant (DRE). DRE is associated with higher morbidity and mortality and can have a significant negative impact on a patients quality of life.
Digital EEGs are used for automated seizure event detection. While an event is occurring, intracranial EEG recordings can rapidly detect spikes to more closely pin down the area affected.
Declaração de direitos:
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
La langue:
English
Type:
Poster
Mot-clé:
Epilepsy , Invasive Neurostimulation, seizures, and intracranial EEG recordings
The over accumulation of misfolded protein aggregates is a key contributor in neurodegeneration associated with diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s disease, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In a cell, a class of proteins known as chaperones (heat shock proteins) manages protein folding. The protein Heat Shock Factor 1 (HSF1) is the main regulator of transcriptional activation of these HSPs. It’s partner, HSF2, has been shown to moderate HSF1- faciliated expression of HSPs, acting as a limited participant in transcriptional activation of the heat shock response. The experiment investigated the HSF1-HSF2 interaction by addressing if they indeed interact and if so where this interaction is occurring. The hypothesis was that these two proteins are interacting via their coiled coil domains, located on the leucine zipper 1-3. Streptactin beads were used to pull down HSF1 due to its affinity for the strep tag. Nickel beads have an affinity for the His tag so it was used to pull down HSF2. Protein purification was performed and both streptactin beads and nickel beads were applied consecutively, allowing only HSF1-HSF2 co-expressing heteromultimers to be pulled down. Gels and western blots were then run and it was shown HSF1 and HSF2 co-express and co-purify from E.coli lysate. Using in-fusion cloning, two bacterial strains were then generated. One strain expressed HSF1 lacking the coiled coil domain and the other expressed HSF2 lacking its coiled coil. Using an FPLC, the purification was run again and through immunoblotting and protein gels a significant decrease in HSF1-HSF2 interaction was observed. It was established that HSF1 and HSF2 directly interact and co-purify from E. coli lysate. It was also concluded that the deletion of the coiled coil domains results in a significant decrease in HSF1-HSF2 interaction.
Declaração de direitos:
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
La langue:
English
Type:
poster
Mot-clé:
neurodegeneration, protein Heat Shock Factor 1 (HSF1), and misfolded protein aggregates
Investigating the Novel Redox Active Thioredoxin-like Protein (PbTrxL-1) of the Malaria Parasite Plasmodium
Créateur:
Kanzok, Stefan and Khan, Nooreen
La description:
Redox systems are an important component of the cellular metabolism. We have characterized a novel thioredoxin-like protein (TrxL-1) of the malaria parasite Plasmodium and have previously determined that the trxl-1 gene is specifically expressed during development of rodent malaria model parasite Plasmodium berghei in its mosquito vector. Here I describe the optimization of recombinant TrxL-1 expression and subsequent purification under denaturing conditions. Using biochemical assays, I demonstrate that TrxL-1 is redox active with the Plasmodium thioredoxin system. Recent reports have shown that in Toxoplasma gondii, a related species, the homologous TrxL-1 interacts with SAXO-1 which plays an important role in the regulation of microtubules. The Plasmodium homolog of SAXO-1 and its interaction with TrxL-1 is currently under investigation in our lab.
Investigating the Role of Ca2+ and the Acto-myosin Mechanism on the Human MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cell Line
Créateur:
Scherer, Bri and Bhetwal, Bhupal
La description:
Cancer cells have shown to exhibit enhanced potential to metastasize via increased actin-myosin crossbridge formation, which requires increased Ca2+ influx via the voltage-gated calcium channels. This then leads to the activation of myosin light chain kinase (MLCK). MLCK then phosphorylates myosin light chain and forms the actin-myosin cross bridges Additionally, the PI3-Kinase/Akt pathway is critical for cell survival and division, which works from the activation of Akt through phosphorylation of PI,4,5BP by PI-3 kinase. These two critical cell survival pathways have been extensively studied in the field of breast cancer cell research and my research is primarily focused on investigating the role of VGCC, MLCK and PI-3 kinase on MCF-7 cell viability by using pharmacological inhibitors to assess significant changes in morphology and cell survival via microscopy and MTT assays.
