Major: Neuroscience Research Department: Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases Graduation Date:May 2020
Abstract: The aggregation of tau protein into amyloid filaments is the pathological hallmark of neurodegenerative tauopathies. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common tauopathy, but tau aggregates are present in more than twenty-five other neurodegenerative disorders. Currently, the diagnosis of tauopathy can only be done postmortem upon antibody staining of brain tissue and assessment by a neuropathologist. However, this task is complicated by a lack of adequate tools to distinguish between tauopathies. The Diamond lab has recently reported that distinct tauopathies are associated with different conformations of tau aggregates, termed strains. Ongoing work in the lab has leveraged these conformational differences to develop a cell-based assay that can reliably distinguish synthetic tau strains. This work describes advances made to the cell-based system in order adapt its use to discriminate strains derived from human tissue. Moreover, we have designed a multiplexing strategy that will allow for parallel sample processing and increase throughput. Email: [email protected]
What does research mean to you? Research is one place where creativity collides really well with science. It is exciting and challenging and it allows you to develop a process of thinking that is not taught in undergraduate classes. More than anything research allows you to learn for the sake of learning and is a place you can explore any questions that you have about a subject. Tell us about your journey. I entered college as a Biomedical Engineering major with hopes to get into research. Turns out, I really didn’t like the engineering part of biomedical engineering and I probably should have looked more into the UTD major course work before majoring in it. By this point I had decided that I would switch into Neuroscience, as my best friend had constantly been relaying all the cool things she was learning about in her classes to me. As I stayed in neuroscience, I slowly started seeing how interesting medicine was as a potential career and started pivoting my focus away from research. I eventually got into TEMRAP, Texas Emergency Medical Research Associate Program, where I would go to Parkland Hospital and enroll patients in the emergency department research studies. I went even further and got my EMT license so I could get some more hands on medical experience. By the time I got into my senior year, I had a few minor research experiences in undergraduate institutions, and wanted to see how research differentiated in a major medical /research institution like UT Southwestern. The Green Fellows program was perfect to test this out.
How did the pandemic affect me? Aside from pushing the timeline back, the pandemic did not interfere with my project that much. Prior to the lock-down I was primarily working on computational work which was all used for the Green Fellowship poster. I am now back in lab and everything for the most part is back to normal aside from limited lab capacity, and the obvious mandatory masks.
Where am I now? I am currently taking a couple of gap years and researching in the same lab from the Green Fellows program, Marc Diamond’s lab. My plan as of now is to apply to medical school this upcoming cycle and hopefully matriculate August 2023.
Advice for Future Green Fellows
Apply! Applying for the program was pretty difficult for me, because I didn’t think I had the right amount of experience to be accepted, but I ended up applying and I got in!
Obviously look and apply for labs that are investigating something of interest to you. The Green Fellows Program is a rigorous one and requires a lot of time and patience especially when you are having to learn things from scratch. If you join a lab that you aren’t interested in then it is going to be difficult to motivate yourself to keep up with the research, so take your time to look into labs and read articles that the lab have published to see if their work is for you. Also reach out to previous Green Fellows, to learn about their respective lab experiences, because they are an inside look into the lab environment.
Be patient at the beginning of the program. There always seems to be so much going on in lab, and it can definitely be overwhelming trying to learn the basic lab techniques used in your lab, understand the principles of your project, and also follow other lab members research projects at the same time. It’s a long learning process, and it takes time to get into the flow of things. Overall, just enjoy the program and all it has to offer. You will get to meet some amazing people and learn some really cool things! If you have any other questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to me!