May 5th, Breakout Room 1
Janeth Mora-Martinez ‘21, Elora Greiner ‘21, Sara Gutierrez ‘23 and Adiana Czerniak ‘24
Glow with the Flow: Visualizing bioelectric patterns and characterizing their relationship with connexins and morphogen signaling during axis determination in zebrafish. Bioelectrics is an emerging topic that investigates whether patterns of cellular membrane potential differ across tissues and whole organisms and could such distinctions regulate developmental processes. Mounting evidence suggests that bioelectric signaling could play important roles during regeneration. However, less attention has been paid to its involvement during early embryonic development, especially in vertebrates. Thus, our lab has begun to visualize and manipulate bioelectric patterns in developing zebrafish and determine their roles during formation of axial tissues during early embryogenesis. Cellular differentiation during axis determination in the early vertebrate embryo, is known to be induced by gradients of secreted morphogens such as, members of the Bone Morphogenic Protein, Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF), and Nodal families. Preliminary studies from our lab using voltage sensitive dyes and transiently expressed genetically encoded voltage indicating proteins do suggest that distinct bioelectric patterns likely exist prior to the determination of cell fates along presumptive dorsal- ventral regions of the zebrafish embryo. To dissect whether bioelectrics may determine or mediate inductive effects of morphogens, we set out to manipulate tissue membrane potentials mediated by small molecules and ions that could flow across cells via Connexin gap junctions. Moreover, to monitor changes in bioelectric patterns over time, we are currently generating stable transgenic lines expressing different genetically-encoded voltage indicators. Summarizing our pharmacological and genetic strategies to interrogate specific modes of bioelectric signaling, we highlight an interesting overlap between phenotypes induced by manipulation of connexins and those regulated by FGF signaling during axis determination in zebrafish embryos. A poster deriving from Honors Theses in BIO and NSC, Special Studies, SURF, STRIDE, Beckman Scholars Program, McKinley Pre-Honors Fellowship, with Dr. Michael Barresi, Professor of Biological Sciences and Dr. Narendra Pathak, Laboratory Instructor in Neuroscience.
Julia Padro ’24, Gabby Borromeo ’23 and Emily Blackwell ’22
Use of museum specimens for investigations in ecology, taxonomy, and reproductive biology. Ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and other life scientists are often interested in how species vary across taxonomy, space and time. Museum specimens are a valuable and often untapped resource in investigating such questions. This poster demonstrates how museum specimens can be used to answer questions of ecology, taxonomy, and reproductive biology. A poster deriving from STRIDE and Special Studies programs, with Virginia Hayssen, Mary Maples Dunn Professor of Biological Sciences.
Georgia Krikorian 22′ and Dahlia Rodriguez 21′ AC
Characterizing the roles of Meteorin and Meteorin-like in CNS development in Danio rerio. The developing vertebrate central nervous system (CNS) generates its diverse repertoire of neurons and glia from few types of neural progenitors. Radial glia are a prominent type of neuroglial progenitor cells in the CNS and their differentiation is likely to be regulated by a secreted protein Meteorin. While investigating the role of meteorin(metrn) gene in zebrafish, we determined that both metrn and its paralog metrnl1 are expressed within the developing neural tube in temporally overlapping but spatially discrete patterns. Our gain of expression studies based on mRNA injections of both metrn and metrnl, individually and in combination suggest that these genes act synergistically and yield phenotypes such as cyclopia and mid-hindbrain boundary mispatterning resembling defects associated with genes of signaling morphogens such as shh and nodal. In contrast, morpholino induced knockdown of metrn alone induced severe reduction in brain size but not cyclopia. Thus, we hypothesize that: 1) metrn and metrnl may either directly function as morphogens or indirectly converge onto other morphogen signaling pathways, and 2) expression levels of both metrn and metrnl genes must be tightly regulated during normal CNS development. A CRISPR insertion mutant previously generated in our lab failed to show phenotype despite expressing the aberrant RNA as its predicted translation indicates an alternate initiation downstream of the mutation could produce a polypeptide that only lacks the signal sequence. We are thus creating promoterless knockouts to altogether abrogate expression of both metrn and metrnl and describe the characterization of promoter elements targeted in this analysis. A poster derived from Special Studies and STRIDE program with Dr. Michael Barresi, Professor of Biological Sciences and Dr. Narendra Pathak, Laboratory Instructor in Neuroscience.
Sara Schritter ‘24, Olivia Thornton ‘24, Cookie Duncan ‘24, Abby Perce ‘24, Zoe Baker ‘23 and Emily Blackwell ‘22
Underrepresentation of women in mammalogy at the submission, publication, and associate editor level. The purpose of this project was to analyze the extent of gender inequality in the Journal of Mammalogy. This study examined gender representation in editions of the Journal of Mammalogy spanning from 1981 to 2020 by investigating the genders of the individuals on the editorial board. For the years 2015 to 2020, we investigated representation in who submitted articles and whose writing was published. A poster derived from the STRIDE, AEMES, SURF and special studies programs with Virginia Hayssen, Mary Maples Dunn Professor of Biological Sciences.
Quinton Celuzza ‘21, Giovanna Sabini-Leite ‘21, Shevaughn Holness ‘23
Light and Nutrient Stress Elicit Different Responses in Clonal Anemone Lines. Coral reefs are hotspots for oceanic biodiversity, industry, and protection. These ecosystems rely on a complex symbiosis between the coral and photosynthetic algae that allows both organisms to thrive by working together as one. Unfortunately, climate change threatens to destabilize this symbiosis and the survival of coral reefs as a whole. Climate change involves many stressors, such as warming temperatures, ocean acidification, and other changes in water quality. The harmful effects of many individual challenges have been studied but the potential for interactive effects between multiple concurrent stressors are largely unknown. Exploring the conditions under which corals survive, die, and adapt enhances our understanding of the biology and the mechanisms driving stress tolerance and adaptation. However, effective restoration is limited by gaps in our understanding of the various ways climate change affects reef-building corals and coral symbiosis. Here we use the sea anemone Exaiptasia pallida as a study system to investigate the responses to individual and combined nutrient and light stress challenges in these anemones and their algal endosymbionts. We investigated differences in mortality across five anemone clonal lines that would indicate genetic variance in stress tolerance upon which natural selection could act. We compared responses across symbiotic states to determine how host–symbiont interactions may impact stress tolerances. A poster derived from AEMES and honors research work with Rachel Wright, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
May 5th, Breakout Room 2
Kathleen Hablutzel ‘23, Ali Eshghi ‘21, Ester Zhao ‘21, Isabella Brody-Calixto ‘21, Yanning Tan ‘23, Yesugen Baatartogtokh ‘23
Restructuring Model Analysis Features to Support Multiple Analysis Configurations in BloomingLeaf. BloomingLeaf is a web-based tool for modeling and analyzing goal models, which assists stakeholders in decision-making processes involving multiple actors with potentially evolving or conflicting intentions. BloomingLeaf allows users to analyze models multiple times using a variety of different configurations; however, prior versions did not include the ability to store analysis configurations or associate analysis results with those configurations. Our team led a major refactor of the existing code base to allow users to create and store multiple analysis configurations and associated results. These new model management features allow users to return to previous configurations, run analysis multiple times for a specific configuration, and save configurations and their results for distribution or future use. We expect these features to improve the ability of users to compare different analysis results and configurations, as well as collaborate on model analysis with other users. In turn, by improving the usability of BloomingLeaf, users can make more informed decisions from the analysis of their models. A poster deriving from Special Studies and STRIDE with Dr. Alicia M. Grubb, Assistant Professor of Computer Science.
Winnie Zong ’23, Annie Portoghese ’24 and Sophie Gutierrez ’24
Syriac Handwriting Recognition. The previous project was done during the 2020 SURF program and focused on modifying and training Harald Scheidl’s HTR model [2] for line based Syriac texts. This project shifts its focus to Jonathan Chung and Thomas Delteil’s HTR model [1], aiming to achieve more accurate recognition. This project’s training was done in four steps: extract images and transcripts, load data with the necessary information, training, and evaluation. Methods like image augmentation are used to enlarge the dataset. The overall result is promising. However, there are issues with the proxies system, and improvements can be made in other parts of the framework as well. Thus, more research is needed to eliminate current problems and further improve the result. A poster derived from academic research with Nicholas Howe, Professor of Computer Science
Kate Spencer ‘22 and Megan Varnum ‘23
We See the True Colors Sliding Through: Evaluation Visualization with Color. In this poster we present our work over the past year on Evaluation Visualization Overlay (EVO), an extension to the goal modeling tool BloomingLeaf. EVO uses colors to convey meaningful information about the state of the goal model. Goal modeling allows stakeholders to model and visualize their domain and analyze trade-offs. Recent work extends goal modeling and analysis to allow for project scenarios with changing evaluations. This analysis has potential for problem solving, but when working with large models it is challenging to view trends and make decisions because of the large volume of data and technical nature of analysis results. With EVO we use color to display this information in several ways, aiding users in their understanding, and enabling more informed decision making. A poster derived from volunteer research, SURF, STRIDE and Special Studies with Dr. Alicia M. Grubb, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Eunice Kim ‘22, Chistina Sherpa ‘23, Claire Bunn ‘21, Dianne Caravela 22 and Natalia Iannucci ‘22
Analysis of Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts Data. We will be presenting our research conducted through the DSC WAV program so far this school year. Our team worked with Professor Randi Garcia and the Abortion Rights Fund of Western Mass to analyze changes in their clients over the past 14 years and during the pandemic to learn how they can better serve said clients. A poster deriving from DSC WAV internship under supervision of Randi Garcia, Assistant Professor of Psychology and of Statistical & Data Sciences and Ben Baumer, Associate Professor of Statistical & Data Sciences.
Sakina Ali ’21
Constructing Assembly Scaffolds for Viral Data in the Protein Data Bank. Understanding the protein capsid structure of a virus through rigidity and flexibility analyses through computational methods, such as those provided by KINARI-Web, can deliver crucial insight into the function of viruses. However, due to the immensely large size of many viral capsids of interest, currently, there is no time and space-efficient method to analyze full capsid assemblies. Thus, it is of interest to use geometric principles of viral capsids, which are made of repetitive asymmetric units, to eliminate unnecessary computation, and pre-process virus files for visual examination and analysis. For my thesis, I have created an assembly scaffold that takes a viral asymmetric unit from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) and applies algorithms rooted in geometric principles to build a connectivity graph for a viral assembly in two steps. First, using convex hulls and breadth first search algorithms, I created a graph that captures how asymmetric units are connected once assembled. Then, by checking for where chains of asymmetric units overlap, I annotated this connectivity graph to complete the scaffold. By applying the pipeline to several viral examples, I demonstrated that these tools provide novel insights into this kind of computational data. Through building a scaffold, future extensions of my pipeline will reconstruct connections between capsomeres of asymmetric units and ultimately, prepare large viral data for rigidity and flexibility analysis. A poster derived from honors research with Ileana Streinu, Charles N. Clark Professor of Computer Science.