Undergraduate Research

Honors Theses

2009

Timothy Hanley – "Drug Resistance in a Haploid Vertebrate Cell Line"

Dushani Palliyaguru – "Insulin Receptor Substrate 2 (IRS-2) Regulates Apelin Gene Expression in Mammary Tumor Cell Lines"

2008

Shymal Asher – "Is N Terminal Dimerization of HSP90 Necessary for Function?"

Saima Chaudhry – "Elucidation of the Folding and Aggregation of the Amyloid ?-Protein by Diglycine Scanning Mutagenesis"

Daniel Hidalgo – "Characterization of a new PLC-gamma Mutation in Drosophila melanogaster"

Lincoln Muhoro – "Structural Basis of Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB): Insights from Biophysical Studies of Keratin Intermediate Filament (KIF) Peptides"

2007

Dan Adams – "Dictyostelium discoideum CenB: A Mutational Analysis"

Darryl Aucoin – "On the Folding of Islet Amyloid Polypeptide (IAPP) in Water"

Sara McNiff – "Site Directed Mutagenesis, Expression, and Characterization of a K154R Mutant of Lysyl Oxidase"

Academic Spree Day Presentations

2009

Lisa Crislip '09 – "Chimeric primase-helicases in mitochondrial DNA replication" (in collaboration with Jamie Towle, graduate student; sponsor:  Professor Donald Crampton)

Mary Abdalla '09 and Yennhi Nguyen '09 –"Discovery of Bacteriophage specific for Streptococcus mutans" (sponsor:  Professor Donald Crampton)

Chatura Jayakody '10 – "Insight into protein purification" (sponsor:  Professor David Thurlow)

Molly Brennan '09 – "Effects of neonatal tactile stimulation on social behavior" (sponsors:  Professor David Thurlow, Clark U. and Dr. Jun Xu, Tufts Veterinary School of Medicine)

2008

Laura Andersh '08 – "Characterizing the structure/function of Glut1 using Factor Xa Proteolysis" (in collaboration with Julie De Zutter, graduate student; sponsors:  Professor David Thurlow, Clark U. and Anthony Carruthers, UMass Medical School)

Laura Andersh '08 – "Cloning, expression, and purification of LMA glycoprotein" (sponsor:  Professor David Thurlow)

Annette Nelkenbaum '09 – "Metastasis in liver cancer" (sponsors:  Professor David Thurlow, Clark U. and Brian Lewis, UMass Medical School)

Dushani Palliyaguru '09 – "Role of insulin receptor protein-2 (IRS-2) in regulation of apelin in breast cancer metastasis"  (sponsors:  Professor David Thurlow, Clark U. and Leslie Shaw, UMass Medical School)

Shymal Asher '08 – "Is N-terminal dimerization of Hsp90 necessary for its function?" (sponsors: Profesor Daivd Thurlow, Clark U. and Dan Bolon, UMass Medical School)

Lincoln Muhoro '08 – "Oligosaccharide assay precision on mAb1 and evaluation of CEM microwave technology" (sponsors: Professor David Thurlow, Clark U. and David Ouellette, Abbott Bioresearch Center)

2007

Dan Adams '07 – "Mutational analysis of Dictyostelium centrin B" (in collaboration with Sebastian Mana-Capelli, graduate student; sponsor:  Professor Denis Larochelle)

Fall Fest Presentations

2008

Dmitry Merzon '09 – "Antibodies as tools to study Fanconi Anemia" (sponsors:  Professor David Thurlow, Clark U. and Alan D’Andrea, Dana Farber Cancer Institute)

Chatura Jayakody '10 – "Purification of protein of interest" (sponsors:  Professor David Thurlow, Clark U. and Scott Gridley, BlueSky Biotech)

Annette Nelkenbaum '09 – "The effects of tumor suppressor gene p16INK4a on transformation phenotypes in HCC"  (sponsors:  Professor David Thurlow, Clark U. and Brian Lewis, UMass)