Biomedical & Health Sciences

Sara Hill

Lyme disease contributes to the mental and physical parts to the body as well as the way that it alters life itself. Many people are in need of medical attention through their physical and mental health and Lyme disease can put a very negative impact onto a person's life. To understand and contribute to the possible realization on how to understand the survivability on ticks and their survival rates in a plethora of states of temperatures and humidities could possibly help understand how to create a safer understanding of the disease and help to stop the constant spread of it. This study will be the conducted with creating a space to understand the survival rates over a period of 2 weeks in a service of temperatures and humidities. With three different types of ticks in a series of vials with a constant of food source as well as being under constant observation from a camera. Allowing the data to be observed through the footage and the understanding of the reason for different survival rates. The series of temperatures will be provided from cooling and heating technology as well as creating a constant change in humanity with different the observation of different water levels. This experiment will be with ticks that do not have the borrelia burgdorferi to allow a safe environment for this experiment to be conducted.

Charlotte Foley

UV light is very helpful in terms of removing germs from many surfaces but it is now used for UV lamps in nail salons and UV tanning beds, which can be harmful possibly resulting in mutations. This experiment will focus on the Growth of Yeast Under, various types of UV light.The goal of this is to see how many cells die or are mutated by UV light. This experiment will be conducted by having yeast put in various areas for 30 hours, as well as under multiple types of UV light. In terms of what would be put in the plates Agar plates would be put and have a changed variable. After the UV light exposure, a spectrophotometer would be used to measure the optical density (OD) of each test set, then a hemocytometer to count yeast cells and test the quality of cell density. Then recording measurements and documenting observations, comparing the growth of the UV-exposed samples with control groups, calculating the growth rates, and looking for differences between them. As well as also looking for if something is rutile and anatase proteins. Finally, repeating the tests to test the credibility of the data. 

James Fernandez

Through various research and many tests, sleep deprivation has been proven to affect memory and the brain as a whole. In terms of memory, it can be seen that sleep deprivation can affect both cognitive and declarative sides (Potkin, 2012).  Those are the memories of how to perform tasks and general memory. It can also lead to a risk for Alzheimer’s Disease during the latter stages of life. Sleeping more or less than 7-8 hours a night consistently is considered an unhealthy amount of sleep.  As previously stated, many tests were done to measure these effects on the brain.  However, most of these tests measure the relative risk of sleep related to Alzheimer’s or short-term memory. Very few of these studies had to do with the academic aspect or effects on daily life due to lack of sleep. The proposed experiment will have to do more with the everyday life aspect of adolescence. The idea for this experiment is to have each student go about life as normal and record how much sleep they get every night. Samples will be taken of handwriting from a few select students multiple times. The written words will be run through “My Script” a handwriting interpretation software.  How many errors the machine makes will be recorded, illustrating the sloppiness of the handwriting.  This will be compared to how much sleep the student got during the previous night. Allowing the correlation between the amount of sleep and neatness of the handwriting (cognitive function) to be clearly seen through simple numbers, giving people an easier understanding of the importance of sleep.

Will Knispel

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) has many causes but one of the most common is repeated head trauma from football. Increasingly, post-mortem analysis of the brains of NFL players has been found to contain high levels of tau protein, the hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases. Even the brains of high school football players who died of other causes have been found to have unusually high levels of tau protein. These tau proteins can cause lasting side effects like memory loss, reduced appetite, change in personality, depression, anxiety, and eventually dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease. There is currently no real way to diagnose CTE. In addition, there is no treatment for it. With thousands of football players in the NFL, tens of thousands in college, and millions in high school it is essential that until a treatment is found, there are ways to reduce the long-term potential of CTE immediately following head trauma. Oxygen and sugar are used as fuel by the brain. By consuming sugar and inhaling extra oxygen immediately after experiencing a hit to the head, the brain may react differently to the hit. CTE will be induced in drosophila using repeated blows from the Chen et Sun model. Immediately after the flies are hit on the head, different groups will receive various amounts of oxygen and sugar. Each group will have their movement, recovery time, and fatality rates measured. It is expected that flies that receive moderate amounts of sugar and oxygen will recover faster and will have positive results in all measurements. It is also expected that the flies that receive large amounts of sugar and oxygen will have negative results in all measurements.

Krisha Manglani

Caffeine is one of the most widely consumed substances, yet its effects on the body, especially on fine motor skills, are relatively unknown. This study investigates how varying doses of caffeine influence fine motor movements, using Drosophila melanogaster as the model organism. The experiment tests the flies' ability to navigate a maze after being administered different levels of caffeine (none, low, moderate, and high), then their movement and navigation skills will be analyzed to determine during which times they are using their fine motor skills. It is expected that fruit flies exposed to a moderate level of caffeine will have more precise movement, essentially enhancing their performance overall. The results are expected to demonstrate a correlation between moderate caffeine intake and improved fine motor skills, providing insights that could be applicable to human kinesthesiology. 

Alivia Steneken

Every time a person menstruates and uses a period product, such as pads or tampons, they expose highly permeable skin to harmful chemicals. Period products can harbor harsh metals and chemicals that can be absorbed through the vaginal tissue. Anything absorbed through the vaginal tissue bipasses the liver and goes into the circulitory system. This can cause health issues such as TSS, PCOS, Diabetes, and more. By dissecting the three main layers of a pad and testing the packaging, harmful chemicals can be found, and subsequent warnings against using certain brands can be put out. Plans can also be made to prevent chemical exposure during pad manufacturing.    (not sure what method I will be using to text for chemicals yet)