Ahlaam Ali
Past Projects
In one of Ahlaam's biotech projects, she worked on a fascinating 7-week yeVo project. During this time, She tracked the behavior and growth patterns of her yeast culture. The objective of this project was to see how her yeast would adapt to caffeine over time. Another project Ahlaam was also involved in was a Kool-Aid chromatography experiment. The goal of this experiment was to separate the pigments in Kool-Aid using the chromatography technique.
Current Projects
At the moment, Ahlaam is focused on building and learning essential lab skills, like making solutions. But she is looking forward to taking on more lab projects in the future. One thing she is planning to work on soon is a continuation of her yeVo project from last year. She also hopes to do more work with DNA extracting and using a Biosafety cabinet.
Personal
Ahlaam is a proud Somali born and raised in Seattle. Both her parents are immigrants from Somalia. Ahlaam has a passion for art. Outside of school, she likes to do both digital and traditional painting.
Looking ahead, Ahlaam hopes to build a career in the medical field. Her dream is to not only succeed in the healthcare industry but to also contribute to the well-being of her home country, Somalia. Through her future medical expertise, she hopes to make a positive impact.
Publications
Experimental evolution of S. cerevisiae for caffeine tolerance alters multidrug resistance and TOR signaling pathways
Renee C. Geck, Naomi G. Moresi, Leah M. Anderson, yEvo Students, Rebecca Brewer, Timothy R. Renz, M. Bryce Taylor, Maitreya J. Dunham
bioRxiv 2024.04.28.591555; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.28.591555Summary:
Yeast can adapt to grow in high concentrations of caffeine. In collaboration with high school students, we grew yeast in increasing concentrations of caffeine to select for ones better adapted to caffeine. We sequenced these yeast to identify mutations that promote growth in caffeine, and showed they are related to pumping caffeine out of the cell, or changing pathways within the cell that are otherwise blocked by caffeine.
Complete Paper is available on the on the bioRxiv preprint server for Biology and is titled “Experimental evolution of S. cerevisiae for caffeine tolerance alters multidrug resistance and TOR signaling pathways”
Experimental evolution of caffeine-tolerant yeast alters multidrug resistance and PP2A-like signaling pathways
We successfully evolved caffeine-tolerant clones in collaboration with high school classrooms using our yEvo protocol. The most commonly observed mutations corroborate previous findings that yeast evolved to have increased caffeine tolerance acquire different mutations than the mutation profile from other selective pressures like azole drugs.
Research completed under the guidance of Dr. Renee C. Geck of the Dunham Lab by Foster High School's Intro to Biotech class as part of the yEvo project 2022-2023 School year.
230720_PNWYC_Geck_poster.pdf