Jwan Magsoosi

Past Projects

Jwan was an eager student in Intro to Biotech, who was curious about DNA and human research. Despite joining the class 3 weeks late, Jwan was able to catch up and become Pipet and OSHA certified like the rest of her peers. Later on, she was an important contender in the Y EVO lab! Her favorite lesson last year was humans in research, because she is eager to work on research projects involving humans in the future. Outside of Biotech, Jwan conducted a state-wide survey on the built environment, and plans to publish her results!

Current Projects

This year, Jwan is now a part of Advanced Biotech, and is working on many labs independently with her labpartner. Ever since her teacher, Mr.Renz, mentioned getting promoted to new positions, she’s been trying to work harder to prove herself. So far, she has completed the kool aid lab, where she learned how to create propanal and use chromatography columns. She wants to work on sequencing the maggots DNA, and learning to use the PCR machine! Jwan is also interested in forensic science. She dreams to analyze blood cells, and solve crimes!

Personal

Jwan is always painfully curious. She thinks it’s one of her best qualities. When she left Iraq at the age of five, she was determined to learn everything and anything about the world, and hope for a better future. That’s probably why she’s pursuing Biotech. In her free time, she strums her guitar, wishing she can improve. Art is also one of her hobbies, and she finds it funny how much her artistic abilities clash with her scientific interests. In the future, Jwan wants to make a change in the world, no matter how insignificant it may seem. And perhaps she could do that with the power of Biotech! After all, anything is possible: especially when you're painfully curious.

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

G3, 2024, 14(9), jkae148; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.28.591555

Summary:

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 G3 - Genes, Genomes, Genetics website and is titled “Experimental evolution of S. cerevisiae for caffeine tolerance alters multidrug resistance and TOR signaling pathways”

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/10.1101/2024.04.28.591555

Summary:

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