Kyle Doolan

Villanova University

Chemical Engineering

Faculty Mentor: K. Dane Wittrup

Direct Supervisor: Michael Schmidt

 Deglycosylation of O-mannosylated Antibodies Produced in Yeast

The utilization of yeast as a human antibody production host has shown promise in efforts to develop an economically viable treatment for cancer. One unfortunate drawback of yeast host production is the glycosylation of antibodies. Glycosylation is a mechanism of adding saccharide or sugar groups to a protein. Yeast cells in particular are prone to a specific type of glycosylation called mannosylation, whereby mannose sugar is added to the proteins. This process disrupts the effectiveness of this treatment by decreasing the ability of the antibody to reach the cancer cells and by increasing the rate by which they are removed from the body. The goal of this project is to develop an effective and economical method for the deglycosylation (removal of the sugar groups) of cancer targeting antibodies produced in the Wittrup Lab. In order to achieve this goal, three methods of deglycosylation will be examined including, genetic mutation of the antibody to reduce its susceptibility to being glycosylated, using chemical inhibition to prevent glycosylation, and using enzymes to remove the sugar groups from glycosylated proteins. The deglycosylation of human antibody therapeutics produced from yeast will speed up development of cancer therapies.

Alma Garcia

California Polytechnic State University, SLO

Architecture

Faculty Mentor:

Direct Supervisor:

 Information not submitted

Andre Garcia

University of South Florida

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Faculty Mentor: Markus J. Buehler

Direct Supervisor: Dipanjan Sen

Atomistic and Continuum Modeling of Carbon Nanotube Deformation

Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) have limitless applications and may eventually serve to redefine conventional building materials such as concrete or polymers. Once perfected, this technology will allow not only improved structural performance, but also lead to novel applications in concrete such as integrated photovoltaic cells, heated concrete to melt ice, and impermeable concrete in order to safeguard against corrosion. In order to make the use of CNTs available in building materials, it is first necessary to understand the structural behavior of CNTs by including the atomistic details. To that end, we use the Reactive Force Field (ReaxFF) to model extreme compressive, tensile, shear, and bending deformations of armchair and zigzag carbon nanotubes (CNTs). ReaxFF has been developed based on Density Functional Theory (DFT) quantum mechanical calculations without any empirical parameters (Duin et al., 2001), and thus allows a first principles view into the complex atomistic mechan! isms of CNT’s deformation and fracture. We will focus particularly on the analysis of the stress-strain relationship for the elastic and plastic regime, including a description of the microscopic fracture mechanisms and their link to the overall properties of CNTs.

Osaro Harriott

Morgan State University

Nuclear Engineering

Faculty Mentor: Michael Driscoll

Direct Supervisor: Tom McKrell

Increasing the Effective Thermal Conductivity of a UO2 fuel core system.

Nuclear reactors use UO2 as a source of fuel. However UO2 has a very low thermal conductivity (k). It is desirable to have a high thermal conductivity since it allows for the fuel be cooled faster by the coolant and hence the overall efficiency is increased and cost decreased. Over the years various methods have been developed in order to increase the effective thermal conductivity (keff) of the fuel source, including: Vibration compaction (vipac) method, copper chaff suspension and altering the physical geometry of the fuel etc. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to gather, classify and modify some of the existing theoretical models and use them to design a series of experiments and analyze them using the advanced Heating-7 computer software, and in turn modify some of the existing methods of increasing the effective thermal conductivity of the fuel core system.

Lauren Hartle

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chemical Engineering

Faculty Mentor: Robert Langer

Direct Supervisor: Seung-Woo Cho

Improving blood vessel regeneration by siRNA delivery

Numerous medical conditions can cause ischemia, or a reduction in the blood flow to an area of the body. In the case of a stroke, the resulting death of brain tissue can lead to severe physical and mental impairment. Under ischemic conditions, the cells in blood vessels are the first to sustain damage. This research project seeks to induce the regrowth of blood vessel cells by removing specific genes that promote cell death. Both a commercial and a novel “lipidoid” vector will be used to deliver short interfering RNA (siRNA) to the ischemic cells. Because the novel agent is customized to the particular gene, it is expected that it will more effectively deliver the siRNA and thus better promote blood vessel regeneration. Treatments will be administered in vitro and in vivo to test the effectiveness of the methods.

Carolina Mendez

University of California, Los Angelos

Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

Faculty Mentor: Edward A. Boyle

Direct Supervisor: Seth John

The Improvement of Chemical Precipitation Techniques to Remove Viruses Out of Seawater

Viruses play an important role in marine ecology. Viral lysis accounts for up to 50% of bacterial mortality in oceans, having a direct effect on microbial processes. In order to study marine viruses, it is first necessary to concentrate them from seawater. However, viruses are the smallest organisms, with sizes ranging within .02um-0.1 um. Typical commercial filters have pores sizes within 0.1um-1.0um, which makes them inefficient for removing viruses. In order to precipitate viruses out of sea water, chemical techniques can be used to improve filtration processes. In particular, coagulation can change the charge on virus surfaces and cause them to stick to other particles and flocculate. Subsequently, these larger particles can easily be filtered with attached viruses. During this summer, various chemicals will be tested to investigate the optimal mechanism for chemical precipitation of viruses. Virus quantification and identification will be done by microscopy and cloning ! techniques.

Keith Miller

Mount Union College

Chemistry

Faculty Mentor: Alexander M. Klibanov

Direct Supervisor: Eugene Antipov

 Elucidating the Effect of Structural Changes on the Enantioselectivity of Horseradish Peroxidase

Enzymes have numerous benefits that can be applied in organic chemistry for creation of chemicals with specific structures. They are renewable, environmentally safe, and catalytically efficient. Clarification of the means by which the structure of an enzyme determines its function and vice versa is a significant research topic that has numerous applications in industry and pharmaceutical research. In the Klibanov laboratory, this investigation focuses on slightly modifying the structure of horseradish peroxidase (HRP), an important industrial enzyme, to form several variations of the original HRP structure. The ability of the altered HRP mutants to bind to certain chemicals is measured. These measurements are compared to the reactivity of the original HRP structure with the same chemicals. From the results, explanations can be derived on how the structure of HRP at various locations dictates HRP’s reactivity.

Anudha Mittal

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Chemical Engineering

Faculty Mentor:

Direct Supervisor:

Information not submitted

Phillip Rivera

University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez

Experimental Cosmology

Faculty Mentor: Enectali Figueroa Feliciano

Direct Supervisor: Enectali Figueroa Feliciano

Non-linear behavior in transition edge sensors for X-ray detection

Microcalorimeters that use transition edge sensors are being developed for the use of future X-Ray astrophysics missions. A transition edge sensor (TES) is a superconducting film operated in its super conducting transition. Within the transition, a small temperature change creates a large change in the resistance, making a very sensitive thermometer within a small operating range. When energy depositions severely change the sensor resistance, the pulseheight behaves non-linearly with the energy deposited, which causes the noise to become non-stationary during the pulse. Computer models are being used to develop algorithms to optimize the sensors’ behavior to maximize energy resolution. This research will focus on developing a model of X-Ray microcalorimeter that correctly accounts for all theoretical noise terms and use this model to study the effects of non-linearity on the resolution of the x-ray detector. This model will be used to design new x-ray microcalorimeters tha! t maximize their energy resolution throughout the energy band pass.

Victoria Ruiz

Columbia University

Urban Studies and Planning

Faculty Mentor: Chris Zegras

Direct Supervisor: Frank Hebbert

Baby Boomers and Transportation

We are looking at how aging communities form and how their transportation needs and accessibilities need to change or naturally
change as a result of a change in lifestyle. We are looking at naturally elderly populated environments and master planned communities
for the 55+ age group. We hope this project will be used to make better recommendation for transportation planning and urban design.

Hans Saint-Eloi Cadely

Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department

Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department

Faculty Mentor: Rebecca Saxe

Direct Supervisor: Rebecca Saxe

 The neural bases of action verb representations

Previous studies have shown that the understanding of action verbs activates the left superior temporal sulcus (LSTS) of the human brain. According to one hypothesis, this brain region stores visual motion information that forms part of the meanings of action verbs. Alternatively, the LSTS may process information about human intentions, which are also an important component of action verb meanings. The purpose of this study is to determine if the LSTS represents visual motion information or information about human intentions. To test this hypothesis, we will use fMRI to compare LSTS activity during the comprehension of verbs that contain motion information but not intention information (e.g., digest, bleed) to LSTS activation for verbs that contain intention information but not motion information (e.g., think, predict).

John Uku

Morgan State University

Mechanical Engineering

Faculty Mentor: Asegun Henry

Direct Supervisor: Austin Minnich

 Thermoelectric Demo

I am working on building a demo that will showcase the electric power generating capability of a thermoelectric element. This will be done by directly converting the heat of a flame to a potential difference across which a current will flow.