| Student: | Rajabi, Laila |
| Mentor: | Maldonado, Rosa |
| Current Status: | Senior |
| Presentations: | Oxidative Stress as plumbagin’s mechanism of action against Mycobacterium smegmatis. |
| Research: | Peptide based vaccine against Trypanosoma cruzi: We will be combining several peptides from Trypanosoma cruzi that release a CD4 and CD8 immune response. Combination of these peptides will hopefully lead to the development of a vaccine against T. cruzi. We are also exploring DNA vaccines against T. cruzi. |
| Student: | Reyna, Juan |
| Mentor: | Garza, K.M |
| Current Status: | Senior |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | The affect of novel quinone compounds on primary T cells This project was initiated as collaboration with Dr. Luis Martinez in the Dept. of Chemistry. He has developed a novel method by which to synthesize structurally diverse naphthoquinones on solid support. We screened several of his compounds on murine fibroblasts and murine primary T cells to determine if any of the compounds possessed cytotoxic activity (had the ability to induce apoptosis, i.e., cellular death). One in particular was of interest, because when used at low doses, it had the ability to inhibit T cell activation but did not kill the cells. Data has demonstrated that the ability of the compound (2,3-diphenyl-1,4-naphthoquinone) is quite unique to the structure of this compound; compounds with similar structure do not possess the same activity. Further studies are being conducted as to how the compound is being bioconverted and what it is being converted to. Juan Reyna (MARC Fellow) and Adrian Avila (BRIDGES Fellow) are currently assessing the potential mechanism of action. The work is being conducted with primary T cells (cells directly from the animal) and with autoreactive T cells (T cells from our autoimmune disease model) to identify if the compound has chemotherapeutic potential. |
| Student: | Jimenez, Araceli |
| Mentor: | Noveron, Juan |
| Current Status: | Unknown |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | Research Project: Synthesis of DNA-carrying Vesicles: The project’s purpose is to effectively synthesize amphiphatic molecules that bind DNA and self-assemble into liposomes to provide transport of DNA across the cells’ plasma membrane. The goal is to tranfect cells so that the cells’ internal machinery may read the genes on the exogenous DNA introduced into the cell and allow for the synthesis of proteins encoded by that particular DNA so as to produce antigens the cell can recognize and produce antibodies against (for example specific cells such as macrophages can be transfected with such liposomes). Currently HeLa cells are being utilized derived from a human kidney. The complexes we are currently working on are transition metal based where the central ion is a transition metal like Cu +2 and the ligands include triacylononane with an eighteen carbon tail attached on one side and an amino acid on the other. |
| Student: | Carrasco, Yazmin |
| Mentor: | Pannell, Keith |
| Current Status: | Unknown |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | Biocidal effects of organotin compounds against escherichia coli, staphylococcus auerus and photobacterium phosphorium. Organotin compounds are tested against escherichia coli, staphylococcus aureus and p.phosphoreum for their biocidal activity by the MIC (MInimal inhibitory concentration) procedure, which identifies the lowest concentration that inhibits bacterial growth. |
| Student: | Reza, Layra |
| Mentor: | Manciu, Felicia |
| Current Status: | Senior |
| Presentations: | Poster Presentation: 2005 SACNAS meeting "MEMS Deformable Mirror For Wavefront control in Extreme Adaptive Optics” Oral Research Presentation: Amer. Physical Society annual Mtg. March 2006 "Spectroscopy studies of Fe3 O4 and the Verwey Transition" Poster Presentation: “Spectroscopy studies of Azul Maya” , October 2006 Amer. Physical Soc. Texas Section |
| Research: | Research Project: FT-Infrared and FT-Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of the Maya Blue Pigment: The first part of the project is to understand the operating principle of a Fourier Transform Infrared and Raman Spectrometer. Then, use these techniques to characterize the Maya Blue pigment which is a novel organic/inorganic surface compound. The Maya Blue pigment has an extraordinary property, it shows a remarkable stability and the purpose of this project is to investigate the interactions between the organic and inorganic components of the pigment to determine the cause for this property and several others. |
| Student: | Antony Adair |
| Mentor: | Botez, Christian |
| Current Status: | Unknown |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | Zn-doping effect on the energy barrier to magnetization reversal in superparamagnetic nickel ferrite nanoparticles |
| Student: | Castro, Nathan |
| Mentor: | Cooke Malcolm |
| Current Status: | Junior |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | A novel layered manufacture of biocompatible, bioactive porous PPF scaffolds fabricated by stereolithography. |
| Student: | Delgado, Christine |
| Mentor: | Garza, K.M |
| Current Status: | Unknown |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | Research Topic: Assessing virulenc factors of mycobacterium avium. Summer Research Exper./ at UC Berkeley, Mentor Dr. David Drubin. |
| Student: | Mata, Miguel |
| Mentor: | Aguilera, Renato |
| Current Status: | Unknown |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | "Characterization and Cloning of Snake DNase II Activity/Gene"preliminary assays have shown that the venom of the Mojave rattlesnakes, contains nuclease activity at a low pH, similar to that of the known DNase II degrading activity. My task is to demostrate whether or not this venom has the same characteristics of DNase II nuclease and to characterize this enzyme that performs such enzematic (degrading) activity. |
| Student: | Torres, Rafael |
| Mentor: | Almeida, Igor |
| Current Status: | Junior |
| Presentations: | American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Annual Meeting. April 2006. RG Branch of the American Society for Microbiology. Feb. 2006 ( Best undergraduate presentation). UTEP Research Expo sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans. May 2006. (Best undergraduate poster). etc |
| Research: | In sillico and mass spectrometry approaches for the characterisation of mucin-type O-glycosylation residues in eukaryotic glycoproteins. |
| Student: | Ramirez, Abril |
| Mentor: | Roychowdhury, Sukla |
| Current Status: | Junior |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | Gold Nanoparticles Coated with Redox-active Transition Metals to Discover New Functional DNA-condensates The project will consist of the synthesis and characterization of metal-binding ligands with a motif that allow them to bind to the surface of anisotropic gold nanoparticles (20 nm width and 300 nm length, see picture on the left). The gold structures will be prepared according to Nikhil R. Jana et al. Langmuir 2002, 18, 922, and the ligand will be design with DNA-binding groups. These materials will have the ability to bind DNA strands and the gold core will allow us to control their overall size. We will investigate DNA condensations using genes of varying size, and will explore their potential for gene transfection function. |
| Student: | Guardado, Tania |
| Mentor: | Pannell, Keith |
| Current Status: | Unknown |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | None |
| Student: | Ramos, Enrique |
| Mentor: | Maldonado, Rosa |
| Current Status: | Unknown |
| Presentations: | poster presentation: Oct. 2006 SACNAS conf., title: "Chemotherapeutic Studies of 2,3-Diphenyl-1,4-naphthoquinone against Trypanosoma cruzi". |
| Research: | Chemotherapeutic agents against Trypanosoma cruzi Trypanosoma cruzi is the pathological agent for Chagas disease an endemic parasitosis in Latin America that affects 16-18 million individuals. There is no completely effective treatment for Chagas disease. My research project involves testing novel chemotherapeutic compounds against Chagas disease following in vitro studies, infectivity experiments and in vivo murine models. |
| Student: | Ramos, Jaime |
| Mentor: | Velezquez, Leticia & Argaez, Miguel |
| Current Status: | Unknown |
| Presentations: | None |
| Research: | Large Scale PDE-Constrained Optimization Problems: One of the outstanding challenges of computational science and engineering is largescale parameter estimation of systems governed by partial differential equations (PDEs). |