Matt Pimentel

Matt Pimentel is a third year student majoring in Molecular and Cell Developmental Biology. He is a first year MARC student working collaboratively in a Psychoneuroimmunology lab under Dr. Erica Sloan and in a Molecular & Pharmacology lab under his MARC Preceptor Dr. Lily Wu. Prior to MARC, beginning in fall 2008, he worked in Dr. Steve Cole’s lab under Dr. Sloan investigating the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in promoting breast cancer metastasis as a result of chronic stress. He also participated in PEERS & CARE Fellows and is planning on applying to Ph.D programs in molecular biomedical research. During his first summer as a MARC student he participated in the REU program at the University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute.

Jessica Jimenez:

Jessica Jimenez
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Carlos Portera-Cailliau

Jessica is a third year neuroscience major, and began working in the
laboratory of Dr. Carlos Portera-Cailliau in fall of 2008. She is
currently a first year MARC student and is a past participant of the
PEERS, BISEP, CARE Scholars, and Amgen Scholars Program.
The laboratory currently studies the mechanisms by which cortical
circuits are assembled in the brain during development. The project
Jessica is specifically involved in focuses on Cajal-Retzius (CR)
neurons, which are known to play a crucial role in neuronal migration
through the secretion of reelin. In mice, after cortical layers are
properly assembled, CR neurons gradually disappear for reasons that
are still not clear to date. Still, a fraction of these neurons remain
in Layer 1 into adulthood and continue to extend axons. Therefore,
some CR neurons may have other functions in brain development, perhaps
playing a role in the structural maturation of pyramidal neurons and
their integration into functional cortical circuits. To examine the
fate of CR neurons during postnatal mouse development, a transgenic
Ebf2 mouse line that expresses the green fluorescent protein (GFP)
only in CR neurons can be used. Utilizing two-photon imaging and
electrophysiological techniques, Jessica works to begin characterizing
surviving CR neuron morphological and electrophysiological properties.
If surviving CR neurons do in fact have other functions in the
development of the cortical circuit, a comparison between these
characteristics at early and adult time points will provide insight
needed to begin making inferences about those functions.

Paola's summer research experience at UCSF

Hello fellow marchies,

My name is Paola Castro. I'd like start by saying that my summer experience at UCSF was absolutely amazing.
I was part of the SRTP (Summer Research Training Program) at UCSF. I had the pleasure to work in the laboratory of Dr. Cynthia Kenyon who is part of the biophysics and biochemisty department at UCSF. On the day to day basis, I was delighted to work with Dr. Della David. Della was a great mentor whose enthusiasm for science was contagious. Della focuses her studies in protein aggregation. I had the opportunity to work on two projects using the fabulous Caenorhabditis elegans model. One of the them consisted in studying the interaction between proteins with a propensity to aggregate with age and proteins that aggregate because of the presence of a polyglutamine expansion. In the second project, I studied the role of the proteasome in protein aggregation.
At the end of the program I not only had to present a poster but also give a 12 minute talk about the research done throughout the summer. Giving the talk was a really good experience.

Now on the non-science part of things, San Francisco was amazing. The dorm all us kids in the program were staying at, which belonged to USF, was accross the city from the UCSF campus I did my research. For this reason we had to use public transportation accross the city everyday. I am happy to say that am very comfortable getting around the city.
Thanks for reading,

Paola Castro

Saludos from Santa Barbara

Hi all,

I'm really having a great time doing research at UCSB eventhough the RISE program keeps us really busy with talks, seminars and poster presentantions. I'm doing research with Dr. Craig Hawker and my research consists in making polyelectrolytes hydrogels using triblocks copolymes with anionic ends (middle block is neutral) and homopolymers with cationic chains. Polyelectrolytes copolymers are soluble in water, responsive to the environment, thermodynamically stable, and have important applications in drug delivery and underwater adhesives. So far we have not been able to make a hydrogel but we are very close of doing it.
Since I'm here, I've been driving to L.A. pretty much every weekend to see my lovely family. Eventhough it has been nice to have some time for myself, I miss my two boys and husband a lot!!!. They have come to visit me twice and here are some pictures when they came.

Greetings from Stanford!!!

Hi MARCees!

I'm spending my summer at Stanford University as an Amgen Scholar along with Jason and Jennifer from UCLA. It's been an amazing experience! I love the campus and the bay area ! My peers are really interesting and smart, and we are all big science nerds which is awesome:). We have bonded in this short amount of time and have even organized trips to Yosemite, San Francisco and Santa Cruz amongst other fun activities. I am learning a ton everyday especially in lab. My lab focuses on germ stem cells in male fruit flies.
The Drosophila Melanogaster male germ line provides a great model for understanding the process of spermatogenesis. Gonialblasts originate from male germ stem cells that differentiate once they are asymmetrically displaced from the self-renewing origin, known as the niche. In D. Melanogaster, the testes provide a clear depiction of these morphological changes in sperm along their location in reference to the stem cell niche. Strict genetic and post-transcriptional regulation is imperative in this pathway to ensure that spermatogenesis proceeds in a functional manner. A previous publication attested that a mutation in the overgrown hematopoietic organs-31 (oho31) tumor suppressor caused hyperproliferation of D. Melanogaster spermatogonial cyst, an early stem cell stage. However, we believe that their technique generated a mutation in another regulatory gene along this chromosome. We believe that Mediator 20, a subunit of the Mediator complex, causes spermatocyte arrest and hyperproliferation in itself or from interactions with other factors including but not limited to oho31. It is known that the Mediator complex is a member of the RNA polymerase II machinery, an adaptor between transcription factors, and possibly a target of various regulatory proteins. We are interested in elucidating the correlation between Med20 and hyperproliferation of early germ stem cells in the male germ line. Genetic recombination and RNA interference against Med20 will be utilized to compare testis phenotype in Med20 knockdown flies. Furthermore, in situ hybridization with a complementary Med20 probe will be used to localize expression of this gene in the testis. We predict that Med20 mutants will differ from wildtype testis by having a lower amount of mature spermatids and higher degree of germ stem cells in the early stages of spermatogenesis. Our research will provide valuable insight into the regulation mechanism of male germ stem cell proliferation and differentiation.
I'm very fortunate to do research at a different campus because I now have a greater toolbox of molecular techniques and a different perspective of science. Initially, I thought that developmental biology (Stanford lab) would have no similarities with immunology (UCLA lab)- I was wrong. I soon found out that there are many similarities including similar pathways (JAK-STAT) and protein homologs. I am seriously considering coming to Stanford for my Ph.D. There's a great support for grad. students and many professors doing amazing research. I am very exciting to go back to UCLA too and wish everyone a great summer! GO MARC!!!

Best wishes,

Sergio J. Davila

Fruit Fly testis is a great model for understanding stem cells.

Jason (right) and me (left) along with 20 friends from the program at Ethiopian restaurant!

Whitewater rafting at the Merced river!!!

Summer on the Texas Coast

Greeting from Texas ya'll,

This is Matt Pimentel, and this is my first summer with MARC. I have spent the past 7 weeks at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, TX with the REUfest program. UTMSI is such a small, wonderful, supportive community, and I love that I am at an entire institute dedicated to research!


Port Aransas, TX

UTMSI



REU-ers at the Port Aransas Pirate Pub Crawl

I am working with harmful algal bloom (HAB) research professor, Dr. Ed Buskey, and am investigating the potential use of molecular tagging in detecting ingestion of the red tide dinoflaggelate, Karenia brevis, particularly by protozoans. The main protozoan I am using in my research is the heterotrophic dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans.


K. brevis


Noctiluca

Protozoans have been found to play an increasingly important role as grazers of harmful algal blooms (HABs) and are thought to assert top-down control on HAB dynamics. A species-specific molecular tag would enable us to determine HAB-grazer interactions and identify potentially important grazers involved in suppressing and/or controlling HABs, and understand how potential grazers change after ingesting HAB species (i.e. behaviorally, growth, reproduction, etc.). Ultimately we will be able to quantify protozoan importance as a grazer in natural plankton assemblages involved in top-down control of HABs and, in the future, investigate HAB food chain dynamics to concretely establish how red tide toxins travel through the food web.

Outside of lab I have been going to the beach regularly, completed reading the Harry Potter series (so Amazing), become a ping-pong junkie(my only means to physical activity after I sprained my ankle), caught up on many movies (Doubt is a must-see), spent a lot of time with UT students and fellow interns, and delved into the Texan culture from the food (chicken-fried steak, crayfish, hamburger-steak) to roller derby and Austin's infamous music scene. Even this far through this program I feel like I have a much better understanding of the entire research process and I feel equipped to return to UCLA and make the most out my MARC experience. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and I'm looking forward to meeting everyone in the fall and the next two years in MARC!

More Photos!


Microscopy

Plankton rollers

Sea Star on the beach

Beach adventures

Good times!

Dr. Ed Buskey's lab

My roommates

The jetty

Sea Urchin

Bonfire

Cheers,
Matt Pimentel

Summer at Stanford

Hi everyone,

This is Jason Melehani. I am spending my summer at Stanford University studying Toxoplasma gondii in Dr. Boothroyd's lab under the direction of Dr. Anita Koshy. One-third of the world's population is estimated to be seropositive for Toxoplasma infection. Mostly, this parasite lays dormant and the infect person remains asymptomatic. However, in cases which the person has a weak immune system such as in pregnancy or HIV infection, the parasite can cause a major systemic infection largely focused in the brain and other organs ultimately resulting in death. My project is focused on trying to understand how this parasite is able to evade the immune system. Preliminary evidence (work done before I joined) suggests that Toxoplasma "injects" proteins into cells in their local immunological environment which turn off expression of cytokines involved in responding to intracellular parasitism. I am working to show this conclusively through capturing the event and quantifying its occurrence.
Both in and out of lab Stanford has been a great experience. The 31 other program participants (including Sergio and Jennifer from UCLA!) are very cool and we all get along great together. We have taken trips to San Francisco and Los Angeles (for the Amgen Symposium) and will be going to the beach in Santa Cruz in two weeks. I don't have any pictures right now but I should have some from SF soon that I will share. I am taking the MCAT (for applying to MD/PhD programs) on July 30th so once that is done summer will be even better!

Hope everyone is having a great summer!
Jason

Summer at Harvard!

Hello everyone!

I am spending 10 weeks in Boston through the SHURP program at Harvard Medical School, and it’s been amazing so far. Under the tutelage of Carlos Loya, a graduate student, and the rest of the Van Vactor lab, I am studying synapse formation and how it is regulated by microRNAs, focusing specifically on miR-8. We use the Drosophila neuromuscular junction as our model system, and I am using fly genetics, immunostaining and cloning techniques to better characterize how miR-8 regulates the actin cytoskeleton at the synapse. Through meetings lots of people, I have had a lot of fun both in and out of lab. My fellow SHURPers and I have planned various outings since the program began, such as tours of Boston, museum trips, watching fireworks along the river, and time at the beach. I also have had the chance to run into Richard and Ryan, since we are all living in the same building. I am also researching graduate programs and (slowly) studying for the GRE. I’ll be sure to provide future updates!

Hope everyone’s having a great summer,

Michelle

P.S. Here are some pictures of Boston:

A view from the quad. My lab is next to this building.

Part of the Boston skyline. The weather has been like this most of the time I've been here.

The Charles River.

A shirt to help me improve my Bostonian accent. :)

From Hahvahd, with Love- Richard Rodriguez

Hello everyone,

A quick update on my first week... I'm writing a small update on my status so far here at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston proper. Although the weather has been a little less than perfect, my visit has been nothing short of surreal. The week flew by, and it's already Sunday night (here in the East, at least). I have 9 other people in my cohort (STARS is a new program, so, we're guinea pigs, though they got about a thousand applicants xD). Although the hours at work are long, I've been able to enjoy Boston and the company of my cohort. I've even got a chance to meet up with Michelle! They're all very interesting and different people. Most, if not all, of them are pursuing (or already in) an M.D. program. I'm different from them in that I am pursuing an M.D./Ph.D., and it kinda shows, hehe. I am in Vijay Kuchroo's lab, working under Nicole Joller Ph.D. Although a little edgy at times, both of them seem to be excellent mentors insofar. My project is characterizing the regulatory abilities of two proteins in T cell activation. Although the proteins themselves are not novel, the preliminary research indicates that one may be an inhibitor (Vsig9) and the other, a stimulator (CD226). My background in immunology prior to just a couple of weeks ago (Finals week and the 4 days I had off) was quite limited, although I definitely read up as much as I could. When I arrived in lab, though, I realized I was definitely behind, hehe! Anyhoo, to characterize I am performing FACS analysis for the first time, and I will be harvesting organs from EAE (Multiple Sclerosis model mice--it's weird watching a mouse drag itself around, by the way, haha). The first week went all into planning this enormous multi-level project, which my mentor Nicole was sure would take me at least 2 weeks ^^. So, next week, I will be performing the experiments. As for life outside of lab, I have to pinch myself a little to make sure it's not just a dream. The architecture and vibe in Boston are just incredible. Not to mention, my program, STARS, is making this so doable and making it so much more fun. This turned out to be a little longer than I imagined, but I will keep you all updated on my visit here in Boston!

Need to get a good picture of myself, haha; I don't have one with me in it yet, for some odd reason.


~Richard Rodriguez