URSP Charlotte Nigg Researches Mitochondrial Targeted Liposomal Nano-Particle Drug Delivery in IPF

My initial interest in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, an interstitial lung disease, began with my experience with my daughter’s asthma. Maintaining optimal lung function and receiving a diagnosis at a young age was a complicated and difficult venture. When the opportunity arose for me to learn at Dr. Grant’s lab who specialized in IPF, I was very excited and eager to start my journey into lung research and drug delivery. This semester I have been working on the creation and optimization of a liposomal Nano-particle with a specialized cationic tag, which is a molecule carrying a positive charge.  I am testing the efficiency of the this positively charged molecule and its attraction to the hyperpolarized negative mitochondria found within a diseased IPF cell. The goal is to create a more efficient drug delivery system that will improve the patient’s outcomes and side effects.

Each week I perform tasks according to the research timeline my mentor, Professor Sarah Bui, set for me at the beginning of the semester. This has included creating a nanoparticle and encapsulating drugs, introducing the nanoparticles to tissue cell cultures, and analyzing the data from the cell cultures. A considerable part of the project has been spent troubleshooting the Nano-particle drug delivery system. This includes changing the concentration of drugs encapsulated and the method for Nano-particle synthesis.

Participating in the OSCAR semester has been a very challenging and rewarding venture. Understanding how to create and implement an effective experiment and conduct research is an invaluable skill. OSCAR gave me the opportunity to conduct research as an undergraduate which I can then use towards a graduate degree or a job in industry.

URSP Student John Cliburn Investigates Academic Poster Design

At the start of the Spring 2019 semester I began a research project investigating how different design strategies for academic posters affects what people learn from them. The idea for the project came about after a graduate student in the Health Behaviors research lab shared her research poster at one of our lab meetings. The poster was strikingly colorful and instead of relying on large paragraphs she opted for several eye-catching infographics. It sparked a debate within the lab about whether traditionally designed posters would be as effective at communicating information. Since then, I’ve been working on an experiment designed to assess how people view and learn from academic posters.

In the months since the project began, I’ve learned how to write a research proposal for an Institutional Review Board. I also learned how to properly calibrate and use an eye-tracking headset as well as how to work with the data in R. Conducting my own experiment through OSCAR’s Undergraduate Research Scholars Program has been an exciting opportunity that has given me the chance to learn about applied research. The skills that I’ve developed during the course of this project will help me further my goal of conducting psychological research professionally.

In my experience, every week since I started my research has been different. Early on there was a significant amount of planning and writing that went into developing a research proposal. Creating the materials and procedures for my experiment involved many afternoons spent working in a psychology department lab space. Over the course of the semester I’ve learned how rewarding it can be to conduct my own research especially when given the freedom to try new things and approach problems creatively.