STIP Student Alexis Orbeta Explores Ecology and Forensic Entomology through Microscopic Examination

Having just completed my first year of college, I was incredibly excited in starting my journey of research and learning new things beyond the typical classroom. Once I heard about the summer team impact projects, I knew I would love it. I immediately applied for the Ecology meets Forensic Entomology project because of my love for forensics.

I have learned many things in the duration of this project including classification of flies and how to conduct proper field work. The majority of our work includes examining flies under a microscope and identifying them to either the taxon family or to genus and species. I often think back to when I was younger and dreamed of becoming a scientist. I would cheer whenever my teacher would divulge away from the typical lecture style and allowed us to have a more physical approach. I loved looking at the different objects under the microscope or dissecting organisms to learn more about how they function. Now, I get so excited knowing that I am living my dream of learning new ideas. I gaze into my microscope knowing that it was my favorite instrument. Now, I have many more instruments to use and get paid to do it!

This research project will no doubt help me in the future. It gives me experience to put under my belt which is always a necessity in our competitive world. It also allows me to see things from a different perspective. Many believe science to be an incredibly straight forward thing. They think that a scientist will think of a question, create an experiment, then immediately find the answer. However, this is simply not true. Science is a winding road of possibilities. It twists and turns and pushes you into unexpected territory. Research allows us to explore this new territory without fear. It gives us a chance to ask questions and to ponder not only the “Eureka’s!” but also the “Huh, that’s weird...”. It is this reason why I am grateful for this project and for the opportunity to be a part of something great.

STIP Student Frederick Olson becomes Involved in American Sign Language Translation Research

Hello, my name is Frederick Olson and I am a rising senior with a major in Information Technology. The project that I am working on relates to trying to research and develop a system that can translate American Sign Language (ASL for short) into a language understandable to the person receiving it. Currently, the focus is having a system understand ASL and be able to translate it into English. What got me interested with this project was the fact that it was a project around ASL. Most of my immediate family are either deaf or hard of hearing- they use ASL as their primary form of communication. Due to my parents being deaf, I also learned ASL as a child and it was my first language. However, I was born able to hear so I usually helped them by translating for them so that communication would be faster, and they would not have to waste their time writing back and forth on paper. I heard about an opportunity to do research with ASL to try and create a system that could understand ASL and translate it in real-time, so those who communicate using ASL could have instant communication with anyone. This aspect was the thing that pulled me in as I would love to have my parents, and many, others be able to communicate with the rest of the world without as many struggles.

The goal for me in this project was to see if I would want to continue doing something like this, or if my passion/interests lies elsewhere. As for what I did, my part on the project was to collect data. For example, I would be recording myself weekly doing certain signs so that those developing the system would be able to have data to train and test on. One thing I learned is that, even if it seems that all you are doing is one thing that seems simple to you, it still can mean so much to the rest of the bigger picture being doing data collection seems simple, but without it the developers are unable to even run and test the system in the first place.

STIP Student Charlotte Nigg Works on the Conjugation of Cationic Peptides to Liposomes in the Targeted Delivery of Anti-Fibrotic Therapeutics to Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Fibroblasts

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is an interstitial lung disease that affects the interstitium of the lung. This area becomes stiff through the increased collagen production of fibroblasts excreting an excessive amount of the protein, collagen 1A1. Throughout the summer semester I have created cell lines from patients who donated their lung tissue. The cell lines consist of fibroblasts from normal lung tissue and IPF lung tissue. This requires regular care and monitoring of the cells. While the cell lines are growing to a confluency that can be used to treat with the nano particles, I work on optimizing and creating the nano particles. The nano particles are made from lipids and encapsulate the anti-fibrotic drug Nintedanib. This drug is a current FDA approved market drug that is only one of two current drugs used to treat IPF. 

The goal is to create an improved delivery system of drug encapsulated liposomes to the hyperpolarized negative mitochondria in IPF cells. This is based on the findings that both IPF and cancer have hyperpolarized negative membrane potential, which is being used as a beacon for drugs to be trafficked to the desired sites. 

Throughout the summer I have made many batches of nanoparticles and have been testing their efficiencies in varies capacities. This includes the use of PCR, Western Blot, LC-MS, and dynamic light scattering. The dynamic light scattering showed the creation of a good liposome within the size range I was looking for. I plan on continuing my research into the fall and ultimately using the techniques I’ve learned as an undergrad in a graduate program or medical school.

STIP Student Han Nguyen Researches Microplastics in the Tidal Freshwater Potomac River

My name is Han Nguyen and I am a rising junior majoring in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry. This is my first summer participating in the OSCAR Summer Team Impact Project. Prior to participating in this program, I had never conducted a scientific study that is laboratory based or really gotten into the field to collect samples. Hence, what I have been doing in the past two months has been very fascinating because of the luring attraction of not knowing what I am doing. Under the supervision of both Dr. Gregory Foster and Dr. Dann Sklarew, I am currently working with another OSCAR student and a high school volunteer on the micro plastics team to determine the presence and abundance of micro plastics in the aquatic ecosystems of the tidal freshwater Potomac River. I specifically conduct a scientific research to determine the concentrations of micro plastics within the environment (i.e., surface water, sediment, stream) and learn more about the relationship between them and population density .We know that plastic or micro plastics contaminating the oceans is one of the world’s growing concerns, but there are things about micro plastics that remain understudied. This includes fate, behavior, and effects of micro plastics in freshwater. This is why when OSCAR’s micro plastics research theme arose, I could not wait to join this amazing team.

So far this summer my team and I have been doing a lot of field work and processing our collected samples for micro plastics quantification. We were very excited to have access to the new manta net designed specifically to sample micro plastics that PEREC got this year. I have mainly worked on processing rough samples and dealing with reaction-related tasks, and my teammates would handle the counting and computer work. But, of course we always look out for each other. As we are done with sampling, my team and I now spend most of our time in the lab together examining micro plastics through a dissecting microscope. We could not be more excited to present our results to and interact with general and academic audiences at OSCAR Summer 2019 Celebration of Student Scholarship and Impact. 

Researching micro plastics in the environment is a long-term task and quite challenging, but here with OSCAR initiating this line of research at the Potomac Science Center I am very grateful to OSCAR and my mentors for the opportunities and guidance.

STIP Student Abhinav Mishra Investigates the Life of Thomas Mason

Numerous historical figures exist whose stories have been told, whose lives have been investigated, figures who no longer possess an air of mystery with them. But the research I embarked on was not about a well-known figure because books were not written about him, scores of interpretations about his life or legacy did not exist about him, therefore, I would be one of the first historians who would be narrating an aspect about this person’s lives previously not known before. Recognizing this reality pushed to research this relatively unknown figure called Thomson Mason. As I progressed throughout my research during the summer parts, there were certain parts where I struggled, felt lost, or was completely at a standstill. But that is the price one pays for being one of the first, and I was happy to experience these moments of struggle, which I eventually overcame. The research experience taught me a few lessons, which I will carry over as I move forward with my life. If at first you don’t succeed, try again and again until you strike gold. I have lost count recalling the number of times, where I had trouble finding a certain document or failed attempting to answer a particular question about my research because the historical document was inadequate in providing the answer I sought. In such cases, I kept looking and inquiring in order to unearth the document I hoped to find. Perseverance was my greatest tool, which pushed me at times, when I felt I was failing. Once I find the documents I desired, the difficult came in transcription and analysis. The difficulties of this stage were easier to overcome because my mentor aided me on how to view and interpret the document, so that I could my answer research question.

The crucial lesson of this research was seeking guidance can be an immensely helpful tool in one’s arsenal. Lastly, synthesizing my historical findings into a concise, visually based research poster taught me how to let write the essentials while leaving the superfluous out, a skill that I will continue to hone as I moved forward in time.