A group of students and their professor are working together in an undergraduate research program in DNA nanotechnology funded by the National Science Foundation. They are the Nanostars of this program, students who work together on projects regarding using the tools of biology to build materials of the future.

“Our goals are synthetic biology,” said Dr. Jillian Blatti, the Principal Investigator of the program. “My role is education and workforce development, to provide a training program for undergraduate students to learn the skills of synthetic biology. We have authentic research projects that my collaborators and I design.”

Blatti and her collaborators—Elisa Franco at UCLA, Deborah Fygenson at UCSB and Paul Rothemund at Caltech—design open-ended explorations in the training program, allowing their students to make discoveries.

Over the summer the group has worked together on various experiments, some being uploaded to their YouTube channel. Their synthetic biology research techniques got them involved in a bootcamp at Franco’s Dynamic Nucleic Acid Systems lab at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, where they got one week experience in UCLA’s bioengineering lab and learned from graduate students, postdocs and professors.

There, the Nanostars learned techniques in synthetic biology, setting up biochemical reactions and designing experiments forming DNA condensates, quantifying DNA and measuring enzyme activity.

“The idea is to fabricate materials of the future using DNA,” said Blatti.

After finishing their time at UCLA, the Nanostars would be able to apply their new skills in research at PCC.

“It’s been really nice to guide them in the lab all summer. We’ve been working for seven weeks total,” Blatti said. “I’m really proud of the team. They’ve done fantastic work. And, you know, this is all kind of under the umbrella of equity in STEM education, right? Providing access to cool science for everyone.”

The team has many accomplishments throughout the years: Reina Salman won the National Council for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) Engineering Research Video Challenge Award this year. Celina Yu won the prestigious Barry Goldwater scholarship in 2023. Salman, Eliana Safar and Vanessa Gonzalez won first place at the Natural Sciences Division Poster Sessions in 2023 and 2024. Blatti was a Distinguished Woman in Science at Stanford University in 2023 for her work leading PCC students in undergraduate research and having a positive impact on underrepresented students, contributing to equity in STEM education and diversity in the STEM workforce.

“My goals are to gain more research, technical, and research skills, specifically biology research, and to also get successful results in the experiments that we’ve been doing,” said PCC student Gracious Mhlanga.

Meanwhile PCC students Cynthia Khosravian and Megan Rivera, with alumna Eliana Safar want to focus their research for the purpose of localizing medicine.

“With our projects our hope was to hopefully in the future we could use our research in the field of either medicine or just have different applications for it,” said Khosravian.

“In this program, I want to help achieve the larger goal of localizing drug delivery,” said Rivera. “Personally, my goal of entering this program and finishing it was to learn more about the fields that I’m interested in, because, you know, I’m just starting off college and research has always been an interest to me. And I’ve definitely learned a lot about that in my time here, and also just learn what it is like and what it means to be a scientist.”

“I would say the big picture goal for our research is to localize applications for this,” said Safar. “It has really big applications normally in biology and research fields about the structures in localized chemical reactions, but also in health aspects, shares in medicine and the pharmacy industry.”

Fellow alumna Emily Terkazaryan transferred to UCLA, and now hopes to expand her knowledge and growth with her experience from Nanostars.

“At PCC, my major was bio biology, and now at UCLA, it’s going to be molecular, cell and developmental biology,” said Terkazaryan. “My goals are mostly based on keeping going and exploring more opportunities in the field of research trying to get more opportunities like this one specifically in this program and going forward. I am excited to talk about what we’ve done during this program and other events, talking about our research.”

The Nanostars will remember their program fondly, and have learned more about themselves and each other.

“I would say that I’m someone who really enjoys learning about science and about research and how it applies to the real world,” said Returning PCC Student Gracious Mhlanga.

Whether at PCC or beyond, the Nanostars can integrate their experiences into the rest of their lives.

“I think it’s definitely been very eye-opening,” said Khosravian. “With this type of project a lot of us came from different backgrounds. I think we were really able to help each other, build each other’s knowledge base so that we could all kind of be at the same level.”

Students can become Nanostars themselves through enrolling in PCC’s STEM courses and filling out an application. Blatti’s courses provide students access to the science associated with the Nanostars’ research and give students the opportunity to engage with their experiments.

Written by Christopher Galicia for Pasadena City College; used with permission. Find the original article here.

Learn more about the Nanostar’s poster presentations here: Posters of Nanostar Research Break Down the Hard Science Behind Research Breakthroughs

From a young age, Will Thives Santos dreamed of turning his passion for the guitar into a professional music career. He enrolled at the University of Missouri to study music.

However, an unexpected gap year due to the COVID-19 pandemic led him to reconsider his path, sparking a newfound interest in science and an unforeseen calling — one that blends the discipline of science with the creativity of music in ways he never imagined: research.

“I think creativity goes a long way in science,” Santos said. “One of my favorite parts of being in a lab is exploring creative hypotheses and wondering where the research could lead. It’s that drive to discover something new that excites me, just like creating music.”

Today, Santos, who grew up in Brazil, is a senior majoring in biochemistry with a minor in jazz studies. During his time at Mizzou, he has amassed nearly four years of research experience in a plant lab on campus and has recently published a research paper with his mentor and the lab’s principal investigator, Craig Schenck, an assistant professor in the Division of Biochemistry in Mizzou’s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. Beyond the lab, Santos plays guitar with the university’s Concert Jazz Band and is a member of an alternative rock band called The Park with five of his friends.

At Mizzou, Santos has found his rhythm — both in science and in sound.

Seeds of Discovery

Early in his freshman year, Santos realized he wanted to couple classroom learning with hands-on experience and real-world scientific discovery. He found exactly what he was looking for in Mizzou’s Freshmen Research in Plants, or FRIPS, program — an initiative designed to introduce new students to the world of plant research. For Santos, it was the perfect gateway to research and a glimpse into what a future career in science could entail.  

Eager to get started, he joined Schenck, who arrived at the university in fall 2021, and his plant lab in Schweitzer Hall. As two newcomers to Mizzou, Santos and Schenck wasted no time and got to work, diving into the lab’s mission of studying how and why plants produce so many chemicals. Their research focuses on a toxic compound — azetidine 2-carboxylic acid — that some plants produce as a defense mechanism.

It didn’t take long for Schenck to recognize his protégé’s natural curiosity and eagerness to learn — qualities that would become the foundation of Santos’ journey into scientific discovery.

“I know how valuable undergraduate research is because that’s how I got my start,” Schenck said. “So, when I started my own lab, I made it a priority to mentor as many undergraduate students as possible.”

And Santos quickly became a key part of the team.

“Will is highly creative and an exceptional problem solver, which makes his contributions in the lab invaluable,” Schenck said. “His creativity is particularly beneficial in research, a process that often mirrors learning an instrument — it can be frustrating, especially when things don’t go as planned. Just as a musician refines their technique through practice, research requires constant tweaking and modification to improve the outcome.”

Partners in the Lab

Schenck said that unlike some who are new to research, Santos isn’t discouraged by setbacks.

“Will understands that failure is an integral part of discovery,” he said. “His creativity serves as a springboard for his work in the lab, driving innovation and progress.”

For Santos, being treated as a partner in the lab built his confidence and sparked his joy for shared discovery.

Now, Santos will continue his research as a doctoral student in biological engineering at Mizzou. While he has yet to decide between academia and industry, his passion for discovery remains his driving force.

“With my music, I have always loved playing for others, sharing moments that bring people together,” he said. “With my research, I am contributing to the field, knowing that my research is expanding our collective understanding of biochemistry, biology and other sciences. Just as I have built upon the work of those before me, I hope that future scientists will build upon mine. Twenty years from now, I want someone to look at my work and see how it helped shape their own discoveries.”

The Study

Scientists know that some plants use certain chemicals, called toxic metabolites, to compete with other organisms for resources including space and nutrients. These chemicals can target essential processes, such as protein production, to harm neighboring plants. The problem has been that scientists don’t fully understand how these chemicals work or how plants defend against them, which limits their ability to use this knowledge to improve crop resilience.

But a recent study from the University of Missouri discovered how one such naturally occurring compound disrupts plant growth ─ perhaps one day offering farmers a sustainable solution for controlling invasive plants.

According to the study, azetidine-2-carboxylic acid (Aze) disrupts the growth of plant roots by being mistakenly incorporated into proteins in place of the amino acid proline (Pro). This causes the proteins to fold incorrectly, leading to a stress response in the plant. The researchers used a variety of scientific techniques, such as testing plant growth on plates, analyzing chemical changes and studying protein production, to show how Aze triggers this stress.

By understanding how Aze works, this research gives insights into the broader role of these harmful metabolites in plants and opens possibilities for using this knowledge to manage plant growth or stress responses in agriculture.

“Mechanism of action of the toxic proline mimic azetidine 2-carboxylic acid in plants” was published in Plant Journal. Co-authors, all from Mizzou, are William Thives Santos, Varun Dwivedi, Ha Ngoc Duong, Madison Meiderhoff, Kathryn vanden Hoek, Ruthie Angelovici and Craig A. Schenck.

Written by Sara Diedrich for The University of Missouri; used with permission. Find the original article here.

A small flower with yellow and cream petals is on the edge of extinction in Canada and a VIU research team is fighting to save it.

Bryan Lamprecht, a VIU Biology student, is working with Dr. Jasmine Janes, a VIU Biology Professor, studying Hosackia pinnata, also known as Bog bird’s-foot-trefoil. The rare species is red-listed in BC and Canada. There are only five sites where this rare flower grows in Canada, all near Nanaimo. The plant also grows along portions of the western coast of the United States.  

“It is an endangered species and is the official flower of Nanaimo, which a lot of people don’t know,” says Bryan.

The Hosackia pinnata has been the City of Nanaimo’s floral emblem since 2010. 

“We pride ourselves on having this plant around and yet there are so few populations of it left. We know that many of the areas that it occupies are under risk of development or future development,” says Jasmine. “We can either save this species from development, or we can work out strategies to try and translocate or introduce it into new areas that could be suitable. We don’t know much about this species at all.”

Jasmine says there are stories that this flower once grew widely across Nanaimo including in Maffeo Sutton Park, but now no flowers grow there. She says protecting the plant is important to maintain the levels of biodiversity we have.

The goal of the research is to understand the species’ health using genetics and recommend how to help the species propagate to perhaps introduce it to other areas in the region. The researchers collect the leaves of the Hosackia pinnata, not the flowers. This is important as the researchers can get much more DNA from fresh leaves and make sure the plants can still reproduce by leaving the flowers intact.

“The end goal is to give vital information that conservationists need to create change,” says Bryan. “The more we understand populations the more we’ll know how to help them in the future, to help them propagate and to come back from being endangered.”

Bryan says this work is crucial and his way of making a positive impact on the environment.

“This work is hugely important because the planet is really in a bad spot right now and one person can’t save the world, but I feel like this is my way of doing my part. Being out here and actively having an impact on the environment, that for me is why I want to do this,” says Bryan. 

He plans to pursue a master’s degree and says this is the kind of work he wants to continue doing.

Bryan is gaining hands-on learning working in the field by collecting samples, recording data, examining samples in the lab and doing report writing.

“All these skills are very transferable to many different projects and places in the future. It’s just hugely valuable to the future of any student,” says Bryan.

Jasmine received a VIURAC grant to help pursue her research and secured permits from government and non-government landholders to study the plant.

“We gratefully acknowledge them for giving us permission to do this,” says Jasmine.

Written by Rachel Stern for Vancouver Island University; used with permission. Find the original article here.

Chemistry major Ava Beaudin embraces the lab and the language. The junior and aspiring doctor sees her recent summer internship in cancer research as a lesson in communication.

Communicating technical research in an understandable way isn’t always easy, as Ava Beaudin discovered during her summer internship at BioPlatinum Technologies in Richmond.

“The art of communicating is the most important thing I have learned. You can have a lot of success in the lab, but if you don’t know how to communicate it to the public, it doesn’t go anywhere,” said Beaudin, a junior in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Honors College who is majoring in chemistry in the College of Humanities and Sciences and minoring in both psychology and pre-medicine studies. “I have gained confidence in communicating complex scientific concepts and findings in a digestible manner, which will help immensely in patient care when I become a doctor.”

Beaudin, who worked at the VCU Massey Cancer Center in a research assistant position before her internship, received support from VCU’s Internship Funding Program, which offers scholarships that help students defray the expenses associated with summer internships.

Beaudin learned about platinum therapeutics for ovarian and pancreatic cancers at BioPlatinum, which was founded by Nicholas Farrell, Ph.D., a distinguished VCU chemistry professor who retired last year. She worked in the lab, helping to grow cell cultures, conduct cytotoxicity assays and learn about ongoing research in the field. She also helped review current literature as it applies to the lab’s work with biomarkers, antibodies and the application of platinum as an anticancer agent.

“I enjoy the hands-on portion of the work in the lab,” she said, adding she has learned about the very precise nature of scientific research, as well as the importance of making mistakes and learning from them.

She finds that working on a small team is a great fit for her, noting that she values having an experienced mentor to provide specialized guidance, and enjoys being “able to bounce ideas off of someone.”

During her internship, Beaudin had the chance to see several research presentations and network when she attended the 2024 Virginia Drug Discovery Consortium. 

“I saw a lot of recent work in drug development and had the opportunity to see the work professionals and graduate students were doing,” she said. “Our team got to meet other people in the field that might be interested in collaborating with us.”

Beaudin’s internship ended when she returned to school, but she continued to work with the lab.

“I’ve been able to learn all sorts of lab skills, and I’m learning the process of writing grants proposals, publications and posters,” she said. She has found that the once intimidating field of research has become more accessible to her, and she hopes to continue learning skills which will later be useful in her career.

Beaudin’s interest in the medical field started from a young age, with early exposure to psychology, and continued in high school as she took chemistry courses where she “had a phenomenal chemistry teacher.” She came to VCU on a provost scholarship, drawn to the university in part “because there is an excellent hospital downtown and several clinical opportunities around the city.” She confirmed her interest in medicine through neuroscience research in a Rhetoric course and by shadowing physicians at VCU Health in surgeries and clinics.

“All of the doctors and residents I have observed at VCU have been wonderful mentors, and I look up to them a lot,” she said.

Beaudin’s goal is to become a physician, and she said the medical profession has the perfect mixture of things she wants in a career: critical thinking, hands-on work, collaboration, direct patient care, mentorship, and challenge. She was recently accepted into the Guaranteed Admissions Program for the VCU School of Medicine and looks forward to continuing her education at VCU.

Written by Joan Tupponce for Virginia Commonwealth University; used with permission. Find the original article here.