Follow

• 

  Assessment of risk factors associated with anterior cruciate ligament injury through video analysis of drop vertical jump before and after gluteal muscle strengthening program.

  Julianna D. Leonard

  Two-dimensional video analysis of the drop vertical jump test has been shown to be an effective and accessible screening tool in assessing an individual’s risk for anterior cruciate ligament injury. High degrees of dynamic knee valgus during landing from a drop vertical jump suggest increased risk for ACL tears, specifically in female athletes, who are at greatest risk. Activation of the stabilizing muscles of the hip has also been shown to play a role in reducing these knee movements that predispose an individual to ACL injury. The purpose of this study was to use the drop vertical jump injury screening protocol to assess ACL injury risk in female volleyball players before and after their participation in a six-week training program targeting the strengthening of the gluteus medius muscle. Two data collection sessions were completed six weeks apart. During both data collections, tape markers were placed on the hips, knees, and ankles of the participants. Five video trials of the drop vertical jump were recorded and analyzed to determine maximum knee valgus during landing from the drop vertical jump. Between the two data collections, the subjects participated in their regularly scheduled weekly training sessions, which included exercises for the gluteus medius muscle. The results from the pre- and post-training data collections were presented to the participants in a report including details of their risk classification, along with general recommendations for improvement. The pre- and post-training injury screening data were compared to evaluate the efficacy of the gluteal muscle strengthening program in decreasing risk factors associated with ACL injury.

• 

  A systematic review of nursing cognitive workload for improved patient care and reduced Healthcare Acquired Infections

  Suheil Salih

  The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the limits of healthcare systems worldwide warranting studies to improve preparedness for future outbreaks. This paper’s purpose was to synthesize and identify missing gaps in the literature of nurse cognitive workload and its relation to Healthcare Acquired Infections (HAIs) through the use of a systematic literature review. The results suggest that undesirable outcomes in nursing are due to increases in workload and stress which result from factors such as inadequate staffing, lack of communication, interruptions, and negative attitudes. To understand the effect of environmental factors on nurses’ workload and subsequently the HAI, we need to have a tool for measuring the workload. A literature gap exists in defining nurse workload related to infection, and new measuring methods which can accurately assess nurses’ cognitive workload are required.

• 

  Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) and Communication

  Kathleen Megan Crump

  There is an increasing amount of research relating to young children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) and facilitating their communication skills. This project addresses why it is important to assist in communication with children with ASDs at a young age, what interventions can be implemented in order to achieve this goal, and the ways in which peer and adult interactions can make an impact. Each of these aspects of engagement in the classroom are important to facilitate positive experiences for students with ASDs that leads to an improvement of communication skills which are applicable in all aspects of life.

• 

  A Visual Experience in support of the National Park Service

  Kaitlyn B. Acra, Marya Nabil Khamis Al Zadjali, Balkis Mohammed Alhalal, Sydney N. Eldridge, Anna Caroline Gorman, Trent Ryan Howell, Jack H. Kargl, Carlene R. Landers, Kasidi Lynn Meyers, Grace E. Reilly, Joseph S. Swisher, William Baran Symank, Kelsey M. Vonderhaar

  Students enrolled in VAD415 Graphic Design III were tasked with creating a meaningful, effective, and engaging experience using aspects of visual identity, branding, and environmental graphics to guide visitors in their navigation to the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park located in the historic Wright Dunbar neighborhood. The students began by meeting with several National Aviation Heritage Area (NAHA) partners and making several site visits to the National Park, located just .3 miles from the intersection of the newly renovated W. Third St. Bridge and Edwin C. Moses Blvd. Students worked collaboratively to gather resources, research the park’s content and history, and manage communications with members of NAHA and the National Park Service (NPS). Four student teams then each designed a creative visual package including a directional way-finding system and corresponding environmental graphics. Teams are presenting their design proposals to NAHA leadership and community partners with the potential for a team’s design to move into production and implementation. Working with a local non-profit organization on this community-driven project has been a tremendous experiential learning opportunity for the students. Special thanks to Mackensie Wittmer, Executive Director, NAHA, for proposing this project. Documentation of team research and project development are on display in the Department of Art and Design in Fitz Hall during the closing evening of the Stander Symposium and closing reception for the annual student Horvath Exhibition.

• 

  Barriers to Physical Activity for College Students

  Grant A. Hirzel, Jacob Duncan Maloney, Mark Silvio Manfredi, Zachary Joseph Pohlman, Nicholas Roman Riordan

  This study looks to examine certain factors that affect levels of physical activity in college students, how active college students are, and how activity level is impacted by location on campus as well as age. The primary study question is: “What are the barriers to exercising for college students?”. The data for this study will be collected through surveys sent out to UD students ranging from undergraduate freshmen to seniors. The goal is to be able to collect data from 30 students from each class and have a diverse group of majors and extracurriculars that give a true picture of students on campus. The variables that will be measured are frequency of exercise, type of exercise, barrier to not exercising more, upperclassman or underclassman, gender, and proximity of address to gym. A google survey with a variety of questions will be utilized to collect as much data as possible from our target population. The data collection will take place from March 22nd - April 5th. After data collection, analysis will take place by putting the different responses into groups and determining the different factors college students have when it comes to participating in physical activity. The results will be analyzed after data collection around April 5th.

• 

  Behavioral analysis of a transgenic Drosophila model of Tau mediated toxicity in Alzheimer's Disease

  Prajakta D. Deshpande, Liam Michael Dwyer

  Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a fatal progressive neurodegenerative disorder marked by a gradual loss of cognitive function and memory loss. Alzheimer’s pathology includes the extracellular accumulation of amyloid beta 42 plaques (Aβ42) and intracellular accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in the brain. In AD, Tau protein, a microtubule associated protein (MAP), gets hyperphosphorylated which results in the intracellular accumulation of NFTs due to destabilization of microtubules. We employ the Gal4/UAS system in Drosophila melanogaster to misexpress human Tau mutant (TauR406W) which mimics AD like neuropathology. It has been previously shown in our lab that misexpression of human TauR406W within the developing fly retina (GMR>TauR406W) exhibits reduced and rough eye phenotype. Here, in this study we will assess Tau mediated toxicity in a transgenic fly model by behavioral analysis. We will misexpress human TauR406W in the nervous system by using Elav-Gal4 driver. One of the behavioral assays such as a locomotion assay will increase our understanding of effects of tau mediated toxicity in AD. Here we will present the behavioral effects of AD transgenic flies.

• 

  BetterU: A daily activity monitoring pervasive mobile application

  Sankarshan Dasgupta, Claire I. Gutsmiedl, Vatsa Sanjay Patel

  The majority of daily activities (including eating on time, drinking enough water, moderate exercise, sleep, and others) are essential to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. A plethora of studies show that ignoring critical health-related tasks and healthy lifestyle habits (i.e., proper nourishment, work-life balance) could lead to anomalies such as health complications and chronic illnesses (including type-2 diabetes). In this research, we seek to explore and design social-technical tools to help people avoid such anomalies. We started by exploring the lifestyle needs of the students at our University. Our findings show that the majority of users are unwilling to make the effort or sometimes forget to record their daily activity routine using the current tracking applications. Some forgot to self-track because of career changes or shifting settings and lifestyles. This work will present the design of a mobile application that will monitor and assist routine on critical tasks. The App enables the user to make informed choices and fix any unusual behavior in their schedule. Further, in order to address participants' unwillingness to record their activities, we integrated critical ubiquitous computing components in our App including smartphone auto-tracking and GPS. First, auto-tracking components will offer our end users the ability to comprehensively track, monitor, and document their activities with ease. Second, the GPS and time access working in tandem offers them the most acceptable activity performance data handling within that time period. Consequently resulting in an undetectable design that produces the most accurate results conceivable. The App is set up, with the unique combination of GPS and time allowing the end-user to track their health activities, while also promoting self-monitoring and event schedule.In this symposium, we will present our design process and demonstrate how our App may support end-users (including our University students) to track their daily habits and activities.

• 

  Beyond Biology: Using Nature in the Classroom for All Subjects and Development of Elementary Age Students

  Noah Maynard Lorbach

  Time in nature is commonly utilized for biology classes and science projects. There is research, however, which shows that time in nature is beneficial for education in all school subjects including: English, history, math, and foreign language. In addition, teaching elementary age children in the outdoors allows for greater social and emotional development occurring beyond the typical classroom.

• 

  Bidirectional associations between adjustment and academic achievement: Testing the adjustment erosion and academic incompetence hypotheses

  Abigail Stover

  Abigail Lou Stover

  An association between academic incompetence and behavior problems exists. There are two frameworks to explain this association: the adjustment erosion and academic incompetence hypotheses (Van der Ende et al., 2016). These hypotheses relate to the directionality of the association between academic incompetence and behavior problems. The adjustment erosion hypothesis predicts that internalizing or externalizing problems lead to academic problems, whereas the academic incompetence hypothesis predicts that academic problems lead to internalizing or externalizing problems (Van der Ende et al., 2016). This study examines links between externalizing problems, internalizing problems, and academic performance, looking at bidirectional pathways between these variables, while controlling for confounding family background variables. This study uses previously collected longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample. Analyses included between 1,117 and 1,258 participating families. Reading and math achievement from children ages 5 to 14 were measured using the Peabody Individual Achievement Tests. Externalizing and internalizing behaviors were measured using the Behavior Problem Index completed by mothers during the same age range. Multiple regression analyses were used to test whether externalizing and internalizing problems at ages 5/6 predicted math and reading abilities at ages 13/14, and whether math and reading abilities at ages 5/6 predicted internalizing and externalizing problems at ages 13/14. Analyses controlled for maternal IQ, delinquency, highest grade, age at childbirth, family income, biological sex of the child, and the age 5/6 value of the age 13/14 dependent variable. Externalizing and internalizing problems in early childhood were found to significantly predict math and reading achievement at age 13/14. Math and reading achievement at age 5/6 were found to significantly predict externalizing and internalizing problems at age 13/14. Support was found for the adjustment erosion and academic incompetence hypotheses. These findings suggest that addressing academic deficits could aid later adjustment and addressing adjustment problems could improve academic performance.

• 

  Blend Prediction Model for Freezing Point of Jet Fuel Range Hydrocarbons

  Allison Ann Coburn

  Sustainable aviation fuels are a near-term solution for aviation greenhouse gas emission reduction. To become a sustainable aviation fuel, a synthetic fuel derived from a renewable source must have specifications written into ASTM D7566 as an annex to regulate its quality. However, before a sustainable aviation fuel can be added, it must be thoroughly evaluated and approved by all stakeholders through an time and volume intensive, as well as expensive process described in ASTM D4054. For this reason, the prescreening process is being developed. Prescreening is a process to measure or predict, from very small sample volumes, key fuel properties that are crucial for operability of an aircraft. The intention of the prescreening process is to inform suppliers of possible risks to passing the evaluations of ASTM D4054. Freezing point is one of the critical safety stipulations that require fuel to remain in liquid state under severe weather conditions. Methods to predict the freezing point of hydrocarbon blends are scarce in current literature. These pre-existing blend prediction models are either not validated within the typical temperature range for jet fuel standards, or they contain an interaction coefficient which is only obtained experimentally. The goal of this study is to develop a blending rule to accurately predict the freezing point of combinations of jet fuel range hydrocarbons. To do so, blends of hydrocarbons with freezing points varying from one another were tested. Binary and ternary blends containing bicyclohexyl, cis-1,2-dimethylcyclohexane, and an alternative jet fuel (POSF 12968) were tested along with separate tests including binary and ternary blends of tridecane, cis-1,2-dimethylcyclohexane, and trans-decahydronaphthalene. The experimental values obtained were compared with linear predictive blending model results. A new model based on Gibbs free energy is reliable for neat molecules, however, is currently being developed to predict the freezing point of hydrocarbon blends.

• 

  Breaking Cryptography with Quantum Computers and Shor's Algorithm

  Thomas C. Lehmenkuler

  Many current encryption schemes rely on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. Shor's Algorithm is a quantum factorization method. This presentation will motivate the ideas and methods behind Shor's Algorithm, as well as the mathematical theory behind using quantum computing to practically use Shor's Algorithm.

• 

  Bring Me Everyone except for You

  Dylan Read Eckhart

  As a country we present ourselves as a land for people to come and seek refuge but we make it very difficult. As a country we are very hypocritical when it comes to immigration. The statue of liberty stands with its accepting words written on it but we do not live by those words as a country. I will explore the Artistic responses to the border crisis and the impact it has on both sides of the border. I will also be looking at the contrast between the border crisis in Ukraine compared to our own. I will be looking at Tanya Aguiñiga and Tom Keifer's work.

• 

  Building Social Cohesion and Collective Efficacy among Students in Off-Campus Neighborhoods

  Thomas Glen Bobick-Braybrooks, Kaylin G. Florentino, Benjamin Russell Ronald Jones, Christian D. Kelly

  This research is a semester-long course project in SOC 324: Communities & Crime. As part of this project, we have identified a crime-related problem in our neighborhoods/living spaces and apply community-building and environmental design approaches to offer recommendations and solutions that address the problem. Our work emphasizes the importance of social cohesion and sense of community in preventing crime and fostering feelings of safety on and around campus.

• 

  Building Stress Resilience in Undergraduates: An Examination of Self-Affirmation and Stress Resilience in Students

  Lindsey Young

  While a student’s time in higher education is expected to be a little overwhelming at times undergraduate students are facing stress and anxiety at alarming rates. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how a simple daily practice of self-affirmation could potentially influence shifts in undergraduate college students’ social and mental well-being. Over a six-week time span, eight students practiced self-affirmation practices and completed bi-weekly virtual reflections regarding the current state of their stress and stress management. Results show students experiencing better overall resilience when stress occurs. The intent of this study is to advance knowledge regarding how to best promote holistic well-being in the lives of undergraduate students.

• 

  Bumblebees in Solar Prairies

  Nicolette A. Engelmeier, Grace A. Janszen, Morgan E. Mieland

  Bumblebees (Bombus Latreille) are an interest of many ecologists today due to the increasing decline of pollinators. A pollinator, such as the bumblebee, provides a large amount of service to an ecosystem since they aid in the survival and nutrition of plants and animals in their area. The data collected will help to understand if the solar prairie is being used by pollinators in the area and if it is beneficial to their survival. The goal of our research is to study areas in which a bumblebee may hibernate, between man-made or natural areas. We dug 10cm holes near both man-made and natural structures and searched through the soil to look for a singular queen bee. We used natural structures such as trees and plants that would provide protection. Man-made structures that we focused on were fences and mainly the solar panels in the solar prairie. We were not able to find any bumblebees during our search. We believe the main obstacle in our search was due to the warm weather patterns during a typically cold season, which may have caused the bumblebees to come out of hibernation early. As a result of this weather, we began searching for evidence of the bumblebees using the solar prairie as an ecosystem to survive in. We conducted bumblebees patterns of flight and foraging patterns inside of the solar prairie, which is important for the pollination of native plants in the area and the survival of other species in the ecosystem.

• 

  Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) invasion is predicted by forest edge not plant species richness in grasslands

  Michaela Jean Woods

  Fallow agricultural fields are target landscapes for ecosystem restoration; however, they are degraded and susceptible to plant invasion, requiring extensive management. Pyrus calleryana is an invasive tree in Eastern USA that escaped cultivation and became a prominent invader. The ecology of this tree is relatively unknow, but it grows in dense monocultures, outcompeting native counterparts, and is challenging to remove. Identifying landscapes that are vulnerable to invasion may allow for targeted management and could inform land manager decision making. Here, we assessed the level of invasion in restored prairies as well as their surrounding land use, plant communities and soil chemistry, to determine if these metrics could predict the invasion of P. calleryana. We selected two invaded and two uninvaded sites, sampled 25 quadrats in each and measured distance of quadrat to roads, forests or residences, P. calleryana presence/absence and abundance, plant species richness and cover, and soil moisture, pH and nutrients. We found higher species richness in uninvaded sites than invaded sites, contradicting the biotic resistance hypothesis. Invaded sites had more P. calleryana where grasses and forbs covered less area, indicating open niche space for invasion. Soils in uninvaded sites had higher pH, organic matter and ammonia availability, but lower phosphorus, nitrate and micronutrient content, aligning with our hypothesis that increased organic matter may alter nutrient ratios to promote native species. Finally, P. calleryana was more abundant near forest edges, but was not invasion was not related to roads or residences. Forest edges harbor bird perches which may facilitate dispersal of P. calleryana. Taken together, P. calleryana is more likely to invade on forest edges, suggesting targeted restoration in those areas; however, plant species richness and soil nutrient content may not be an appropriate indicator for determining the suitability of target landscapes.

• 

  Campus Sustainability Footprint Assessment at the University of Dayton

  Cassie Marie Austin

  The Campus Sustainability Footprint Assessment provides a baseline summary of the University of Dayton’s sustainability footprint and how it has changed over the past ~10 years. Although UD has regularly collected and reported sustainability data, this report synthesizes the data to assess sustainability progress, identify trends, and provide recommendations for how to reduce emissions and increase sustainability practices on campus. In partnership with sustainability tracking efforts of Facilities Management, the data used in this project was collected for previous reports to the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) and Sustainability Indicator Management Analysis Platform (SIMAP).

• 

  Career Prediction based on Historical Background

  Abhijeet Gupta, Shruti Ajay Singh

  The project is about career predictor, which is based on an individual's education and working history. This data is mainly collected from LinkedIn, where one can see the person's career history, including the school, type of degree, working history. The collected data is categorized as the type of industry, work experience, number of degrees, and ranking of the latest school attended, and the number of publications. The data is used to train career classification model.

• 

  Chaminade Culture at UD and Symbolic Convergence Theory

  Charles Jones, Carson Rhoades, Clare Loesch, Thanh Ha, Lily Harvey

• 

  Changing and Improving Dental Hygiene in Long Term Care Facilities

  Julia Kathryn Kilroy, Charles Austin Spencer

  One of the most significant challenges to optimal dental health is simply practicing everyday oral hygiene. A recent study suggests that Porphyromonas gingivalis, a bacteria that causes gum disease, is also related to different forms of dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia. Porphyromonas gingivalis can move from the mouth to the brain and damage neurons, leading to memory loss and in time, Alzheimer’s. The majority of nursing home residents are unable to brush their own teeth or dentures, and their primary caretakers frequently lack the necessary training to do so. Furthermore, data shows that most residents in nursing homes are covered by Medicare, which does not cover annual checkups and is necessary for the potential prevention of dementia. Frequent dental check-ups, as well as regular dental cleaning and flossing will help to avoid the need for more invasive procedures later on when the person with dementia may be less able to perform adequate oral hygiene on themselves. Since Medicare doesn’t cover regular dental visits, an alternative solution is teaching healthcare workers to perform necessary oral hygiene. Another solution to this issue is to change the current Medicare coverage to include annual dental visits for those covered by Medicare. This poster proposal illustrates this association of poor oral hygiene and dementia and proposes solutions including educating assisted living workers on the importance of oral hygiene and the need for Medicare coverage of routine dental care.

• 

  Characterization of an Exact Electron Correlation Symmetry in Alternant Hydrocarbons Using Molecular Orbital Theory

  Christina Farwick

  Electron-electron repulsion in a quantum system facilitates a specific kind of interaction between electrons known as electron correlation. Moreover, the movement of an electron is influenced by surrounding electrons, the extent of which is described by the correlation energy. Code written in the mid-1980s using the Fortran 77 programming language outlined the Pariser-Parr-Pople (PPP) Method, and provided all data analyzed herein. The initial focus of the current project was aimed at re-writing the PPP program in MATLAB in order to obtain new information. Slater determinants will be used to show all possible results of single-electron excitations, and in the future, those of double excitations. Furthermore, note that each singlet state in a given molecule can be expressed as a linear combination of single-electron excitations, the coefficients of which will be discussed as a function of the range of repulsion. This repulsion distance will also be studied as it affects transition energy, and the repulsion integral decay formula is plotted against interatomic distance. In conclusion, the two-center, two-electron repulsion integral increases as the electrons move closer together, as does the energy associated with the 1Ag+ state, while the 1Ag- singlet state energy increases initially, then decreases.

• 

  Childhood Trauma Exposure Increases Long COVID Risk

  Julie Messinger, Cady Ujvari, Alicia Wilhelm Villanueva Van Den Hurk

  While long-term physical and psychological effects of COVID-19 remain unknown, it is clear that a proportion of COVID-19 survivors develop complications following acute illness, herein referred to as long COVID (LC) syndrome. Females appear to be at higher risk for LC, and also have higher rates of childhood trauma, which is associated with a heightened inflammatory response to stress. The present study investigated the impact of childhood trauma on COVID-19 illness course and recovery. Participants (N=244) completed online self-report measures of premorbid health, COVID-19 positivity, symptoms, and recovery, along with measures of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and childhood (CTE) and recent (RTE) traumatic experiences. Compared to recovered participants (N=110), the LC group (N=158) was older and predominantly female. Those who reported one or more CTE were nearly 3-fold more likely to develop LC (OR=2.87, CI, 0.95 to 8.60) while those who endorsed two or more CTE were 4.5 times more likely (OR=4.56, CI, 1.61 to 12.33). A binary logistic regression analysis revealed that chest pain (p<.001), fatigue (p=.031), burning sensation (p=.002), and olfactory hallucinations (p<.001) during acute COVID, along with sex (p=.001) and age (p<.001) predicted LC. Compared to pre-COVID diagnoses, rates of PTSD (p<.001), depression (p<.001), and generalized anxiety (Χ2=12.32, p<.001) increased across the entire sample and current PTSD (p=.001, partial η2=.042), depression (p<.001, partial η2=.048), and anxiety (p=.017, partial η2=.022) severity were higher in the LC group. These findings suggest that childhood trauma or early adversity may prove relevant to the development of long COVID via central nervous system changes and dysfunction in the form of central sensitization, somatosensory disruptions, and/or dysautonomia, resulting from a heightened inflammatory response. Psychiatric outcomes should be assessed following acute COVID-19, and future research is needed to determine the unique contributions of COVID-19 and general pandemic stress to post-illness mental health.

• 

  Civic Engagement at the University of Dayton: Political Science Senior Capstone Projects

  Michael Sullivan Beenblossom, Lilianna Jin Biswas, Randy Evan Borre, Elizabeth Grace Braun, Megan M. Broderick, Madison Elizabeth Cassel, Grant Christopher Combs, Brandon S. Frania, Mason E. Gordon, Eric G. Grimm, Lauren M. Healy, Hannah Claudia Hoby, Molly Catherine Houlihan, Daniel Joseph Isufi, Alexander George Janakievski, Jared Anthony Marfisi, Edward Thomas Mccarthy, Joshua Stevan Newmark, Fitzgerald Tioluwani Oladejo, Emily P. Orr, Brendan Romano, Kayla Nicole Schultz, Dylan J. Stapleton, Juliet Rose Twomey, Anthony Nicholas Ullman

  American democracy is at a crossroads. Political polarization is at an all-time high among both political elites and the citizenry, and trust in the fairness and validity of American election outcomes is also dropping. Some scholars argue that a decline in civic engagement can explain the decline in public trust and that increasing civic engagement among citizens may be able to help restore public trust and confidence in government and alleviate some of the more negative symptoms of political polarization. Students in the Political Science Senior Capstone have explored different dimensions of civic engagement on UD's campus or developed programming aimed to increase civic engagement among students on campus.

• 

  College Students’ Opinions on Climate Change: Do Political Views Matter?

  Aileen Marisa Hull

  Climate change is an ever impending crisis, and the politics surrounding the issue are as contentious as ever, especially in the United States with the extremely polarized political culture. The polarization of the political parties makes any environmental policy extremely difficult to pass. Meanwhile, the new generation of young people entering the workforce, voting scene, and public eye are bringing new demands to current climate debates. Youth make up a large share of environmental activism participants and opinion polls show climate change is on the minds of many young people. However, there is a lack of research on youth’s opinions on climate change as relating to their political affiliation. The purpose of this study is to measure young peoples’ views on climate change, while identifying how or if their political identification plays a role. A survey with questions modeled off the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication survey of Climate Change in the American Mind was distributed to 27 undergraduate classes at the University of Dayton. Questions explored political identification and personal belief relating to climate change science, risk, and policy. Using quantitative methods, the results explore how students view these topics and the relationship between their opinions on the environment and their political affiliations and participation. This research is important because young people will have an impact on both the policies and actions the country takes on climate change as well as trends of Republican and Democrat parties in the United States.

• 

  Colorectal Cancer Model in Drosophila melanogaster by Inactivating the Wingless Pathway

  Matthew T. Bilotti

  Wingless (Wnt) signaling is an important pathway involved in tumorigenesis in colorectal cancer of humans, and can be modeled in Drosophila melanogaster given the conservation of genes and cell biological processes. To understand which components of the Wnt pathway affect growth and patterning, we studied effects of loss of APC specifically in the eye discs using MARCM based approaches. The MARCM approach allows for manipulation of gene expression (both loss- and gain-of-function) in somatic clones. Under wildtype conditions of normal cell growth, the Wnt pathway is kept under check, where a destruction complex (comprising of several proteins like Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC), Dishevelled (Dsh), Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3beta (GSK-3beta) and beta-Catenin) prevents nuclear translocation of beta-catenin and promotes its degradation via the ubiquitin/proteasome pathway. However, in the presence of Wnt ligand, signaling is activated and the destruction complex is inhibited. Beta-Catenin then proceeds to the nucleus as a transcription factor to turn on expression of its respective target genes which promotes cell proliferation and survival. We want to examine if loss of APC shows effects on growth and differentiation. In Drosophila, there are two APC family genes, APC and APC2, therefore we devised a strategy to generate double mutant clones wherein the expression of both APC and APC2 is eliminated in the same cells. To do so, we used the eyflp MARCM system to induce APC dysregulation solely in fly larval eye discs. We will study effects of loss of APC on growth, survival and differentiation in the eye discs, with special emphasis on interactions between APC /beta-Catenin with the Hippo pathway. We will use immunohistochemistry to study expression of Wnt target genes in experimental and control samples. We will examine the larval disc phenotypes like effects on differentiation, proliferation or cell death; and survival to adult to understand the interactions between the molecular pathways. We will compare if the interactions observed in the eye imaginal discs are tissue specific by comparing to the effects of loss of APC genes in the brain and intestines in Drosophila.