Ayesha Azeem ‘23 Test anxiety is a condition that affects up to 40% of students who suffer immense stress and worry before and while taking a test. Anxiety in test situations can present itself in many different ways and may not seem so apparent to the sufferer at first. Symptoms include: nervousness, high heart rate, sweating, avoidance, and failing concerns. Anxiety can weaken the ability … Continue reading Open-Label Placebos and Test Anxiety
Priyanshi Patel ’22 Young male cancer survivors have low testosterone levels compared to those of healthy populations. Long term effects of low testosterone involve endocrine disorders that affect up to 50% of adult childhood cancer survivors, and younger survivors are often unsure as to whether they would benefit from testosterone treatment. A study was conducted in the United Kingdom on secondary hospital outpatients.. The study … Continue reading Improved Body Composition After Testosterone Treatment in Young Male Cancer Survivors
Mariam Malik ‘22 A drug is characterized as any substance that may alter one’s psychology or physiology. Depending on its purpose, each drug takes a different path once inside the body, but researchers at Harvard University have determined the role of the gut in interfering with a drug’s path and eventually, its effectiveness. Professor Emily Blaskus and graduate student Vayu Maini Rekdal focused on Levodopa, … Continue reading Our Gut’s Interference in Some Medications
By Allan Mai ‘20 Scientists have recently been exploring routes to biosynthesize cannabinoids by introducing a series of genes into yeast cells. Using the simple sugar galactose, Dr. Xiaozhou Luo and his team at the University of California at Berkeley successfully devised a pathway to produce major cannabinoids such as cannabigerolic acid and cannabidiolic acid among others. The biosynthesis of such compounds would allow for … Continue reading Yeast and the Biosynthesis of Cannabinoids
By Ellie Teng ‘21 A prominent protein in cancer research, p53, is known for its cancer fighting abilities. p53 suppresses the initiation of tumor growth by inhibiting the cancer metabolic switch from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis. Glycolysis is attributed to cancer metabolism and is required for tumorigenesis, or the formation of tumors. Essentially, p53 protects the genome against mutations and prevents the mutations from being … Continue reading Protein WTp53: Fights Tumors or Boosts Cancer?
By Caleb Sooknanan ’20 Tuberculosis (TB) is the world’s most prominent cause of death by infection. Scientists have become increasingly interested in the humoral immune responses associated with TB, but it is difficult to find the antigenic targets that correspond to specific stages of TB infection and disease. Dr. Davide Valentini and researchers at Karolinska Institutet conducted a study to determine whether peptide microarray … Continue reading Peptide Microarrays Can Identify Tuberculosis Antibody Responses
by Sahil Rawal (’19) Acetaminophen is a painkiller that is often used by pregnant women as an analgesic, as it is readily available over-the-counter. The CDC had previously deemed this drug safe, and it was shown to cause no major birth defects. However, there have been recent studies that have shown that acetaminophen may play a role in causing autism-like symptoms in children. As a … Continue reading The Effect of Acetaminophen on Pregnant Women
by Jenna Mallon (’18) In recent years, cyclic peptides have emerged as leaders in therapeutic drugs due to their in vivo stability and bioavailability. A class of specific cyclic peptides known as Cyclosporins has been effective in preventing rejection and infection in the body after organ transplants. The different analogs of Cyclosporin are very structurally similar, making separation extremely difficult. For this reason Yuefei Shao, … Continue reading Chromatography Separates Cyclosporin Analogs
