RSS 1.0Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023
Recent Submissions
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Screening Commercial Resistance to Adapted Soybean Cyst Nematode(2023-01-08) [Poster]MSoybean cyst nematode (SCN) is the leading cause of yield loss for soybeans in North America, causing an estimated loss of 566.5 million bushels between 2015 and 2019. While the situation was much improved for a few decades after the introduction of resistant cultivars, things have gotten worse over the past 15 years, as the resistant varieties that once held back this disease have become less and less effective. Most commercial varieties derive resistance gene from one source, cultivar PI 88788. These resistant varieties have been grown season-after-season throughout most of the soybean-producing regions, putting massive pressure on SCN populations to adapt. In some states, such as Illinois and Iowa, virtually all SCN isolates from the last few years successfully overtake PI 88788 and resistant varieties derived from it. While most of these varieties are labeled resistant to SCN, there is an ongoing need to monitor which available varieties still limit SCN reproduction and soybean yield loss, and how well each does so. This study set out to screen 128 commercial soybean cultivars against SCN populations isolated from Ohio fields. Three seedlings of uniform length from each variety were planted into separate cylinders. A baseline was established using the standard SCN-susceptible variety, Lee-74. Plants were inoculated with 1 mL of a 3000 eggs/mL SCN solution. Plants were grown for 30 days in the greenhouse to allow the nematodes to complete one life cycle. After this, plants were pulled out, and the females (or cysts) were extracted from the roots by wet sieving. Females from each were counted under 40x magnification. The number of females on each plant was divided by the number on the known susceptible variety to obtain the female index (FI). Plants were categorized according to Niblack s (2005) standard: a plant with less than 10% as many females as the susceptible is highly resistant, 10%-25% is resistant, 25%-40% is moderately resistant, 40%-60% is low resistance and greater than 60% reproduction is no resistance. Of 128 varieties screened against this SCN population, more than 40 were classified as no resistance, 18 as low resistance, and only 10 as highly resistant. This specific isolate is highly virulent to PI 88788, so farmers planting in fields with this pathotype can expect significant yield loss on most commercial soybean varieties. While this pathotype is common in places like Illinois and Missouri, it is fortunately not common in Ohio yet, so these varieties are being screened again with another Ohio SCN population that is less virulent on PI 88788. That data will be available beginning in early January 2023. Overall, this study shows the need for new soybean varieties which incorporate other known resistance genes for SCN. Some varieties with resistance genes from Peking have successfully come to market, but farmers must be able to rotate these with other resistance sources (which have yet to be bred into commercial cultivars) and with non-hosts to prevent SCN populations from adapting as quickly as the population used here did.
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Developing Alginate-based Hydrogels for the Delivery of Magnetic Hyperthermia Nanoparticles(2023-01-08) [Poster]Magnetic hyperthermia therapy is a cancer treatment that uses magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) to induce localized heating to suppress tumors. This is achieved by Neel relaxation - a coupling between magnetic field & moment - which causes heat dissipation. Thus when a high-frequency external magnetic field is applied to MNPs, local tumor suppression occurs. Although research in the field has made many strides over the past two decades, many challenges remain in developing a suitable comprehensive clinical treatment plan, including developing durable delivery methods, guiding MNPs to tumor sites, appropriate application of external current, and the extraction of MNPs after therapy. Our project focuses on developing a food-grade alginate-based hydrogel encapsulation-delivery system for iron oxide MNP delivery. This was achieved by simple methodologies, utilizing a classical precipitation reaction in an aqueous environment to successfully incorporate MNPs in an alginate hydrogel. The proposed hydrogel delivery mechanism provides multiple advantages; primarily in biodegradability and health compatibility, but also including ease and affordability of manufacturing, and a high potential for coupling with both chemotherapy-specific as well as general drug delivery.
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Multiplexed Molecular Detection of Cross-assembly phage in wastewater treatment plants in Riyadh(2023-01-08) [Poster]Water pollution is usually recognized by the presence of chemical, physical, or biological components associated with public health concerns despite several treatments for beneficial use. One of the most common health risks is owing to direct or indirect exposure to pathogenic microorganisms, particularly in developing countries, via the discharge of wastewater-treated water reuse. Bacteriophages have recently been proposed as alternative indicators of fecal and pollution, especially viral-mediated water contamination, instead of bacterial indicators, those reported as unreliable fecal indicators. A new DNA bacteriophage named Cross-assembly phage (CrAssphage) was discovered through computational analysis of publicly available human fecal metagenomics data. It was named after the Cross-Assembly software that was used to discover CrAssphage presence. CrAssphage is a double-stranded circular DNA virus with a 102 kbp genome, and it is considered the most abundant human gut phage in human feces. Recently, human-fecal virus indicators have been receiving considerable attention in wastewater and environmental waters. Human feces are highly contaminated with cross-assembly phage (CraAsphage). Therefore, it has been shown how useful crAssphage can be as a microbial source tracking and water quality monitoring tool for human feces contamination. This study aimed to investigate the abundance and prevalence of CrAssphage in raw water of three wastewater treatment plants in Riyadh city during six months period. Between January 2022 and June 2022, 18 sewage water samples were collected from three different wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), King Saud University wastewater treatment plants (KSU-WWTP), Manfoha wastewater treatment plants (MN-WWTP), and Embassy wastewater treatment plants(Embassy -WWTP) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 200 ml Samples were concentrated by polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation method followed using extracted DNA by DNeasy PowerWater Kit (QIAGEN). The samples were amplified using two genes for the multiplex PCR reaction targeting major capsid protein and Peptidoglycan binding protein. CrAssphage was detected in 16 out of 18 samples; the highest prevalence of 100% was found at MN-WWTP and (KSU-WWTP) followed by 75% at Embassy-WWTP. In addition, the samples were further identified by sanger sequencing. The study's findings showed a high CrAssphage prevalence (88.9%) from wastewater sources and its potential to be a microbial source tracking and water quality monitoring tool for human feces contamination. Further large-scale data studies are suggested for comprehensive understanding.
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No More Insulin Injection(2023-01-08) [Poster]
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Estimating seafood harvest requirements to support the traditional food system of First Nations in British Columbia(2023-01-08) [Poster]Background: Estimating the subsistence harvest in First Nations is important for developing fishery management strategies. It is common to rely on reported catch values when estimating subsistence harvest, but frequent underreporting and discrepancies between the fish that are caught and those that are consumed can lead to incorrect estimates. Objectives: In this study, we aimed to 1) determine the quantity of Pacific fish harvest required to maintain the traditional diet of six coastal First Nations communities in British Columbia (Kitsumkalum, Hagwilget, Skidegate, Nuxalk, Namgis, and Tla amin), and 2) identify gaps in data availability and highlight suggestions for improved methodology in future studies. Design: We used food frequency questionnaires from the 2011 First Nations Food, Nutrition & Environment Study to determine food use, and the census data from Statistics Canada to determine the population demographics of these communities. We identified 15 culturally important species, including eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus), Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis), sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka), and chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) based on their local consumption prevalence. Employing a proportional projection, we estimated the annual consumption rate for each species by sub-population and used conservative edible yield estimates to determine the total catch needed to sustain traditional seafood consumption levels for average and upper consumption frequencies. Results: Harvest requirements varied widely between fish species and the type of projection employed; the species with the highest subsistence harvest was sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) at 5822.858 kg/year, equivalent to approximately 1459 3405 fish. For future studies, we suggest working with FNs communities to establish community-specific harvest schedules, and on focusing on harvest-sharing networks and the relationship of FNs living on-reserve and off-reserve to estimate subsistence harvest requirements with more accuracy. Conclusions: The results of this study establish a baseline of traditional seafood consumption in First Nation communities in BC, which can will be useful for fisheries management planning. Keywords: First Nations; food security; subsistence harvest; consumption survey; Indigenous fisheries; Pacific Maritime ecozone; British Columbia; on-reserve and off-reserve
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Pine Mountain Observatory and Beyond(2023-01-08) [Poster]The Hubble Space Telescope is a telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit as part of international cooperation between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Weighing over 11,110 kilograms and containing a 2.4 diameter meter mirror, it is one of the largest, most versatile space telescopes in the world and also one of the most renowned. While Hubble has been used to observe many different celestial objects and phenomena, one of the most famous pieces of data to come from it is known as the Hubble Deep Field Image. For 10 straight days in 1995, Hubble stared at a tiny, nearly empty patch of sky near the Big Dipper. The telescope gathered all the light it could, slowly building the picture that would come to be known as the Hubble Deep Field. This image, showing a sliver of our early universe, contains over 3,000 galaxies, large and small, shapely and amorphous, burning in the depths of space. With the Pine Mountain Observatory Deep Field (PMODF), we have created our own deep field image, instead imaging the central region of the Coma Cluster to determine how many galaxies we can detect within it. With our data, we have been able to determine to what magnitude the telescopes at Pine Mountain Observatory (PMO) can see into space. Collecting over 8 hours of data, The Pine Mountain Observatory Deep Field represents some of the deepest imagery taken at Pine Mountain Observatory to date. The Pine Mountain Observatory and Beyond (PMOAB) project both further analyzes the data collected from the original PMODF project and delves deeper into the way that Pine Mountain Observatory obtains and reduces its astronomical data. In collaboration with Dr. Scott Fisher and Pine Mountain Observatory, I have begun creating more efficient software intended to resolve issues surrounding dark frame subtraction that were first discovered in the analysis of the PMODF data. While the PMODF created a deep field image of the Coma Cluster and helped us understand the general performance of PMO s telescope system, the PMOAB will complement the original project by allowing us to study and resolve software issues uncovered by the initial PMODF observations, and develop new methods and techniques to aid in the reduction of other astronomical data. Additionally, the re-analyzed data will give us a more detailed look at the information the galaxies in the cluster provide.
