Fine Arts

Authors: Ella Johnson, Aubria Soto, Andrew Bodily. Mentors: Chelsea Romney. Insitution: Brigham Young University. This study investigated the relationship between a sense of safety and a sense of fairness in the courtroom. In the Provo City Justice Court, court customers were offered an optional survey that covered questions about their experience in the courtroom. A section determining an individual’s ability to access the court and a section to see how fairly they felt they were treated were compared. The results reveal a significant positive association between a sense of safety and perceived fairness, indicating that when individuals felt safe in the courtroom they also tended to believe that their trial was conducted fairly (Pearson Correlation = 0.527). It was also found that for the Provo City Justice Court, most court attendees answered high on the scale for both access (M = 4.5/5) and fairness (M = 4.6/5) with 145 participants surveyed. Limitations include not surveying online court attendees and the potential bias of survey responses from those who felt dismissed during their sessions. The court experience can be improved through the creation of programs or measures that will increase not only the safety of the court customers but also their satisfaction with the perceived fairness of their trials.

Authors: Allison Weston, Summer Snow, Sophia James. Mentors: Sarah Coyne. Insitution: Brigham Young University. As childrens’ minds develop, so does their language, however, the effect of media on language has yet to be firmly established. Our study searched for the effect of screen time on language development, and whether problematic media use (PMU) was a factor in normal or late development of language. Data was gathered from a sample (n=265) of 4 year old children using simple regression for problematic media use predicting language development while controlling for screen time. Although the correlation between screen time and language development has been studied, there is a gap in the literature regarding how PMU may relate to language development.

Authors: Fiona Fox, Catherine Schumann, Cameron Monson. Mentors: Sarah Coyne. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Most often, research has looked at the negative effects of social media on mental health. The purpose of this study is to understand the interactions between social media usage and body image, and if there are any ways that social media has a positive impact on body image. This study surveyed children and youth ages 7-17 to gain insight on their social media use and different aspects of mental health. Social media preoccupation and mindfulness were both significantly correlated with body esteem, and a slightly significant correlation was found between positive social media use and body esteem. These findings suggest that mindfulness around social media usage can help mitigate the negative impact on body esteem that many youth experience. Parents can use these findings to have conversations with their children and teenagers about being mindful with social media use and avoiding preoccupation with it.

Authors: Braden Bringhurst, Michael Ray, Megan Barbier, Ellie Smith. Mentors: Peter Ward. Insitution: Brigham Young University. In travel, the interplay of social connection and novelty profoundly shapes the impact of peoples' experiences. This study examines novelty, positive emotions, social connection, and the impact of the experience on participants through the lens of the Self-Expansion Theory. Novelty is defined as the process of experiencing or encountering something different to the objects regularly encountered in everyday life. Social connection is defined as the affective and cognitive perception of interrelatedness within social groups, encompassing emotional responses like feeling understood and valued. Positive emotion is defined as pleasant multicomponent response tendencies, including joy, interest, contentment, pride, and love. Experience impact is defined using the experience typology. This typology starts with prosaic experiences or ordinary parts of life. The next progression is memorable experiences which introduce felt emotions into the experience. The next stage is meaningful which introduces discovery as well as emotions into the experience. The final stage is transformational which introduces a desire, or actual personal change happening to the experiencer as well as emotions and discovery. To measure the various stages of the experience typology framework, we use the Experience Impact Scale to identify the personal impact of a tourist experience. These various constructs are explored through the perspective of the Self-Expansion Theory which states that people seek to expand their potential efficacy, perspectives, and sense of self through the development of relationships. This study utilizes this theory by looking into novelty’s effect on the impact of an experience through the lens of Self-Expansion Theory with respect to social connection and positive emotions as mediating factors. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling in AMOS v 28. Models were gradually expanded on, starting with the initial relationship between subjective novelty and experience impact. Later, a mediating model was considered that incorporated subjective connection and positive emotions as mediating effects on experience impact. The model examining the relationship between subjective novelty and experience impact as mediated by subjective connection and positive emotions had an acceptable model fit. The significant factors that contributed to the model were subjective novelty which had a standardized regression weight of .264, subjective connection which had a standardized regression weight of .222, and positive emotions which had a standardized regression weight of .256. The model explained 16% of the variance within experience impact. This study demonstrates that novelty influences social connection which influences positive emotion which positively impacts the tourist experience. People designing experiences should create a novel experience for the experiencer that evokes positive emotions and facilitates social connection. Future research could explore the relationship between the novelty of location and activities associated with tourist participation and the impact on the experience.

Authors: Ty Wilson. Mentors: Amita Kaundal. Insitution: Utah State University. Climate-induced environmental stresses and the increased use of fertilizers to meet the increasing demand for food significantly threaten food production and soil health. In natural environments, microbes are vital to the growth and development of plants. Their presence in the soil allows for enormous flexibility and nutritional availability for plants, particularly those living in harsh conditions. A plant’s microbiome, especially the underground, plays a significant role in its growth and development and mitigates environmental stresses. Idaho and Utah are particularly challenging environments due to extreme temperatures and arid soil. However, despite these difficult environmental factors, the native plants of Utah and Idaho can thrive. Here, we are exploring the rhizosphere microbiome of Shepherdia x utahensis ‘Torrey,’ a hybrid of two highly drought-tolerant buffaloberry species, S. argentea and S. rotundifolia native to the Intermountain West region of the US to isolate plant growth promoting bacteria. In this study, we isolated drought-resistant plant growth-promoting microbes from the rhizosphere of hybrid buffaloberry. Root samples of hybrid buffaloberry were collected from three locations in Utah: the USU campus, Greenville Farm USU, and the USU botanical garden, Kaysville. The rhizosphere was removed from these root samples and pooled together. The bacteria were isolated on five different bacterial growth media twice. The isolated microbes were then purified using the streak plate method. Forty-six unique isolates were selected based on morphological characteristics and tested for four plant growth-promoting traits. Fourteen bacteria could show the ability to fix nitrogen fix, 18 produced a siderophore, 17 could solubilize phosphate, and 11 produced catalases. IAA production, ACC deaminase, and protease activity assays are in progress. All isolates will be identified by 16S rRNA Sanger sequencing.

Authors: Alexander Everett, David Bean, Jeremy W Bakelar, Randy L Klabacka. Mentors: Randy L Klabacka. Insitution: Utah Tech University. β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) is a protein complex vital to cell survival in gram-negative bacteria that functions to insert proteins into the cell’s outer membrane. BamA, a protein composed of a membrane-bound beta barrel and several POTRA domains that protrude into the cytosol, is the primary subunit within BAM. It is suggested that BamA is conserved due to its widespread presence across the bacterial tree of life. Here we quantify the conservancy of BamA in 142 species of gram-negative bacteria from across the bacterial tree of life, with a focus on 120 species belonging to the order Enterobacterales. In addition, we compared the conservancy of BamA with other proteins with high and moderate levels of conservation in Enterobacterales. Lastly, we discuss regions of BamA that are of high conservation in the context of their potential as antibiotic targets.

Authors: Kylie Hansen. Mentors: Janis Boettinger. Insitution: Utah State University. Cache Valley, Utah, has unique soils due to environmental events such as Pleistocene pluvial Lake Bonneville. This lake extended about 20,000 square miles in Northern Utah, and its depletion left numerous shorelines, the most relevant being the Bonneville and Provo shorelines. These various water levels influence the geological formations in Cache Valley and the different characteristics of soil formation. An important soil-forming factor used to characterize varying soils is the parent material. Parent material is the original sediments the soil formed on and can be various things such as sediments deposited by gravity, streams, lake sediments, or wind. These different materials depend on the location and alter the soil properties. A dominant soil parent material in the Lake Bonneville area is sediment deposited by this lake. This type of parent material is identifiable by coarser-sized sediments, such as cobbles, gravel, and sand. This pattern is evident on terraces in Cache Valley’s lower soil layers, but the near-surface layers have fewer rock fragments and more fine sand, silt, and clay. This distinct difference in particle size leads to the question of what is the parent material source in the surface horizons of soil formed in Lake Bonneville deposits in Cache Valley. There is not much literature on this question and little documentation compares the soil profiles for different Lake Bonneville terrace levels (Bonneville shoreline compared to Provo shoreline). We hypothesize that the different particle sizes of parent material in the surface of soils formed dominantly in Lake Bonneville deposits is eolian sediment transported and deposited by wind. To determine this, we will sample soils across Cache Valley and analyze the fine and very fine sand sediments in plane-polarized and cross-polarized light. This process will identify various minerals within each soil horizon, showing possible differences in the upper and lower horizons. The minerals present in each soil will indicate the parent materials, allowing us to understand what is causing the different textured horizons in these soils and where the sediment originated from.

Authors: Reagan McKee, Vicente Fernández Lara, Jeremy Bakelar, Randy Klabacka, Dustin Kolste. Mentors: Randy Klabacka. Insitution: Utah Tech University. The capability to survive freezing temperatures is of crucial importance to ectothermic organisms inhabiting cold climates. The mechanisms that have evolved to minimalize the cellular damage incurred by freezing are of interest due to their applications in agriculture and medicine. fr10 is a gene identified in the wood frog (Rana sylvatica)that has been shown to reduce the cellular damage sustained in freezing temperatures. To date, fr10 has not been identified in any taxa beyond R. sylvatica and as such, the evolution of this novel gene remains ambiguous. Furthermore, the exact mechanism by which fr10 reduces freezing related damage has yet to be determined. We use bioinformatics scripts to scan 38 frog genomes to identify orthologs in divergent frog lineages across varying elevational and latitudinal gradients and examine the evolution of this novel gene. Understanding the evolutionary and ecological context of this gene can elucidate its function and may inform commercial and medical applications.

Authors: Justin Hawkins, Charley Beck. Mentors: Alex Tye. Insitution: Utah Tech University. This study aims to address a critical gap in our understanding of the geological history and tectonic evolution of the Andes mountain range in Argentina. The Andes were formed due to a convergent boundary between the Nazca and South American plates. We are interested in the history of this boundary and how these mountains were formed. To better constrain the history of crustal deformation in NW Argentina, we collected samples from the Sierra de Chango Real, located south and along-strike of the Eastern Cordillera, and conducted new apatite (U-Th)/He dating on these samples. We combined new apatite (U-Th)/He data with the existing apatite fission-track data to gain a more comprehensive perspective on the geological evolution of the region.Apatite (U-Th)/He ages for new samples from the Sierra de Chango Real are between 6.3 and 17.6 Ma. These ages indicate Miocene exhumation of the Sierra de Chango Real due to tectonic deformation. Also, the distribution of these ages within the samples offers valuable information regarding variations in uplift rates and thermal events, which contribute to a better understanding of the geological processes that have shaped the Andes mountains. Published apatite fission track ages from the same locations have ages of 38 Ma to 30 Ma. Together, the thermochronometric ages suggest a history of tectonic exhumation from 38 Ma until ca. 6 Ma. In conclusion, our current study and analysis of samples taken from Sierra de Chango Real, Argentina, in conjunction with published apatite fission-track data, contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the region's geological history.

Authors: Amy Richards, Caleb Shelton, Jordan Colmenero, Mason Warenski. Mentors: Diana Reese. Insitution: Utah Tech University. Hydrogen gas has potential to be an excellent form of clean energy; unfortunately, hydrogen gas is difficult to store safely in its elemental form. Consequently, this research project investigated cyclic aminoborane complexes in which hydrogen (H2) can be safely stored. Utilizing computational methods, molecular dynamics simulations of four cyclic aminoborane compounds were performed using Q-CHEM 6.0, with a t-HCTHh density functional and cc-pVDZ basis set. Results were visualized using Molden 6.7 and VMD 1.9.3 then plotted using Gnuplot 5.2.8. Molecules selected for the investigation involve two constitutional isomers for both the 3- and 4- membered ring cyclic aminoborane complexes. The four molecules studied were (CH2)2NHBH3, (CH2)2BHNH3, (CH2)3NHBH3, and (CH2)3BHNH3, (hereafter 3N-B, 3B-N, 4N-B, 4B-N). Motions inherent in these molecules exhibited surprising differences. Specifically, in the 3-membered rings, the terminal borane (3N-B) exhibited more motion than the terminal amine (3B-N); however in the 4-membered rings (4N-B and 4B-N) the opposite occurred. Differences in these and other motions were quantified and qualified with respect to each molecule to gather data relevant to hydrogen storage potential.

Authors: Alyssa Muller, Russ Ross. Mentors: Russ Ross. Insitution: Utah Tech University. University course timetabling assigns rooms and times to courses, considering instructor availability, curriculum conflicts, and quality of life considerations. Computing an optimal solution is computationally intractable. Researchers have refined approximation algorithms that yield far better results than the conventional pencil-and-paper approach used at many universities, including our own. Transitioning to an automated system can be disruptive and poses both real and perceived risks to an institution. The implicit knowledge that humans bring to the problem is hard to fully capture within formal rules that a computer can understand. Our research addresses the impedance mismatch between abstract solutions and the messy real world.In this project we build on prior research to fit the specific needs of our university. We will pilot our system with a set of departments in parallel with the traditional by hand process. We will analyze outcome quality through subjective assessment and quantitative comparison between human and machine generated timetables.

Authors: Ashley Staten. Mentors: Jennifer Meyer. Insitution: Utah Tech University. Pterostilbene, a natural product found in blueberries and nuts, has been shown to be multifunctional. In low doses, it has been shown to be a potent antioxidant, while in higher doses, it has been shown to reduce cell proliferation, induce autophagy, and increase apoptosis. Recent literature has indicated that derivatives of pterostilbene can improve the functionality of pterostilbene in both cancer cell viability (reduction) and antioxidant capacity (increase). Previously, our group has synthesized and characterized the antioxidant capacity of a select group of pterostilbene derivatives, which have been functionalized to contain an additional alcohol and amine group. Most recently, we have synthesized a derivative containing benzylamine as the amine. This amine was chosen as benzylamine and drugs functionalized with benzylamine groups have been shown to have antiapoptotic properties. Currently, we aim to further characterize this novel pterostilbene derivative as we believe it has the potential to be utilized as a therapeutic in various disease states such as cancer and type 2 diabetes.

Authors: Michael Orr. Mentors: Md Sazib Hasan, Alex Tye. Insitution: Utah Tech University. Every year Landslides claim lives and cause billions in property damage. Zion National Park in Southwestern Utah has been monitoring a precarious rock column contained within the parks borders since 2019. The results of this rockfall will be damage to the land and historical structures located in the fall area. The data are collected by two instruments called vibrating-wire crackmeters that are connected from the cliff face to the pillar—these are electronic and provide a continuous feed of distance measurements. The project will be focused on analyzing a 4-year record of displacement of a precarious rock pillar from the adjacent cliff face from which it will eventually separate and topple onto a slope below. We will also be analyzing the environmental factors causing the movement of the rock column. Results of this modeling will help us better understand the driving forces behind rockfalls, possibly helping to mitigate future damage.

Authors: Vicente Fernández Lara, Reagan McKee, Randy Klabacka, Angelina Romero. Mentors: Randy Klabacka. Insitution: Utah Tech University. Aspidoscelis (family: Teiidae) is a genus of lizards with many parthenogenic species found in North America. The parthenogenic species reproduce asexually, meaning all individuals in these species are female. The native range of Aspidoscelis neomexicanus (the New Mexico whiptail) is within the Rio Grande basin in New Mexico and Trans Pecos Texas. It has been reported outside its foreign range in northern Utah (Salt Lake area) as an introduced/invasive species, but has never been reported in southern Utah. We captured three individuals in Washington County that have the superficial diagnostic characters of Aspidoscelis neomexicanus. Using molecular genetics, we will test the taxonomic identity of this species and use phylogenetic analysis to determine the source population from its native range.

Authors: Taylor Millett, Wendy Schatzberg, Samuel Tobler. Mentors: Wendy Schatzberg. Insitution: Utah Tech University. This study delves into the intriguing world of hollow hair strands in animals, focusing on their role in thermoregulation, and the ability to maintain a stable body temperature in the face of fluctuating external conditions. While the Pronghorn antelope is widely known for having hollow hair strands among hunters and conservationists, little is known about their internal structure. Employing scanning electron microscopy (SEM), we explored the inner composition of these hollow hair strands and their contribution to thermoregulation. Our investigation centered on several notable North American big game animals, including Mule deer, Rocky Mountain elk, and Pronghorn antelope, all of which exhibit a unique adaptation: the transition between summer and winter coats. Through SEM analysis, we measured and compared the winter and summer coats of these animals to gain insights into how they effectively regulate their body temperatures during the extremes of hot summers and cold winters. These seasonal changes manifest in alterations in fur and hair thickness and length. Under the microscope, we unveiled the distinct topography of the inner structure of individual hair strands. Notably, our findings revealed that the inner hair structure contains larger hollow pockets in the winter coats of these animals. Our research thus sheds light on the role of these hollow structures in heat transfer and their pivotal contribution to the thermoregulation abilities of these remarkable creatures, expanding our understanding of their unique adaptations.

Authors: Grace Harang, Avery Hansgen. Mentors: Zhenyu Jin. Insitution: Utah Tech University. Title: Utah Tech Capus Temperature Mapping with GISAuthors: Grace Harang and Avery Hansgen, Advisor: Zhenyu JinAbstract: Across America, college campuses are re-evaluating their landscaping decisions to better support the environment. Utah Tech University, in the Mojave Desert, has a large amount of grass across the campus which is extremely water-consuming, non-native, and expensive to upkeep. However, removal of grass would result in lower humidity and even higher temperatures on campus. Our research will quantify how the temperature may be affected based on land-cover. This will be essential to any future decisions by the school board. Our method will be to map out 45 evenly spaced points across Utah Tech campus, 15 grass land-cover, 15 xero-scape cover, and 15 bare concrete (parking lots). At both 10am and 9pm. At each point, we will record the humidity and air temperature. To ensure that the sun rays and wind-chill are not also being read, we will use an umbrella to shade the measuring device. The purpose of this project is to determine the temperature difference between the three different surfaces, and to use GIS spatial interpolation to make campus temperature maps.

Authors: Austin Meyer, Gavin Grimmett, Martina Gaspari. Mentors: Martina Gaspari. Insitution: Utah Tech University. DNA can form non-canonical base pairings, resulting in structures distinct from the conventional double helix. One such example is the Hoogsteen base pairing, which can give rise to triple helix DNA. Triple helix DNA plays essential roles in regulating DNA metabolism and gene function, but its unusual nature is inherently mutagenic, sometimes leading to conditions like cancer. Recent research has uncovered that colorectal tumors exhibit significantly higher activity of triplex DNA binding proteins compared to their normal tissue. To explore this correlation, this study aims to employ cell and molecular biology techniques to investigate the relationship between the rise in triple helix DNA binding proteins and the presence of DNA triple helices. We initiated our study by extracting total RNA from HeLa cells, followed by the design and synthesis of specific primers for cloning ORC2 and ORC4 by RT-PCR. The experiment is further designed to analyze the potential consequences of ORC2 and ORC4 overexpression in human cell lines. Expression vectors containing ORC2 and ORC4 will be transfected into WI-38 cell lines comparing them to untransfected ones with hope of observing an increase of the proteins of interest and of triple helix DNA. The cell lines will be lysed, the total protein will be extracted, and Western blot will be conducted for comparison. Triple helix DNA will also be measured by calorimetric melting and high-speed centrifugation.

Authors: Erick Gutierrez, Sazib Hasan, Vinodh Chellamuthu, Jie Liu. Mentors: Sazib Hasan. Insitution: Utah Tech University. Breast Cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States.In 2023, the American Cancer Society anticipates the diagnosis of 297,790 new cases of invasive breast cancer, with approximately 43,700 women expected to lose their lives to this disease. It is crucial to undertake research endeavors aimed at discerning genetic sequence patterns to facilitate the classification and treatment of breast cancer. Recent work has shown that Machine Learning techniques are effective at classifying breast cancer using genetic sequences. Our research employs the METABRIC Breast Cancer Gene Expression Profiles dataset and machine learning techniques like Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLP) and Random Forest to explore the link between survivability, treatment, and specific genes in breast cancer patients. Predicting survival based on gene sequences and treatments can inform effective countermeasures and research priorities.

Authors: Dante Celani, Erin Bunch, Randy Klabacka. Mentors: Randy Klabacka. Insitution: Utah Tech University. Hybrid parthenogenic whiptail species have lower endurance capacity and mitochondrial respiration than their sexual parental species. These differences in aerobic performance may be due to reduced compatibility of variable gene products between the divergent parental genomes that are present in the hybrids. If this is the case, we expect to see genetic variation in mitochondrial-targetting genes. We performed whole-genome sequencing for four sexual whiptail species that are parental species to hybrid parthenogenetic species, and we mapped those samples to an annotated whiptail genome. We call gene variants and classify them as coding, non-coding, synonymous, and non-synonymous to understand which variants might contribute to phenotypic variation, and we discuss approaches to further elucidate the genetic mechanism behind the lower aerobic performance in hybrid parthenogens.

Authors: Charley Beck, Justin Hawkins. Mentors: Alex Tye. Insitution: Utah Tech University. Thermochronometry dating of apatite (U-Th/He) of Andes Plate Tectonics from the Sierra de Altohuasi Charley Beck, Justin Hawkins, Alex TyeDuring the Cenozoic time period plate tectonics caused uplift in the Eastern Cordillera. We constrain the geologic evolution of the southernmost Eastern Cordillera through (U-Th/He) dating. Our results advance our understanding of the convergent plate boundary of the South American Plate and the Nazca Plate. The exhumation event caused the formation of the mountain range found in the Sierra de Altohuasi. Four samples were collected in the Sierra de Altohuasi near the town of Corral Quemado, Catamarca Province, Argentina. The samples were then analyzed using an apatite (U-Th)/He) system. The results indicated exhumation of the Sierra de Altohuasi from 28.6-13.3 Ma. This suggests an episode of exhumation during the Miocene and Oligocene, due to subduction of the Nazca Plate under the South American Plate. These apatite (U-Th/He) ages better constrain the exhumation history of the Eastern Cordillera. Further studies will show correlation of uplift events of the surrounding areas of Corral Quemado. Due to the compressed South American Plate, our data suggests the large mountain range formed under movement of the Nazca Plate.

Authors: Maddy Howard, Brooke Dension, Shanna Groesbeck. Mentors: Sandy Wilson. Insitution: Utah Valley University. AbstractThere are many systemic diseases that are linked to oral health. This literature review specifically examines different studies and academic journals that have studied the relationship between oral health, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Obesity is linked to the patient's oral health in many ways. When patients are consuming large quantities of food more often than normal, this results in a more acidic environment along with energy for bacteria to grow. One study found a correlation between obesity and risk factors such as “frequency of brushing teeth, smoking, tooth loss, gingivitis, and dental caries (Yilmax & Somay, 2021). This article discusses the strong correlation between oral health and heart disease. Several studies emphasize the importance of dental hygienists educating their patients about the link between their oral and cardiovascular health. The articles conclude that treating periodontal disease more effectively and aggressively could lead to a marked reduction in coronary heart disease rates and vice versa.Diabetes and periodontal disease is also examined at length in this literature review. Diabetes and periodontitis is described as a ‘two-way relationship’. Evidence shows that individuals with diabetes, type 1 or type 2, are 34% more likely to develop periodontal disease. On the other hand, individuals experiencing periodontal disease are 53% more likely to develop diabetes (Wu, et al., 2020). This literature review will explore the importance of oral health in keeping your entire body healthy.ReferencesArora, A., Rana, K., Manohar, N., Li, L., Bhole, S., & Chimoriya, R. (2022). Perceptions and practices of oral health care professionals in preventing and managing childhood obesity. Nutrients, 14(9), 1809. 10.3390/nu14091809.Batty, G. D., Jung, K. J., Mok, Y., Lee, S. J., Back, J. H., Lee, S., & Jee, S. H. (2018). Oral health and later coronary heart disease: Cohort study of one million people. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 25(6), 598-605. 10.1177/2047487318759112Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). Defining adult overweight & obesity. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deraz, O., Rangé, H., Boutouyrie, P., Chatzopoulou, E., Asselin, A., Guibout, C., Van Sloten, T., Bougouin, W., Andrieu, M., Vedie, B., Thomas, F., Danchin, N., Jouven, X., Bouchard, P., & Empana, J. P. (2022). Oral condition and incident coronary heart disease: A clustering analysis. Journal of Dental Research, 101(5), 526-533. 10.1177/00220345211052507Sanchez, P., Everett, B., Salamonson, Y., Ajwani, S., Bhole, S., Bishop, J., Lintern, K., Nolan, S., Rajaratnam, R., Redfern, J., Sheehan, M., Skarligos, F., Spencer, L., Srinivas, R., & George, A. (2017). Perceptions of cardiac care providers towards oral health promotion in Australia. Collegian, 25(5), 471-478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2017.11.006Preshaw, P. M., Alba, A. L., Herrera, D., Jepsen, S., Konstantinidis, A., Makrilakis, K., & Taylor, R. (2012). Periodontitis and diabetes: A two-way relationship. Diabetologia, 55(1), 21-31. 10.1007/s00125-011-2342-yWu, C.-Z., Yuan, Y.-H., Liu, H.-H., Li, S.-S., Zhang, B.-W., Chen, W., An, Z.-J., Chen, S.-Y., Wu, Y.-Z., Han, B., Li, C.-J., & Li, L.-J. (2020). Epidemiologic relationship between periodontitis and type 2 diabetes mellitus. BMC oral health, 20, 204. 10.1186/s12903-020-01180-wYilmax, Busra. & Somay, Efsun. (2021). Is obesity a problem that threatens oral health in adults? Cukurova Medical Journal, 46(3), 1215-1221. DOI: 10.17826/cumj.950243

Authors: Barry Gyman. Mentors: Cody Reeves. Insitution: Brigham Young University. The purpose of this paper is to qualify and analyze the leading driving forces in determining the success of healthcare innovations in a variety of subspaces in the healthcare industry. Health is one of the largest markets in America and is almost universally relied upon. As the systems and technologies of healthcare are innovated and improved upon, the quality and efficiency of this care stands to increase, potentially benefiting both those who provide care, those who receive care, or both. The healthcare industry offers a plethora of niches needing innovating and the potential of high economic return for the producers, and yet only a small portion of innovations are adopted and successfully integrated with some areas having a failure rate approaching or exceeding 90% (Sun et al., 2022)(Jacobs et. al, 2015). What propels these few successful innovations towards adoption that so many other innovations fail to achieve? Through the analysis of dozens of papers researching success robustness in various healthcare fields, such as pharmacology and technological innovation, we will summarize the data in search of shared commonalities among successful innovations. Sun, D., Gao, W., Hu, H., & Zhou, S. (2022). Why 90% of clinical drug development fails and how to improve it?. Acta pharmaceutica Sinica. B, 12(7), 3049–3062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsb.2022.02.002Jacobs, S.R., Weiner, B.J., Reeve, B.B. et al. Determining the predictors of innovation implementation in healthcare: a quantitative analysis of implementation effectiveness. BMC Health Serv Res 15, 6 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-014-0657-3

Authors: Marie Gibb. Mentors: Francine Jensen. Insitution: Utah Valley University. Maternal mortality, also known as maternal death, is defined as the death of a woman during pregnancy and up to one year postpartum. (MacDorman et al., 2021; Spelke & Werner, 2018). The United States is the only developed nation where the rates of maternal mortality are rising, and they have been rising for twenty years (Simpson, 2019; Spelke & Werner, 2018). This incidence represents a maternal health crisis in the United States. On average, 700 women in the United States die each year from pregnancy-related complications. This equates to 17.2 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births (Simpson, 2019). Currently, the maternal mortality rate for Utah is higher than the national average at 21.5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births (Utah Department of Health and Human Services, 2023). According to More than 60% of these deaths are preventable (MacDorman et al., 2021; Simpson, 2019).The leading causes of maternal death in the United States are hemorrhage, preeclampsia, eclampsia, hypertension, embolisms, and cardiomyopathy, which often lead to cardiovascular disorders (MacDorman et al., 2021; Simpson, 2019). The Utah Health and Human Services (2023) reported that increases in heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, mental health disorders, and other chronic conditions complicate pregnancies and are contributing to maternal mortality in Utah. The American Heart Association has cautioned that pregnancy complications like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and preterm delivery are linked to maternal heart disease later in life (Parikh et al., 2021). Research suggests that each episode has a cumulative effect (Marill, 2021), meaning, the more pregnancies women have, and the more complications women have during pregnancy, the more elevated their risks are in general for cardiovascular disorders as they age. A qualitative survey was sent out using snowball sampling to women over the age of 18 in Utah asking about their understanding of cardiovascular risk factors and current health conditions. Findings showed that women were unaware of their potential cardiovascular risks associated with pregnancy. Raising awareness regarding these cardiovascular risks may be the number one preventative strategy, as women are the ones who bear the personal and physical risks. If pregnant women are aware of their cardiovascular risk factors, they can be empowered to raise concerns when necessary. Future interventions may include educating all women of childbearing years about cardiovascular risks prior to pregnancy, as well as more frequent screening of women during and after delivery (Marill, 2021). ReferencesMacDorman, M. F., Thoma, M., Declcerq, E., & Howell, E. A. (2021). Racial and ethnic disparities in maternal mortality in the United States using enhanced vital records, 2016‒2017. American Journal of Public Health, 111(9), 1673–1681. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2021.306375Marill, M. C. (2021). Getting to the heart of America's maternal mortality crisis. Health Affairs, 40(12), 1824-1829. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01702Parikh, N. I., Gonzalez, J. M., Anderson, C. A. M., Judd, S. E., Rexrode, K. M., Hlatky, M. A., Gunderson, E. P., Stuart, J. J., & Vaidya, D. (2021, May 4). Adverse pregnancy outcomes and cardiovascular disease risk: Unique opportunities for cardiovascular disease prevention in women: A scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 143(18), e902-e916. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000961Simpson, K. (2019). Maternal mortality in the United States. MCN, The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing, 44 (5), 249-249. doi: 10.1097/NMC.0000000000000560.Spelke, B., & Werner, E. (2018). The fourth trimester of pregnancy: Committing to maternal health and well-being postpartum. Rhode Island Medical Journal (2013), 101(8), 30–33.Utah Department of Health and Human Services. (2023, March 16). Complete health indicator report of maternal mortality. Retrieved Sat, 09 September 2023 from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, Indicator-Based Information System for Public Health website: http://ibis.health.utah.gov. https://ibis.health.utah.gov/ibisph-view/indicator/complete_profile/MatMort.html

Authors: Joshua Evans, Allison Voyles, McKenzie Bellon, Julianne Grose. Mentors: Julianne Grose. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Alpha-crystallin B (CryAB) is a small heat shock protein that acts as a molecular chaperone and plays an essential role in cytoskeletal organization and myofibril function. Human mutations in CryAB have been associated with various diseases, such as cardiomyopathy and cataracts. However, the precise molecular pathways and protein substrates of CryAB are not yet fully understood and require further investigation. This project aims to increase understanding of CryAB by determining proteins that bind wild-type versus disease-causing variants using yeast two-hybrid screens. It also involves testing for binding specificity of variant-binding partners. A series of these Y2H screens gives valuable information regarding the binding patterns of CryAB, showing distinct binding partners for different alleles of CryAB. Overall, the project provides greater insight into the molecular functions of CryAB as well as a better understanding of the dysfunctional pathways of its disease-causing variants—a factor which may, in the future, have potential applications to the treatment of related diseases in a clinical setting

Authors: Ishmael Elliott Molina-Zepeda, Brandt Jones, Myke Madsen, Douglas Sborov, Brian Avery, Nicola J. Camp . Mentors: Nicola J. Camp. Insitution: University of Utah. Multiple Myeloma (MM) is a malignancy of plasma cells and one of the more common hematological malignancies (6.3/100,000 new cases/year). Although treatments have improved, most patients fail their first line of treatment and ultimately do not survive beyond 5 years. Identifying patients at high risk of failing treatment early is a critical need. SPECTRA is a statistical technique developed by the Camp Lab to characterize global gene expression (the transcriptome) by representing it as multiple quantitative tumor variables. Spectra variables allow gene expression to be incorporated into predictive modeling to identify high-risk groups.Transcriptome data for myeloma cells was available from 768 patients in the international CoMMpass study where 39 spectra variables were derived. Each patient has a value for each of the 39 variables (their spectra “barcode”); patients can be compared for each bar in the barcode. Predictive modeling using spectra variables was successful in identifying risk groups for time to treatment failure, such that a patient’s tumor transcriptome can be used to predict whether they are at high risk of having their treatment fail earlier.To replicate the CoMMpass data findings, we collect and process local biological samples from MM patients at the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI). We collect bone marrow samples, which are then cell-sorted to identify tumor (CD138+) cells. RNA is extracted from these cells and sequenced to generate transcriptome data. Then the spectra barcode is calculated.Utilizing the SPECTRA technique provides a more complete understanding of MM by better characterizing the tumor. Each spectra is a tumor characteristic. Our future research includes an investigation of whether inherited variations (in normal DNA from saliva or whole blood) are associated with the transcriptome risk score. We are also pursuing the SPECTRA technique in several other cancers.

Authors: Jared Wieland, Jacob Herring. Mentors: Jeffery Tessem. Insitution: Brigham Young University. A central attribute of Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is beta cell damage. This damage commonly affects beta cell’s ability to secrete insulin and regulate blood glucose levels. Nkx6.1 is a beta cell transcription factor essential for proliferation, differentiation, and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. Hyperglycemia is detrimental to beta cell function and function. We hypothesize that hyperglycemia may negatively affect the expression and activity of beta cell transcription factors, including Nkx6.1. To provide an understanding of the effects of hyperglycemic conditions on Nkx6.1 expression, INS-1 832/13 beta cells were cultured in hyperglycemic conditions, then primary rat islets were treated for the same durations of time. Here, we present transcriptional, translational, cellular localization, and degradation of states of Nkx6.1 over 48 hours of hyperglycemic culture conditions both in vitro and ex vivo models. Comprehension of the mechanisms involved in hyperglycemic downregulation of Nkx6.1 is imperative to the development of treatments for diabetes.

Authors: Sofia Denise Flowers. Mentors: Lauri Linder. Insitution: University of Utah. Background and Purpose: In the year 2023, roughly 9,000 children will be diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States. Dealing with a potentially fatal diagnosis is already difficult for many grown adults, let alone a young child. The aim of this project is to describe caregiving experiences of parents and children with cancer as related through feedback comments within written and oral feedback to proposed items to measure self-efficacy for managing their child’s symptoms and behaviors used to manage their child’s symptoms.Methods: This project involved a secondary analysis of qualitative data from 21 parents (19 mothers; mean age 38 years) of school-age children with cancer who participated in a study to establish the content validity of instruments to measure aspects of symptom management. Data consisted of interview transcripts and free responses to the content review surveys. The data were then uploaded to Dedoose. My mentor and I worked independently to identify statements pertaining to parents’ experiences in managing their child’s symptoms and responding to the child’s cancer diagnosis. We then met together to reconcile content and then organize parents’ statements into categories and subcategories. Results: 101 excerpts were extracted from the transcripts and included for the secondary analysis. Excerpts were grouped into four main categories: informational resources, social support, emotional support, and medication management Within these four main categories, subthemes of professional staff support, managing child attitude and mood changes, and balancing between being a parent and their child’s medical advocate were present. Conclusion: The insights gained from this project can guide the information healthcare providers need to provide better care to the child and additional support to parents. This can allow professional staff to get a stronger understanding of not just the family’s medical needs but their informational, social, and emotional needs as well.

Authors: Thomas Caldwell. Mentors: Dustin Shipp. Insitution: Utah Valley University. In this research project, we have transformed an existing Raman spectroscopy simulation, enhancing its performance and capabilities through the integration of parallel computing with GPU acceleration. This significant improvement in computation time allows us to break through previous computational limitations, enabling more sophisticated and complex applications of the simulation. The principal applications we will be assessing are the viability and potential of spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) for deeper tissue analysis, exploring the possibilities of topographical imaging using Raman techniques, and the advanced application of chemical imaging of microscopic tumors. This expanded scope demonstrates the simulation's potential in early cancer detection.

Authors: Emmalie Parker. Mentors: Heather Thiesset. Insitution: Utah Valley University. Changes in health insurance due to the Affordable Care act created a bridge for college students to remain on their parent or guardian’s health insurance for a longer period of time. However, little is done to close the gap of education deficiency in the area of health insurance literacy during this time. While most students in a universal health system have relatively few options to choose from, students in the US are faced with many different plans through employment or the open marketplace. Therefore, in order to ensure adequate access to care, it is imperative that students understand the fundamentals of this system in the US. This quantitative cross-sectional survey sampled 500 currently registered UVU students to assess their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and healthcare utilization. This data was stratified by age and sex. Descriptive statistics and chi2 analyses were performed. This study showed that disparities in healthcare literacy affect healthcare utilization and can be a catalyst for long-term healthcare access issues for students and their families.

Authors: Isaac Stubbs, Skyler Russell, Melissa Blotter, Maxwell Holmes. Mentors: Ryley Parrish. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Status Epilepticus (SE) is a severe medical condition marked by continuous seizures lasting over 5 minutes. When SE becomes resistant to anticonvulsant drugs, the condition is known as Refractory Status Epilepticus (RSE), which lacks effective treatments and has a mortality rate of 38%. RSE lacks effective treatments partially due to our limited understanding of the mechanisms that lead to patient drug resistance to commonly used anticonvulsants. This study aims to address this knowledge gap in two pivotal ways.First, we have employed a high-density multi-electrode array (HD-MEA) with acute mouse brain slices to better understand RSE propagation patterns and various seizure states with unparalleled spatial precision. The HD-MEA allows us to record from the entire brain slice with 4096 electrodes sampling electrophysiological activity at every 60 micrometers for many hours at a time. Our data demonstrates that different seizure states, such as phasic seizure-like events, short duration epileptic discharges, or RSE itself, occur within both the same brain region and in different brain regions simultaneously. With our novel data visualization software, we can visualize the unique propagation of this phenomenon. These findings indicate that RSE might be a progressive event, challenging conventional understanding of RSE. Second, we are currently exploring a potential pharmacoresistance mechanism that may contribute to the patient entering RSE, which suggests that changes in the chloride reversal potential may lead to a phenomenon known as depolarizing GABA. Depolarizing GABA may negate the effectiveness of the currently used antiepileptic drugs that rely on standard physiological chloride conductance to effectively limit seizure activity. We are studying this drug resistant mechanism with the HD-MEA by introducing anticonvulsant drugs to acute mouse brain slices during the evolution of RSE to locate a critical point at which the slice becomes resistant to these compounds.We hope this study will illuminate the complexities of RSE by revealing its progressive nature and drug resistant properties.

Authors: Quinn Gerber, Lucas Carpenter, Jacob Clemons, Cindy Kin. Mentors: Cindy Kin. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Introduction: It is vital that patients are adequately prepared for surgical intervention. To meet this need, many medical centers have adopted prehabilitation protocols. The aim of this study was to establish an in-depth comprehension of the attitudes towards surgery and barriersand preferences to prehabilitation for patients identifying as Latino, in order to develop a preliminary framework for adapting prehab programs to best meet the needs of this specific patient population.Methods: We conducted qualitative semi-structured in-person one-on-one interviews with Latino patients who had recently undergone major abdominal surgery. The interviews, conducted at an academic medical center, were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, translated into English (as needed), iteratively coded, and discussed by four researchers to reach consensus. We used thematic analysis to identify shared attitudes held by patients and common barriers to the adoption of prehabilitation programs. Analysis of these attitudes and barriers, along with stated patient preferences, led to the development of several ideas that physicians can implement to increase prehab adoption among Latino patients.Results: We interviewed 16 patients, at which point we reached thematic saturation. The patients were on average 52 years old (range 20 to 79) and 50% were women. Our pooled kappa score was .92, indicating a very high degree of concordance among the coding researchers. We identified five common attitudes held by Latino patients regarding surgery: anxiety associated with hospitalizations and surgical procedures, deep trust in physicians, reliance on positivity, tight-knit families/communities, and prominent religious and cultural beliefs. A lack of understanding, physical limitations, a reactive/delayed approach to healthcare, dietary barriers, and mental barriers emerged as obstacles to prehabilitation adoption. These attitudes and barriers, along with direct patient feedback, led us to identify several programmatic priorities that may increase adherence to prehab. These components consist of face-to-face interaction, increased communication, patient and physician collaboration in program development, and family/support group engagement in surgical preparation.Conclusion: Our study provides physicians preliminary insight into customizing prehabilitation programs to best meet the needs and customs of the Latino community, including anxiety associated with hospitalizations, strong social support, and a dominant role of religious faith in coping with illness. We identified several critical components that may make prehab more culturally competent and thus more likely to be adopted by patients. These include in-person coaching, increased information about the upcoming operation and recovery, and engagement of family members. We recommend that healthcare teams committed to prehabilitation consider these needs to make their programs more attractive and accessible to their Latino patients.

Authors: Caroline Cowley, Megan Jewell, Brenda Mendoza, Aubrey Cluff, Ryan Summerhays, Jason Hansen. Mentors: Jason Hansen. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Approximately 8 million newborns manifest a birth defect every year worldwide. One of the most common birth defects involve disruptions in musculoskeletal development. Oxidative stress has been found to propagate teratogenesis. Thioredoxin-1 (Trx1), an oxidoreductase, is an important antioxidant regulator required for proper embryonic development. Trx1 knockouts have been found to be embryolethal prior to implantation. A preliminary study to assess osteogenesis was conducted using mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) originating from transgenic conditional Trx1 knockout embryos. Upon confluence, MEFs were stimulated to undergo osteogenesis via commercially available media. A subset of cells were treated with doxycycline (DOX) prior to and throughout the culture period. MEFs were maintained over a 21 day period in a reduced oxygen environment. MEFs were then fixed in formalin and stained with Alizarin red to determine the degree of osteogenesis. MEFs treated with DOX were unable to undergo proper osteogenesis. While this would suggest that osteogenesis is regulated through proper functions of Trx1, it is unknown how Trx1 regulates osteogenesis in utero. Because Trx1 deletion is lethal prior to implantation it has been historically difficult to study the role of Trx1 during organogenesis. With the development of the DOX-inducible Trx1 conditional knockout mouse, we can now target specific developmental periods and evaluate post-implantation processes like osteogenesis. Using proper transgenic mice and breeding schemes, DOX-inducible Trx1 conditional knockout embryos were treated in utero with DOX through the dam’s drinking water, starting on gestational day (GD) 8.5. The embryos were collected on GD 16.5, fixed in 95% ethanol, and then skinned. To visualize bone and cartilage, the embryos were placed in ethanol and subsequently stained with Alizarin red and Alcian blue. The staining showed that embryos lacking Trx1 were significantly stunted in their skeletal maturation. With this data, we are the first to show that during organogenesis, the musculoskeletal system is affected by deletions of Trx1 at specific periods of development. Under oxidizing conditions which exceed the capacity of the oxidoreductase pathway of Trx1, Trx1 exists primarily in its oxidized form and can no longer reduce proteins that have been turned off by oxidation. Our Trx1 deletions model a highly oxidized state in which Trx1 is dysfunctional. Because regulatory redox control of protein activity is required for proper embryonic development, exposure to oxidizing environmental conditions specifically affecting Trx1 redox state may target the disruption of the musculoskeletal system.

Authors: Tayler Fearn, Caroline Torgensen, Vern Hart. Mentors: Vern Hart. Insitution: Utah Valley University. Coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) is a newly developed modality used to measure phase shifts introduced by fine-scale structures in cells. These phase shifts can be used to distinguish healthy and malignant cells, providing a diagnostic marker for early cancer detection. However, this process, in which diffracted light interferes with incident light, requires collecting scattered photons at large angles, representing high spatial frequencies and short wavelengths. The highest frequencies, needed to reconstruct small details in cells for improved image quality, occur at distances of several centimeters from the central bright fringe. As such, these signals are faint and difficult to collect experimentally. We propose the use of deep learning to synthetically extrapolate diffraction patterns at large distances, where measurements are difficult. In prototyping this method, we will present results produced by a generative adversarial network (GAN), trained using existing data of watercolor paintings to preform style transfer and image extrapolation. This will be an essential step in working towards the larger goal of developing GAN’s that can accurately extrapolate diffraction images.

Authors: Drew Allred, Vern Hart. Mentors: Vern Hart. Insitution: Utah Valley University. Surgery remains one of the most common and effective treatments for a variety of cancers, especially those that form solid, localized tumors such as breast and colorectal cancers. During these treatments, the palpable lesion is surgically resected with the assumption that cancerous cells have metastasized to nearby tissues. As such, surgeons will excise a tissue margin surrounding the tumor in hopes of removing any additional cancer, thus preventing further spread of the disease. However, this process is time-consuming and requires specialized expertise from a trained pathologist to verify that all cancer has been removed. Furthermore, if the pathology report indicates that not all cancerous cells have been extracted, additional follow-up visits and surgeries are typically required. In recent years a number of non-invasive technologies have been developed which seek to map cancerous cells in whole tissues. Training and validating these methods still requires a reliable ground truth, typically provided by an annotated pathology report. We propose a simpler model in which two cell species were co-cultured to provide a heterogeneous training sample. One of these species (PANC-1) was transfected with a vector coding for a fluorescent marker to represent healthy tissue, while the other species (COS-7) remained untreated, representing cancerous cells. An experiment was then conducted using a coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) system, in which laser light incident on the cells was used to quantify phase shifts produced by each cell type. Fluorescent microscopy was then used to create a map of transfected and non-transfected cells for comparison. Results will be presented demonstrating a correlation between the phase shifts produced by the two cell types and the corresponding fluorescent images, potentially facilitating optical cell identification without the need for pathology.

Authors: Hunter Morrill, Ryley Parrish. Mentors: Ryley Parrish. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Spreading depolarizations (SDs) are slow propagating waves of depolarization that move through the brain and have been associated with a wide variety of neuropathologies including the termination of seizures, the cellular correlate of aura in migraines, traumatic brain injury, and ischemic stroke. Though first characterized by Aristides Leão in the 1940s, only a very limited understanding of the mechanisms of SD induction has been achieved. SDs have been induced in mouse models using a variety of techniques, however regardless of the method of induction, high extracellular potassium and/or a strong cellular depolarization have been largely hypothesized as necessary conditions for SD induction. Interestingly, we have recently demonstrated that using a light-induced chloride pump (Halorhodopsin) to drive chloride ions into the neurons can reliably induce SDs even in the absence of high extracellular potassium levels (Parrish, 2023). It was also demonstrated that the triggering of archaerhodopsin, which removes protons from the cell and therefore hyperpolarizes the neuronal membrane without affecting chloride levels, did not induce SDs, suggesting the implication of chloride loading as a primary mechanism in SD induction. This challenges the prevalent hypothesis regarding the induction of SDs and results in a novel method of induction that allows for more characterization of the mechanisms involved. The use of genetically expressed light-gated ion channels or pumps is referred to as optogenetics. Using zebrafish, a common model for electrophysiology recordings that is also cost-effective to genetically manipulate, we have established an optogenetically induced model of SD induction. We are currently characterizing mechanisms that result in optogenetically induced SDs with pharmacology to further our understanding of SD initiation and propagation.Parrish, R. R.-G.-T. (2023). Indirect Effects of Halorhodopsin Activation: Potassium Redistribution, Nonspecific Inhibition, and Spreading Depolarization. The Journal of neuroscience: the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 43(5), 685-692.

Authors: Zach Moore, Owen Benzley, Austin Flitton, Frederic Schaper, Jared Nielsen. Mentors: Jared Nielsen. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Objective: Identify neural networks that are associated with panic disorder symptoms through lesion network mapping.Background: Panic Disorder is a neurological disorder in which one experiences unexpected and reoccurring panic attacks. Panic attacks can be characterized by the following symptoms: trembling, racing heart, excessive fear and worry, weakness, tingly hands, chest pain, or a feeling of unreality. A proposed circuit for panic disorder includes the amygdalofugal pathway, which deals primarily with the amygdala. The lesion network mapping method uses functional connectivity to identify neural networks associated with symptoms arising from brain lesions. This is a benefit compared to previous studies done on panic disorder because it relates brain circuits to symptoms rather than individual regions.Methods: 21 lesions causing Panic Disorder were found in the literature, traced on a standard template, and analyzed using lesion network mapping. Specifically, lesion networks for each lesion were calculated using a large cohort of healthy control resting state scans (N = 1000). In our sensitivity analysis, overlap between lesion networks was observed. Results: Of the 21 lesion networks, 14 (67%) positively overlap on the parahippocampal gyrus in the sensitivity map; 13 (62%) positively overlap at the ventral tegmental area in the sensitivity map.Discussion: Symptoms of panic disorder may be associated with the parahippocampal gyrus and ventral tegmental area of the brain. These results found are unique compared to previous studies, but do have general connections.

Authors: James Blood, Nathan Sheets, Chase Seiter, Lydia Hawley, Erin Taylor, Eliza White, Hillary Wadsworth, Jason Hansen, Jordan Yorgason. Mentors: Jordan Yorgason. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Microglia are the immune cells of the brain and are activated by many drugs of abuse. One drug of abuse of interest is methamphetamine, which is known to increase reactive oxygen species (ROS). Microglia are sensitive to ROS. Methamphetamine changes microglia morphology. To determine if the effects of methamphetamine on microglia are through ROS, glucose oxidase, which reacts with glucose to form hydrogen peroxide, was applied. Glucose oxidase increased ROS production and decreased dopamine release but had little-to-no effect on ATP release. Glucose oxidase has similar effects on microglia morphology compared to methamphetamine. This suggests that methamphetamine effects on microglia are due to ROS production. Methamphetamine locomotor sensitization behavioral experiments were run to mimic repeated methamphetamine exposure. Along with voltammetry experiments to measure dopamine and ATP release, methamphetamine treated animals were used to detect microglial morphology changes using confocal microscopy. Our methamphetamine treatment was able to change microglial morphology compared to saline treated controls. Methamphetamine injected animals also had attenuated glucose oxidase effects on dopamine release. By understanding how neuronal outputs affect microglia activity in the context of psychostimulant use we can better parse out how the mechanisms of addiction are connected to immune system function.

Authors: Noah Bezzant, Mikayla Kimball, Ashley Allan. Mentors: Brent Feland. Insitution: Brigham Young University. BACKGROUND: General knee pain is a common complaint among both athletes and older adults. Osteoarthritis is a common etiology for knee pain that can interfere with function during aging and can be assessed by validated questionnaires. It remains unclear whether there exists a dose–response relationship between cartilage loss and pain worsening. Articular cartilage thickness of the femoral condyles can be measured by ultrasound imaging and few studies utilizing this form of measurement exist. It is currently unknown if articular cartilage thickness measured ultrasonographically correlates with pain related ratings in aging athletes. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to assess whether articular cartilage thickness at the femoral condyles as measured by ultrasound imaging has any relationship to knee pain as rated by the modified KOOS (Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score) survey in senior athletes over the age of 50.METHODS: Data was collected from 35 volunteers (participants in the Huntsman World Senior Games) in St. George, Utah, 2023. All subjects (22 females: mean age = 64.9 ± 6.6 yrs, Ht = 158.7 ± 35.6 cm, Wt= 66.3 ± 10.0 kg; 13 males: mean age = 67.3 ± 8.3 yrs, Ht = 179.3 ± 10.7 cm, Wt= 84.3 ± 13.4 kg) signed an approved consent and completed a modified KOOS survey before being seated on a table, with their back flattened against the wall directly behind them. They were then asked to bring either knee as deeply into flexion against their torso as possible; approximating 120°-140° of knee flexion, depending on the range of motion the subject was capable of. In flexion, the patella was shifted inferiorly enough to expose the femoral condyles so that a short axis image of the articular cartilage was obtained and the thickness of the cartilage was assessed at 3 points.ANALYSIS: All data were analyzed using JMP ver16.2 with a Pearson product pairwise correlations to determine if a relationship between average cartilage thickness correlates with pain subscale scoring from the KOOS in males and females. Correlation between age and thickness was also examined.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: There were no significant correlations between the pain subscale score and cartilage thickness in males (p=.6998, r=0.1316), females (p=.8733, r=0.0392), or combined (p=.7308, r=0.0655) in this group of senior athletes. Age and thickness was not significantly correlated (p=.1232, r= -0.2877), but did show a trend of decreasing cartilage thickness with age. The addition of more subjects should show age and thickness to be negatively correlated with each other.

Authors: Dean Peterson. Mentors: John Chaston. Insitution: Brigham Young University. The microbiota of Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies can be observed to study their effects on fly phenotypes. This paper will focus on the microbiota’s effects on fruit fly dietary preference for yeast (DPY), to determine if specific nutritional molecules produced by the microbiota control DPY. Previous studies have unsuccessfully sought to identify such small molecules by testing for roles of essential amino acids (Leitao-Goncalves 2017). A study completed in our lab suggested that bacterial thiamine biosynthesis/metabolism genes influence fly DPY because mutations shifted the preference from a diet with less yeast to a diet with more yeast (Call 2022). In our first efforts we found that raising flies on thiamine supplemented diet influenced their DPY. I want to determine if supplementing thiamine specifically causes this shift, and if the shift observed in the mutants is seen due to a lack of dietary thiamine. Here, I will perform the same tests with flies given diet supplemented with other B vitamins to test specificity. I will then confirm the role of bacterial thiamine on these phenotypes by rearing flies colonized with bacterial thiamine biosynthesis/metabolism mutants on thiamine supplemented diets. If these flies raised with increased dietary thiamine prefer a diet with less yeast, and the experiment with other B vitamins does not show a similar shift as thiamine, then the specificity of thiamine as the small molecule involved in yeast preference is confirmed.

Authors: Jakob Lenker, Trevor Kendrick. Mentors: Jeff Tessem. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Diabetes is characterized by a loss in beta cell function within the pancreas and the subsequent inability to produce sufficient insulin to regulate blood glucose. While current diabetes treatments focus on delivering pharmaceutical insulin to diabetic individuals, such treatments are temporary solutions and do not address the root of the issue. Instead, our research focuses on potential mechanisms for inducing greater insulin secretion within the pancreas of the individual. NK6 Homeobox 1 (Nkx6.1) is a major transcription factor in beta cells and its overexpression in beta cells is associated with higher insulin secretion. We have shown that Syntaxin 1A (Stx1A) interacts with Nkx6.1; Stx1A is of particular interest due to its role in mediating insulin granule fusion at the beta cell plasma membrane, directly impacting insulin secretion. We hypothesize that the interaction between Nkx6.1 and Stx1A may play an important yet understudied role in insulin secretion. Here, we present the results of Stx1A overexpression on glucose-stimulated insulin secretion within pancreatic beta cells, as well as the effect on the Nkx6.1 interaction. Understanding more about the role of Stx1A in beta cells could provide therapeutic targets to induce greater insulin secretion, which could aid in the effort toward finding a cure to diabetes.

Authors: Brett Pickett, Lincoln Sutherland, Jacob Lang. Mentors: Brett Pickett. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Introduction: Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent types of cancer present in society today, and is the second leading cause of cancer death for women. Approximately 13% (1 in 8) of women will develop invasive breast cancer, with 3% of women (1 in 39) dying from this type of cancer. Three important classifications used when formulating a treatment plan for breast cancer are the presence or absence of Estrogen Receptor (ER), Progesterone Receptor (PR), or Hormone Receptor (HR). Treating Estrogen Receptor Positive (ER+) breast cancer with aromatase inhibitors, such as Letrozole, is the current standard treatment for all postmenopausal women. A prior study by Lee et. al. identified PRR11 as the only gene that was significantly overexpressed in resistant vs non-resistant cancers among the 51 genes in chromosome arm 17q23. The goal of the current study is to perform a secondary analysis of this valuable dataset to identify genes, signaling pathways, and biomarkers across the whole human transcriptome that are significantly associated with treatment resistance in ER+ patients.Methods: We retrieved, preprocessed and analyzed 58 ER+ breast cancer samples from patients who had been treated with Letrozole, which are publicly available in the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. The Automated Reproducible MOdular Workflow for Preprocessing and Differential Analysis of RNA-seq Data (ARMOR) was used to process our data downloaded from NCBI. This workflow trimmed low quality reads from the RNA-sequence reads, mapped and quantified our data to generate a DEG list. Gene ontology enrichment with camera was also performed. Next, the genes were mapped to common gene identifiers and input to the signaling pathway impact analysis (SPIA) algorithm to identify intracellular signaling pathways that were enhanced by our DEGs. With that information, Pathway2Target was used to identify known drug targets within our identified pathways. Finally, a decision tree-based machine learning approach was used to predict features/expressed genes that could be used to most accurately classify responders vs nonresponders to Letrozole. Results: Our comparison of 36 responders versus 22 non-responders detected a total of 18,735 genes and identified 105 that were statistically significant (p-value < 0.05) after applying a false-discovery rate (FDR) correction, including SOX11, S100A8/S100A8, and IGLV3-25. We then used the Signaling Pathway Impact Analysis (SPIA) algorithm to determine whether any known intracellular signaling pathways were significantly enriched in DEGs (Bonferroni-adjusted p-value < 0.05). This analysis identified 4 pathways that were statistically significant in Non-Responders to Letrozole Treatment. We then used the pathway results to predict 60 existing therapeutic targets that could be repurposed to treat the resistance phenotype. Notably, the predicted targets for the non-response phenotype included VEGFA, a current target for solid tumors as well as ESR1, an Estrogen Receptor. We next wanted to determine whether we could predict transcriptional biomarkers that could aid with identifying patients that do not respond to treatment. To do so, we used the read counts for all samples as the input for this analysis and identified 278 transcriptional biomarkers. Performance metrics for all biomarkers identified yielded an area under the receiver-operator characteristic (AUROC) curve of 0.972 (Figure 2), indicating an exceptional ability to classify Letrozole responders vs non-responders by the transcriptional profile. Sensitivity for all transcriptional biomarkers was measured at 100%, and specificity at 94%. We used the top two biomarkers from our first analysis as input for a second analysis to determine the performance of a smaller subset. Our second analysis determined that PRDX4 and E2F8 together yielded an AUROC of 0.823 and an overall accuracy of 88.2%. Discussion:Our results identify additional DEGs, pathways, targets and biomarkers for further exploration in the treatment and categorization of ER+ breast cancer.

Authors: Eden Beazer, Aubree Bench, Ethan Jones, Jared Carter. Mentors: Jeffrey Tessem. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Incidence of diabetes worldwide has grown from 108 million people in 1980 to 422 million people in 2014, nearly tripling in just thirty-four years. Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is characterized by the loss of pancreatic beta cell mass and the failure of the remaining beta cells to provide adequate insulin. Contributing to the development of T2D is glucolipotoxicity (GLT), a condition characterized by the harmful elevation of glucose and fatty acid levels within beta cells. While there are existing treatments for symptoms of diabetes, much remains to be understood about its underlying causes and effective preventative measures. Flavonoids are naturally occurring phenolic compounds found in many fruits and vegetables that have various anti-inflammatory health benefits. Previous studies suggest that epicatechin, a flavonoid present in cocoa, can reduce the effects of diabetes by diminishing insulin desensitization and increasing glucose stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS). Interestingly, the bioavailability of epicatechin is poor, while its metabolites are more easily absorbed in the small intestine. Further studies demonstrated that under non-stressed conditions in beta-cells, hippuric acid, homovanillic acid, and 5-phenylvaleric acid, metabolites of epicatechin, stimulate insulin secretion at concentrations more realistically found in the body. However, the effects of these metabolites in glucolipotoxic conditions are unknown. Here, we present the effects of epicatechin and its metabolites hippuric acid, homovanillic acid, and 5-phenylvaleric acid on beta cell insulin secretion and mitochondrial respiration under GLT culture conditions. This study aimed to contribute to the limited body of knowledge on the bioactivity of flavonoid metabolites on beta cell function under damaging conditions observed with T2D, offering crucial insights for developing effective strategies to harness the health benefits associated with flavonoids.

Authors: Owen Damitz. Mentors: Jeffrey Tessem. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Type one and two diabetes affect the everyday lives of millions of people worldwide. These diseases are characterized by decreased functional beta cell mass. Functional beta cell mass is defined by the beta cell’s ability to proliferate, secrete insulin, and resist apoptosis. Wehave shown that the orphan nuclear receptor Nr4a3 is sufficient to induce beta cell proliferation. We have sought to define compounds that can interact with and modulate Nr4a3 activity. Using AutoDock Vina we have defined a number of compounds that interact with Nr4a3. Here wepresent data demonstrating the ability of these compounds to modulate Nr4a3 mediated proliferation, survival, and insulin secretion in the beta cell. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effect of these compounds to modulate Nr4a3 transcriptional control. These findings are the basis for developing interventions to increase functional beta cell mass as a treatment for type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Authors: Mikayla Kimball, Noah Bezzant, Ashley Allan, Josh Sponbeck. Mentors: Brent Feland. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Ultrasonic analysis of patellar tendon thickness in active older athletesBACKGROUND: Recent research has suggested that patellar tendon loading through exercise and resistance training can help maintain and increase patellar tendon thickness in older adults. Limited research exists that identifies the average thickness of patellar tendons in younger athletes, however, it is unknown if this thickness remains or is maintained in older adult athletes who have maintained a very active lifestyle.PURPOSE: This study aimed to determine how gender correlates to patellar tendon thickness in the proximal and middle patellar tendon of active older athletes participating in sporting events at the Huntsman World Senior Games.METHODS: Data was collected from 59 volunteers (participants in the Huntsman WorldSenior Games) in St. George, Utah, 2022. All subjects (34 females: mean age = 61.09 ± 7.00 yrs, Ht = 162.41 ± 25.73 cm, Wt= 66.29 ±11.38 kg; 25 males: mean age = 68.68 ± 7.03 yrs, Ht = 178.21 ± 8.63 cm, Wt= 84.42±10.90 kg) signed an approved consent form and then sat on a treatment table with their legs relaxed and dangling off. The probe was placed vertically below the kneecap and an ultrasonic image was taken. Each image showed a small section of the patellar for reference. Each ultrasonic measurement showed the middle and proximal thickness of the patellar tendon. ANALYSIS: All data were analyzed using JMP ver16.2 with a stepwise multiple regression analysis to determine the effect of age, height, wt and gender on patellar tendon thickness. A sex*location mixed model was used to determine differences in middle and proximal thickness between gender. Data were normally distributed, not requiring transformation.RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS: Proximal tendon measurements were thicker than middle tendon measurements on both sides (p=0.0001). There was no significant difference either proximal tendon thickness (p=0.9323) or middle tendon thickness (p= 0.3993) between left and right sides. No significant difference between male and female tendon thickness at either location (p=0.7700). Proximal tendon thickness was greater and this has been found to be greater in younger athletes with a history of patellar tendinopathy. Aging athletes may also have a history of knee pain episodes that could have contributed to this finding. The lack of gender differences in thickness measures was surprising, but may be a result of the level of activity of senior athletes. In the future studies should look to compare active vs non-active aging athletes, more specific age range differences, and how knee replacements and other injuries affect patellar tendon thickness.

Authors: Michael Mann, David Bates, Steven Johnson. Mentors: Steven Johnson. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Nucleosome positioning, or the placement of nucleosomes along DNA, is known to be a significant factor in determining gene expression in eukaryotic cells. Further, post-translational modifications (or PTMs) help modulate gene expression by acting as an intermediate to other factors. The extent to which PTMs directly affect nucleosome positioning is poorly understood, however. Since gene expression is known to be affected by several coincident PTMs on each histone, the goal of this research is to evaluate the suitability of a Lys-->Gln mutation as a substitute for histone lysine acetylation. If successful, this research can be used to support future combinatorial studies on PTMs and nucleosome positioning without the difficulty of combining several forms of PTMs simultaneously.

Authors: Zach Fiore. Mentors: Jared Nielsen. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Gait apraxia is a type of apraxia that affects lower limb use in walking. It is characterized by difficulty initiating gait, freezing of gait, and other gait disturbances that cannot be attributed to complications affecting sensory, motor, or cerebellar function, psychiatric disease, nor ataxia. Symptoms often present following brain trauma. Previous research has indicated that gait apraxia may be linked to lesions in the frontal lobes, basal ganglia and supplementary motor area. However, the specific cerebral location has been debated with minimal research done on the symptom’s implicated neural circuits. The purpose of this study is to determine the networks in the brain that are involved in the pathophysiology of gait apraxia. To determine this, we used the lesion network mapping method. A systematic literature review was performed, with specific inclusion criteria, to find case studies of patients presenting with gait apraxia stemming from acquired brain injury (n=15). Lesion network mapping analysis (Fox et al., 2018) was performed on 15 cases with a large cohort of healthy control resting-state scans (n=1000). The analysis showed that lesions exhibited functional connectivity to the bilateral medial dorsal and pulvinar nuclei of the thalami (n=15), which supports previous associations of basal ganglia damage contributing to gait apraxia. A novel region, the cingulate cortex (n=15), was also found to be functionally connected to the lesion networks. This region is a part of the cingulo-opercular network, responsible for many functions, including action. This network has recently been found to display strong functional connectivity with the somato-cognitive action network, responsible for coordinating movements with cognitive processes. Further research is necessary to determine the mechanism of how these networks interact in contributing to gait apraxia.

Authors: Joshua Hutchins, Kevin Wong. Mentors: Dario Mizrachi. Insitution: Brigham Young University. Tight junctions (TJ’s) are composed of mainly three types of cell-adhesion molecules (CAMs) that regulate paracellular permeability in epithelial and endothelial cells. These are claudins (CLDNs), occludin (OCLN), and junctional adhesion molecules (JAMs).There are, however, several (27) isoforms of the claudin molecule, all of which are suspected to have different strengths and other properties in cell adhesion. Currently, the comparative strength of the interactions between different CAMs are unknown and no easily replicable model of a TJ has been created. To address this question we resourced to bacterial expression of these mammalian proteins. MG1655 E. coli cells (with flagellum) were transformed to express claudins 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 as well as occludin and plated on 0.2% agar plates, allowing them to swim overnight. This allowed for a qualitative spectrum of strengths of the CAMs based on how far the cells were able to spread throughout the plate. Cells that interacted strongly swam less. This technique was applied to the case of the Atlantic Salmon. It swims both in fresh and ocean water. As it transitions, the TJs in its skin changes its composition of claudins. We were able to determine that the set of claudins employed during ocean water swimming are capable of stronger strength. This is consistent with the changes in osmolarity dictated by the amount of solute in the ocean water.

Authors: Grant Rousseau, Kenneth Harrington, Jamie Jensen. Mentors: Jamie Jensen. Insitution: Brigham Young University. We know that evolution acceptance is low in the United States, and a perceived conflict between evolution and religion is a big predictor of whether someone accepts or rejects evolution. Helping undergraduates accept evolution involves multiple teaching strategies, including teaching evolution with a reconciliatory approach, increasing their knowledge of evolution, and introducing role models (scientists who maintain religious beliefs) to the students. However, because some students have higher scientific reasoning abilities than others, they may find certain evolution teaching strategies more beneficial than others. In our study, we assessed scientific reasoning ability, change in evolution acceptance, and teaching strategy rankings with surveys before and after evolution instruction. We predicted that students who possessed more scientific reasoning skills would rank evolution knowledge above role models when asked which strategy was most influential in helping them accept evolution. However, we saw that scientific reasoning did not appear to moderate the effect of evolution knowledge. Role models were more important in increasing evolution acceptance, regardless of scientific reasoning skills. This reinforces the importance of having a role model present when teaching evolution to religious audiences.

Authors: McKayla Ridenour. Mentors: Alex Giannell. Insitution: Utah Valley University. "DID" is a painting that delves into the concept of duality within myself. The painting explores my vulnerability as its subject matter. As someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), I am displaying myself and another personality in the artwork. I aim to shed light on those suffering from DID and other mental conditions. I used a lot of glazing and subtractive methods to achieve the desired effect during the painting process, such as complex darks and layering of paints.

Authors: Emily Barber. Mentors: ALEXANDRA GIANNELL. Insitution: Utah Valley University. I am presenting on the process of subtraction with oil or acrylic paint. I have loved this process and have found to be impactful to me and my practice. This process can show you art in a whole new way. It's the opposite of what we are told to do. It gives you the chance to reveal something that maybe was lost or hidden. Maybe you go into the painting with an agenda, maybe not. Both ways will most likely show you more then you expected. This process creates depth, and a feeling that is very different to translate by traditional addition.I have found it exciting to use different kinds of tools to create. Instead of a pallete knife and paint brush it's rags, Q Tips, and maybe any kind of scraping object you find. Because of the nature of this process it is also fighting the clock. You must pull and drag away unwanted value before the paint dries. The timing and planning are very critical, yet when I create this way I find it calming and rewarding. Sometimes when creating you have to pull out of your normal strokes, and methods. When you can do that, it helps you focus more on concept, and feeling rather then aesthetic and style. By pulling and scraping the information away, you might have the chance to reveal the unknown.