绿奴天花板

This summer, through 绿奴天花板ampa鈥檚 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, Gabriella Buice 鈥�26, a marine science biology major, is researching with her mentor, Kalpana Makhijani, assistant professor of biology, on two genes in fruit flies that may be connected to Alzheimer鈥檚.听

Sixty percent of fruit flies' genes have similar functions to human genes. Buice hopes results from her fruit fly research may prompt a similar study in humans.

Her findings could potentially shift how Alzheimer鈥檚 research is approached.

At the center of Buice鈥檚 research is a method called RNA interference (RNAi), which switches off particular genes in fruit flies. This can be used to help understand how these genes affect flies鈥� behaviors. Buice is using this method to study how these changes impact the flies鈥� health and motor abilities.

First, Buice extracts RNA from the flies. This RNA is then turned into DNA, which is used for further testing. Buice uses a special machine called the QuantStudio real-time PCR to measure how much of the targeted genes are being 鈥渢urned off.鈥�

鈥淭here鈥檚 just a lot of pipetting involved,鈥� she said, referring to the repetitive task that is part of the process.

Buice also conducts tests to see how the gene changes affect the flies physically. One test tracks how long the flies live under different conditions, which helps her understand how gene changes impact their health. Another test checks the flies鈥� ability to climb, looking for signs of motor problems caused by the gene silencing.

"Gabriella's functional studies using the knockdown approach point at important roles of two Alzheimer's disease candidate genes in the fly nervous system," Makhijani said. "My lab will characterize these phenotypes further at the molecular and cellular level. These experiments are likely to reveal the mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis in humans and suggest possible therapeutic approaches targeting these genes."

Working with fruit flies comes with some challenges. Occasionally, when Buice has to transfer the flies to another vial, some will escape. There isn't anything she can do about it, as the flies move quickly, and if one is nearby, she can鈥檛 assume it鈥檚 the fly that belongs to that vial. She just has to omit it from the data, which she finds 鈥渇rustrating.鈥�

Throughout the summer, Buice鈥檚 research has involved troubleshooting and refining her methods.

鈥淚t was just about navigating different ways that we could go about the research,鈥� Buice said.

Buice said her interest in Alzheimer鈥檚 research stems from personal experience. Two of her uncles passed away with dementia. Still, 鈥淚 think if you had told high school or even freshman year of college me that I was doing work with fruit flies, I would find that very hard to believe,鈥� said Buice.

As Buice nears the end of her summer research, she reflects on how she鈥檚 finally getting to utilize the skills she learned in genetics and biology classes in an applicable way.