Undergraduate Research & Publications

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Browsing Undergraduate Research & Publications by Department "Biochemistry & Molecular Biology"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    The Giant Walkthrough Gut: Virtual Reality Simulation of the Digestive System
    (2018-09-12) Lee, Ryan M.; Jacob, Christian
    The Giant Walkthrough Gut is an immersive 3D computer model that utilizes virtual reality (VR) technology to fully explore and learn about the digestive system. The Giant Walkthrough Gut was developed using Unreal Engine by Epic Games, allowing for two different versions of visualization: a video and an exploratory program designed for both VR and desktop monitors. Traditionally, human anatomy and body systems have been taught with the use of 2D illustrations, text, and verbal instruction. Though spatial and auditory learners benefit from this convention, there can be a disconnect to the material for those who are kinesthetic learners. By providing a game-like experience, the Giant Walkthrough Gut has elements that can simplify the complex processes of the digestive system, having the potential to be a powerful and comprehensive tool that could supersede existing teaching methods.
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    The Mind-Gut Connection: A virtual reality education program on the relationship between the digestive system, nervous system, and microbiome.
    (2019-11-26) Lee, Ryan M.; Jacob, Christian; Sharkey, Keith A.
    The Mind-Gut Connection is a virtual reality education application on the relationship between the digestive system, nervous system, and microbiome. Together, these systems form the gut-brain axis and communicate with one another to carry out physiological processes associated with digestion. By illustrating this complex medical topic in a virtual reality environment, we have addressed the lack of accurate or comprehensive depictions of the gut-brain axis. Additionally, the use of virtual reality in education may allow for a broader audience to be exposed to this information. Learning about digestion in relation to the gut-brain axis is beneficial for everyone because of the impact our diets and lifestyles have on our physical and mental health. The use of this virtual reality program has the potential to better engage and inform the general public so that they are more aware of how our different body systems are interconnected. Not only is this program novel in addressing such a unique but important topic, it also exhibits innovation upon current virtual reality practices surrounding movement and motion sickness. The use of full-body virtual reality and a natural form of locomotion using arm swinging builds upon existing methods to improve the level of immersion and believability.
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    The Role of RAD51 Paralogs and Their Interactions in the RAD51- Mediated Homologous Recombination DNA Repair
    (University of Calgary, 2018-09-24) Patel, Deepak; Pepper, Jordan; Williams, Gareth J.
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    Roles of muscle-associated cells during muscle regeneration.
    (2018-11-27) Yang, Lucy; Ruel, Tyler; Kocha, Katrinka; Huang, Peng
    Skeletal muscles control many essential functions that we constantly perform including walking, eating, and breathing. Any diseases that compromise muscle function, such as muscular dystrophy, will have a noticeable impact on the quality of a person’s life. Understanding molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying muscle regeneration will help design new therapeutic approaches to promote muscle injury repair and ameliorate different muscular disorders. Current research mostly focus on known muscle stem cells (satellite cells), while little is known about other types of muscle-associated cells and how they contribute to muscle regeneration. For example, some studies have found that fibro/adipogenic progenitors do not generate muscle fibers but create microenvironments that promote muscle stem cell activity during regeneration instead. My research project aims to determine the functions and responses of different muscle-associated cells during muscle injury repair using zebrafish as a model system. We hypothesize that each type of muscle-associated cell has a distinct regulatory function that aids the muscle regeneration process. To address this topic, I first optimized two complementary techniques to section adult muscle tissues — I used vibratome sectioning to generate thicker sections to maintain 3-dimensional architecture and cryosectioning to prepare thin sections for histological staining. Combining these techniques with different muscle injury models, I have performed detailed time course experiments to determine how muscle repair progresses with respect to either glycerol or cardiotoxin-induced injury. Preliminary results have shown that muscle injury repair in adult zebrafish is dependent on the type of injury. Thus far, glycerol-injected fish seem to suffer catastrophic muscle damage that is still evident 5 days post-injury. Next, I will determine how different types of muscle-associated cells contribute to muscle regeneration under different injury conditions.