The development of tubes is a conserved process observed in a wide variety of species; tubes contribute to structures such as neural tubes, digestive systems, and vascular systems. For a tube to form correctly, individual cells within a sheet of cells (epithelium) must move and change shape in very specific ways. My goal is to understand what controls this movement. Polarity proteins help to establish the directional identity of cells and tissues. This identity is important to ensure that cells coordinate their behaviors. I hypothesize that the proteins that help establish polarity also play key roles in the development of tubes, including in proper closing of the tubes and correct directional elongation. To study the involvement of polarity proteins during tube formation, I am using the dorsal appendages (DAs) on Drosophila melanogaster egg shells. Because the appendages form as a direct readout of morphology, I can see how tissues developed earlier on. These appendages, which provide the developing laid egg with oxygen, are formed from an epithelium that wraps and elongates into a tube, then fills with eggshell protein; the initial epithelium sloughs off, leaving the appendages as a visualization of the earlier tube formation. To test my hypothesis, I am using RNA interference (RNAi) to knock down the expression impact of various proteins and evaluate the impact on DA formation. The RNAi system induces transcript loss, eventually revealing the impact of protein loss. I am using RNAi in epithelial follicle cells to test 20 candidate polarity genes. This analysis will help me identify a few genes to then characterize further. These results will inform future studies and add to the knowledge of the role of polarity proteins in the patterning and subsequent growth of epithelial tubes across many species.

Geographers generally define sense of place as the meaning an individual ascribes to a particular location. Collectively, sense of place creates the identity and character of a region and is represented through culinary, literary, visual, and many other forms of art unique to the local culture. Technological advancements in communication have changed sense of place by affecting how these cultural differences are maintained, but also offer new ways of capturing and sharing sense of place. What elements and by which means individuals choose to capture personal representations of an environment shape the way communities as a whole perceive, ascribe meaning to, and amass their own descriptions and representations of that place. My project explores this iterative relationship between visual representation and written description of place. I have selected a collection of crowd-sourced pictures of the local landscape using an app that pulls up publicly posted Instagram images that have been geotagged near the location of the user. I consider these pictures to be modern forms of landscape folk art and conducted visual content analysis to code the images with descriptive terms. I have also created an in-person, crowd-sourced cartography installation consisting of three simplified maps of Seattle that was placed in a gallery where patrons were asked to write, directly on the maps, descriptions of their own sense of place associated with the locations. I then compared the language from the installation to that from the analysis of the Instagram images. Strong similarities between the two suggest the possibility of using crowd-sourced visual representations of place from social media to offer a greater understanding of how natural and built environments evolve and what they mean to the people who inhabit them.

The electrochemical growth of single-crystalline germanium (Ge) nanowires has been previously demonstrated in an aqueous solution for use in complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies. The motivation for growing these nanowires using electrodeposition is to improve the purity of germanium nanowires relative to traditional synthetic methods. However, nanomaterial growth has been shown to be highly sensitive to both oxygen and water and can lead to impurities, surface layers or morphology changes. . We have grown germanium nanowires in anhydrous organic solution in a nitrogen blanketed electrochemical cell. We have then compared the morphology and material properties of the wires grown in aqueous solution to the wires grown in organic solution to determine the effects of water and oxygen on the wire growth. Improving nanomaterial growth will help in having more efficient computers and cell phones by improving semiconductors.

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of gynecological malignancies, with approximately 70% of patients diagnosed at an advanced stage of disease. With the current standard of care, cytoreductive surgery plus chemotherapy, the relapse rate is about 70% and the 5-year survival rate is less than 50%. Innovative therapeutic interventions are greatly needed, and one promising new strategy mimics the body’s endogenous anti-cancer immune response. This immunotherapy approach uses donor T cells engineered to express a T cell receptor (TCR) that is specific for a tumor-expressed antigen. Mesothelin (MSLN) is a validated antigen target, frequently over-expressed in cancer cells compared to healthy tissues. Using the mouse ID8 ovarian tumor model, we found that T cells engineered to express a high-affinity MSLN-specific TCR can kill ovarian cancer cells. However, the T cells lose effector function over time, which correlates with increased expression of the T cell inhibitory receptors PD-1, Tim-3 and Lag-3, markers of T cell exhaustion. Signaling through inhibitory receptors is stimulated by respective ligands that we showed are present in the tumor microenvironment (TME). Blocking these “immune checkpoint” signals can improve T cell proliferation and anti-tumor function within various TMEs. By applying checkpoint blockade, we hypothesized that both donor and endogenous T cells will have prolonged longevity and increased effector function in our ovarian cancer model. In ongoing studies, ID8 ovarian tumor-bearing mice received MSLN-specific T cells plus antibodies that block PD-1, Tim-3 and Lag-3 checkpoints; T cell phenotype and function were characterized at early and late time-points. We will discuss our findings and the potential relevance of this combination immunotherapy as a clinical treatment of ovarian cancer.

Palms are a keystone species in tropical rainforests and are thought of as a model species due to their abundance and taxonomic diversity. Because over 90% of palm species diversity is concentrated in the tropical and subtropical biomes today, palm fossils are traditionally interpreted as indicators of warm and wet climate. However, recent work suggests that, in the past, palms may have played an important role also in other biomes. Palms produce great amounts of phytoliths (hardened silica bodies precipitated in and around plant cells), which, after the plant dies, are incorporated into the soil or sediment and preserved as fossils. Importantly, phytoliths are found in many environments where leaf impressions and other macrofossil are typically absent. Palm phytoliths are therefore a valuable potential source of information to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships and interpret the ecology of fossil palms and, by inference, paleoenvironments.Unfortunately, very little work has been done to comprehensively assess how much information about palm taxonomy and ecology can be inferred by palm phytolith morphology. To remedy this, we are conducting a morphometric study of palm phytoliths across the palm phylogenetic tree. We collected leaf samples from 80 palm taxa from herbaria and botanical gardens, then extracted phytoliths using strong oxidants and acids to decompose organic materials. Through measurement of their overall shape and size, as well as the density, size, and shape of phytolith ornamentation we hope to improve overall taxonomic resolution of the palm fossil record. In addition, for each of the taxa we recorded several habitat, climate, and ecology variables to test for biogeographical and ecological signal in palm phytolith morphology.

Racism on college campuses is an unfortunate issue in higher education, and the UW system is not immune from this issue. Analysis of qualitative data from the longitudinal Social Issues Study (SIS) at UWT identified that some UW students experience racism on campus. To understand how to address students’ experiences of racism, I will conduct a substudy in Wave 3 of the SIS investigating students’ experiences of caregiver ethnic-racial socialization (e.g. discussion of stereotypes facing their racial/ethnic group) and its relation to racial attitudes, respect for diversity, and critical consciousness (CC). CC is defined as becoming aware of inequalities in society (i.e., critical reflection (CR)) and taking actions to address them (i.e., critical action (CA)). Ethnic-racial socialization and its relation to CC has infrequently been investigated in psychology. However, research on ethnic-racial socialization suggests it may be linked to CR and, possibly, to CA (as well as to more positive interactions with diverse groups). There is also a need to identify factors that can help explain the common finding that people who are high in CR are often low in CA. Furthermore, previous studies of caregiver ethnic-racial socialization have thus far taken a racialized approach in participant samples. In the proposed study, ethnic-racial socialization, CR, CA, racial attitudes, and respect for diversity will be quantitatively assessed in a diverse sample of UWT students (43% Caucasian; 21% Asian; 13% Hispanic/Latino; 10% African American; 2% Hawaiian/Pacific Islander; 2% American Indian; 6% International) (n=140). Qualitative interviews (n=20) will also be used to explore students’ racial ideology formation and their relation to CC. Implications regarding promoting positive cross-cultural relationships on campus and CC, as a potential means for addressing racism, will be discussed.

Wound healing is an essential physiological process that repairs damaged tissues through a collaboration of molecular and cellular events.  For a wound to heal properly, hemostasis (blood clotting), inflammatory, proliferative, and maturation phases must occur sequentially at specific times and at optimal levels.  I’ve been using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to study wound healing and the potential role of a family of six growth factors called Imaginal Disc Growth Factors (IDGFs). IDGFs are related to human chitinase-like proteins, which are upregulated in cancer and other diseases associated with inflammation; their function, however, is not yet understood.  We hope to gain some insight by studying their role in wound healing in the Drosophila wing imaginal disc, a larval tissue that will become the adult wing.  Using a method called in situ hybridization, which reveals the patterns of RNA localization in fixed tissue, I found that while IDGFs are normally expressed in wing imaginal discs, their expression is immediately turned off upon wounding.  However, using transgenic fly strains that have IDGF2 and IDGF6 proteins tagged with a green fluorescent protein and an extended culture assay that allowed me to track protein expression over time, I found that IDGFs are upregulated at the wound sites after several hours.  Combining these observations, I hypothesize that IDGFs are first turned off in the hemostasis phase and later are upregulated in the inflammatory or proliferative phase, when new tissue begins to form.  To determine the cell types, cellular dynamics, and precise timing of IDGF upregulation, I will use confocal live imaging and label cell types that are known to be involved in wound healing, such as hemocytes.  These studies will contribute to our understanding of the genes that regulate tissue healing after mechanical injury.

Pooideae is the largest grass subfamily, comprising over one third of all grass species. Pooid grasses are dominant in C3 grasslands which were once more widespread, but today are restricted to temperate or high elevation areas. During the last 8 million years, many C3 Pooideae were replaced by C4 grasses as regional climates became hotter and drier at low- to mid latitudes, or by forests when local conditions became wetter. Understanding when and where C3 grasslands first formed and when they were replaced by tropical C4 grasslands or forests is important for reconstructing global ecosystems and tracking climate change through time. Since grass macrofossils are rare, microfossils, particularly phytoliths (solid silica particles formed in plant tissue), which can persist in soils for millions of years, are the best paleontological evidence for the presence and abundance of different grasses through time. Grass phytoliths form highly regular shapes which may be specific to clades at low taxonomic levels; however, phytolith shape variation in Pooideae has not been analysed using quantitative methods. To better understand differences in shape within the subfamily, we extracted phytoliths from 36 representative Pooideae species. The phytoliths were imaged using confocal microscopy, and processed into 3D surface meshes for geometric morphometric analysis. We used the meshes as a reference collection to compare similarly processed fossil phytoliths from paleontological sites. Our goal was to use quantitative methods to confirm that the fossil phytoliths were correctly assigned to Pooideae and then to classify the phytoliths to lower taxonomic levels when possible. We used these results to infer a new time sequence for Pooideae evolution. In the future, this reference collection could be used to study domestication and spread of agriculturally important species in the subfamily (e.g., wheat, rye and oats).

Dopamine neurotransmission is thought to be involved in economic decision making. One aspect of the decision making is the vigor by which a decision is made, and its concomitant action. Previous studies have found baseline/ambient dopamine levels to be connected to vigor, however much is still unknown about ambient dopamine. The lack of understanding of the role of ambient dopamine is due to technical limitations. The limitations of fast scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV) lead us to fuse FSCV with fast-scan controlled adsorption voltammetry (FSCAV) which will allow us to take direct measurements of ambient dopamine. Here we seek to develop a new technical approach to better study ambient dopamine and its involvement in decision making. To test our hypothesis, we used fast-scan cyclic voltammetry to measure levels of dopamine by applying two triangle waveforms at 1Hz to measure electrodes. The electrodes were tested in vitro against different concentrations of dopamine (0.0625-1M), one time with a 50kOhm resistor and one time without. Subsequently, the ability to predict concentrations was tested on electrically evoked dopamine, in vivo. Here we demonstrate that the standard curves collected are significantly linear. We also tested the effect adding 50 kOhm resistor to the measuring circuit in order to mimic brain tissue impedance. As a result of adding this impedance, we found a significant drop in sensitivity. Moreover, preliminary data suggest that unknown concentrations can be predicted using this approach., however more work needs to be done both in vitro and in vivo. Through this analysis, we can extend our results to the investigation of dopamine transmission functions and assess decision making. This will help us determine the different alterations of dopamine transmission and behavior in hopes to further advance development of therapeutic strategies for mental illness.

Nanowires have shown significant promise as high-capacity, conversion-type lithium-ion battery negative electrodes. Investigating the local properties of these materials during cycling has primarily been done via in-situ transmission electron microscopy or synchrotron-based techniques. Both techniques require highly specialized equipment that is not readily available. Atomic force microscope (AFM)-based measurements of electronic and ionic transport offer another alternative. However, analyzing these electrode materials via AFM has proven difficult due to the large surface variations in Z-height and the flexibility of the wires, which can trap and damage AFM tips. Therefore, sample preparation becomes critical. In this study we screened a variety of preparation methods including epoxies and resins and from those results, determined successful methods to prepare and ultramicrotome samples to create thin slices of electrode that can support analysis via AFM. These images allow for the elucidation of surface characteristics to support future surface functionalization and show that AFM can be applied to the imaging of these types of electrode materials to obtain nanoscale properties. A stronger understanding of local properties in these materials is critical to future developments that are highly anisotropic and require nanostructures.

Paulo Freire (1970) conceptualized critical consciousness (CC) as including two components: critical reflection (CR), an individual’s awareness of societal inequities, and critical action (CA), the actions taken by the individual to change those inequities. However, scholarship has infrequently identified the mechanisms through which people who are critically reflective become engaged in actions to change their social conditions (Diemer & Rapa, 2016). In this poster, we will present two potential mediation models that will help to shed light on the mechanisms through which critical reflection predicts critical action. In the first set of analyses, we are examining if empathy (alpha=.874) may, in part, explain the relationship between CR (alpha=.769) and CA (alpha=.679) in our sample (n=141). Previous research has pointed to empathy as a potential mediator, suggesting that critical awareness alone may not be enough to motivate people to engage in actions aimed at challenging the status quo (Montero. 2009; Wallin-Rauchman, 2017) In preliminary analysis of our data, CR and CA were positively associated with one another (r = .306, p <.001), and empathy was positively associated with both CR (r=.268, p =.001), and CA (r = .238, p = .004). These results suggest that proceeding with mediation analysis may yield significant results. We will also be assessing Social Justice Identity as another potential mediating variable in the relationship between CR and CA in our sample. Initial analyses suggest that SJI is also related to both CR (r =.238, p =.004) and CA (r = .572, p <.001), and may account for some of the variance in this relationship. Results from these analyses will contribute to the knowledge base about how students go from being aware of social justice issues, to engaging in civic action to address those issues in order to create a more equitable society.

Chalcopyrite copper iron sulfide (CuFeS2) nanocrystals have gained recent interest due to their metal-like optical response, despite their complete lack of free charge carriers. These novel optical characteristics make CuFeS2 an intriguing material for a variety of applications, including photovoltaics and photothermal applications. Unfortunately, synthesis of high quality CuFeS2 nanoparticles is difficult due to the difference in the reactivity of the two cations, often resulting in binary or polydisperse nanocrystals. To gain better control over nanocrystal morphology, we synthesized CuFeS2 nanocrystals via a hot injection method and studied the effect of the cation precursor ratio on the resulting properties of the nanocrystals. Transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and UV-vis-NIR spectroscopy were used to analyze the nanocrystal composition, morphology, and optical characteristics. Based on the characterization data, a 1:2 molar ratio of copper to iron precursor was optimal for producing high quality, monodisperse CuFeS2 nanocrystals. These developments in morphological control will aid in future studies of quasi-static resonances in these materials.

Phytoliths are microscopic silica bodies that form in many plants. Being resistant to organic decomposition, they can be used to track plant evolution and past vegetation changes. Although they were traditionally considered as non-functional cellular by-products, recent studies suggest that phytoliths may have photonic, structural, nutritional and defensive benefits in plant growth and survival. Grasses, which are large terrestrial producers of biogenic silica, are the suitable model system for studying the adaptive significance of silica accumulation in plants. Identification of phytoliths within the plants (for studying function) and inside the sediments (for studying evolution of vegetation) have so far been limited to optical microscopy-based methods where fluorescent dyes are commonly used to increase contrast between silica bodies and plant tissue. Due to their non-specific nature, however, fluorescent dyes often accumulate in different parts of the cells and silicified tissues, causing false positives and leading to incomplete staining and difficulties to construct 3D structures. With exquisite molecular recognition and assembly properties, solid-binding peptide tags (dubbed GEPIs) are surface functionalization moieties that can be chimerized with fluorescent and utilized as material-specific probes to selectively label variety of inorganic materials at surfaces and within interfaces. Our goal is to develop peptide-based phytolith-specific fluorescent probes to identify and delineate phytolith shapes with high precision and in situ. Using phytoliths-specific peptides probes, designed and chimerized with fluorescent molecules, our goal is to incubate different grass species, and visualize them using laser-confocal microscopy. We hypothesize that the novel molecular construct enable specific detection of phytoliths in situ. The method we are developing will offer a unique solution for fast and accurate identification and 3D organization of inorganic nano- and micro-structures in tissues from living plants and in paleontological samples.