UC Summer Research Prepares Students for STEMM Careers
Vincent Huang's summer research was designed to determine whether a novel ultrasound therapy that could be potentially employed to treat heart attack patients is indeed safe. His student project was one of two to win first place awards during the 2016 SURF Capstone Poster Sessions held in CARE/Crawley Atrium August 4-5, 2016.
Reperfusion injury to the heart can occur after a blood clot is removed and heart muscle cells, deprived initially of oxygen and now adapted to low oxygen conditions, are perfused with large amounts of excess oxygen, says Huang, a first-year med student and recent alum of the University of Cincinnati's ROSE Program.
Huang, working under the guidance of Kevin Haworth, PhD, assistant professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Health and Disease, says his mentor and lab associates hope reperfusion injury can be minimized by using tiny droplets of liquid treated with ultrasound so they become gaseous microbubbles. The microbubbles could help control the amount of oxygen delivered to sections of the heart to counteract reperfusion injury.
"One safety concern of this ultrasound therapeutic is we might be breaking up red blood cells within the circulation," explains Huang, whose research with Haworth is through the ROSE program. "This process of changing the droplet into a gas with ultrasound can result in a violent process that sends damaging shockwaves into the surrounding tissue and is known as inertial cavitation."
"We were wondering if the ultrasound therapy would hurt the heart and other organs by breaking up red blood cells and releasing those cells' internal components," says Huang. "My study's purpose was to validate that it does not cause detectable hemolysis of the red blood cells. This study validates the safety of ultrasound activated droplets in regards to hemolysis."
Huang's research poster was titled, "Acoustic Droplet Vaporization of Non-Size Isolated and Size-Isolated Droplets Do Not Cause Detectable Hemolysis."
He was among close to 200 college and high school students from the across the country who participated in the capstone poster sessions sponsored by several programs at the UC College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) initiative, designed to provide rich research internship experiences for college students and high school seniors.
Participating programs included:
- COM Office of Graduate Education SURF
- CCHMC SURF
- Neuro SURF
- MSTP SURF
- ASPET SURF
- BRIMS Program
- ROSE Program
- McNair Scholars Program
- UC Honors Program
- Melissa MacDonald, a sophomore at UC and part of the CCHMC SURF program, won second place for her research titled, "BMP and Wnt regulation of endoderm progenitors." Her mentor is Aaron Zorn, PhD, associate director of the Digestive Health Center at Cincinnati Children's and professor in the UC Department of Pediatrics.
- Ariana Davis, a junior at UC and part of McNair Scholars program, won second place for her research titled, "Examining Physical and Mental Health Behaviors in Urban Community Environments." Her mentor is Monica Mitchell, pediatric psychologist at Cincinnati Children's and professor in the UC Department of Pediatrics.
- Logan Borgelt, a first year medical student at UCCOM and part of the ROSE program, won second place for his research titled, "Neurophysiological Effects of Multiple Mood Episodes in Bipolar Disorder."
- Simone Brown, a student at Oakwood University and part of SURF-GE program, won third place for her research titled, "A glucocorticoid receptor modulator C118335 prevents obesity related endpoints in female rodent model of menopause." Her mentor is Matia Solomon, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience.
- Andrea Toth, a student at the University of Dayton and the ROSE program, won third place for the research titled, "A Dried Blood Spot Card-Based Test for Diagnosis of Autoimmune Pulmonary Alveolar Proteinosis." Toth's mentor was Bruce Trapnell, MD, assistant director, adult cystic fibrosis center at Cincinnati Children's and professor in the UC Department of Pediatrics.
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