This project is the final component of Global Health Studies immersion experience. I completed this experience at two different dental clinics within the Cincinnati Health Network. I shadowed dental professionals for approximately 40 hours, taking detailed field notes for qualitative research, in addition to my literature research. Oral health is one of the most integral, […]
A48: Seeing a Future Together: The Potential for Health Programs to Reduce Avoidable Blindness in Rural Communities
My project is about avoidable blindness in rural areas of the United States and is analyzed through the lens of global health. The work was conducted with a mix of in-field work and academic work. My immersion experience involved spending 7 weeks immersed in rural Honduras. During this time I shadowed physicians and community health […]
A49: Carnitine Degradation in an Isolated Strain of the Gut Bacterium Citrobacter amalonaticus
The gut microbiome is home to several species of bacteria and other microorganisms that play an essential role in human health. For example, the normal bacteria in our gut provide resistance to pathogenic species and directly impact nutrient metabolism, such as the production of vitamin K. Carnitine, which is a molecule commonly found in seafood […]
A43: Actinobacteria and Their Link to Unique Microbial Ecosystems in the Taylor Dry Valleys, Antarctica
Extremophiles, organisms that live in environments outside of the conditions that are well suited to life, need incredible amounts of adaptation to survive. One of the most extreme environments on earth are the lakes in the Taylor Dry Valleys in Antarctica. These lakes are subject to the polar night, as well as increased radiation.Low precipitation […]
A28: The Impact of Elevated Salinity on Palmelloid Formation and Disruption in Chlamydomonas Species
Soil salinity is a foreign term to most, yet it is now a global issue. With an increase in farming and irrigation worldwide, soil salinity is stunting crop growth and inhibiting its ability to produce viable yields. Salt exposure to photosynthetic organisms can severely inhibit their growth rate and cause cell damage, however, mesophilic green […]
A27: A Community Under Siege — Salinity Impact on Phycosphere Communities
The lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valley in Antarctica represent a stable environment with minimal external inputs and highly stratified aquatic ecosystems as a result of perennial ice-covers that prevent wind-mixing and atmospheric gas exchange. This environment imposes various stressors on its microbial communities such as low light, low temperature, and osmotic stress. Microorganisms within […]
C29: MBI575: Attachment of Bacteria to Algae as an Adaptation to Salt Stress in Antarctic Lakes
Antarctic lakes are extreme environments. Contrary to temperate lakes, they never mix and hence present a permanent stratification, following gradients of different abiotic factors such as salt that increases with depth. As the nutrients are very limiting in such environments, the biological communities are dominated by autotrophic organisms that fix the inorganic carbon and make […]
A41: Unusual Cell Division in Cell Wall-less Bacteria
Cell division in most bacteria is a highly organized, regular process in which a single cell gives rise to two essentially equivalent daughter cells. Division is coordinated with parent cell growth and DNA replication and dependent upon cell wall synthesis. Mycoplasma is a genus of very small bacteria resulting from reductive evolution of the genome, […]
A26: Phage of Enlightenment: What Has Been Learned from the Isolation and Characterization of Bacteriophages of Microbacterium foliorum and Streptomyces lividans
First-year students in Miami University’s Microbiology 223 and 224 class are among participants at over 100 colleges and universities in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s SEA-PHAGES program. This program is aimed at providing young scientists with an opportunity to carry out discovery-based science. In MBI 223 in the fall 2022 semester, students collected soil and […]
A73: The Inhibition of Apoptosis by Chlamydia
The focus of the experiment that was conducted during the summer of 2021 was to determine the effects of chlamydia on human host cells, specifically in regards to apoptosis. Apoptosis, commonly referred to as “programmed cell death”, is triggered in high stress environments in order to stop pathogens from spreading without causing inflammation in the […]