Undergraduate Student Scholarship

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Browsing Undergraduate Student Scholarship by Author "Banes-Berceli, Amy"

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    Characterization of 5-HT Receptors in the Kidneys of Type I Diabetic Rats
    (2014-08-25) Matthews, Marissa; Banes-Berceli, Amy
    Diabetes Mellitus commonly known as diabetes, is an epidemic in the United States accounting for numerous deaths due to complications each year. These complications include hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke, kidney failure, and many others. Diabetes also leads to a decrease in the quality of life for millions of patients every year because of amputations, daily injections of medication, daily monitoring of blood sugar levels, impaired wound healing, and fatigue. There is still no effective cure for diabetes and treatment options are extremely limited. We investigated the potential role of elevated levels of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT, Serotonin) and its receptors observed in the plasma and kidney tissue of Type I diabetic rats. Hopefully by understanding these elevations and their physiological implications, we will be able to create better clinical treatments. These treatments will have a variety of impacts on both a clinical and economical level. It is important to use an intact physiological system in order to see the timing of when damage actually appears and to mimic the events in the intact organisms. The interconnectedness of the hormones, circulatory system, kidneys, etc. cannot be mimicked by any other means of study. By better understanding the role 5-hydroxytryptamine in the kidneys and the potential resulting damage, we will hopefully be able to find a way to treat these conditions.
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    Effects of Src Homolog Phosphatase-1 (SHP-1) on Janus Kinase 2 (JAK/STAT) and Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase (PI3-kinase) Pathways in 7 and 28 day Renal-Wrap Hypertension
    (2014-07-22) Lwin, Poe; Banes-Berceli, Amy
    Hypertension, or high blood pressure, affects millions of patients every year and is associated with many types of cardiovascular diseases. While there are many drugs available to treat hypertension only 40% of the patients on medication currently have their blood pressure controlled. One problem that contributes to this low effectiveness medication is that there is a paucity of knowledge about the molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of blood pressure and the process of pathogenesis that leads to end organ damage. For example, the molecular mechanisms involved in increasing blood pressure are not the same ones that maintain the increase over time. In this project we studied the Janus Kinase (JAK)/Signal Transducers of Activated Transcription (STAT) and the Phosphoinositide kinase (PI3-kinase) pathways. These two pathways have been linked to altered function associated with other forms of hypertension but their roles and their regulation in these disease processes are not well understood. We chose to use two time points in our study (7 and 28 days). The reasons for this are to look at development vs established mechanisms. The main purpose of this thesis is to identify the levels of JAK2/STAT and PI3-kinase pathway activity. In this research, male Sprague-Dawley rats will be induced with hypertension by renal wrap and sacrificed at days 7 and 28. Aorta, other blood vessels and cells from these rats will be collected and studied by myography and Western Blot to explore the relationship between the JAK2/STAT and PI3-kinase pathways. These data clearly demonstrate that these pathways are altered during hypertension and result in function changes in the vasculature. Although many drugs being used to treat hypertension are currently available in the market, 60% of the hypertensive patients do not have their disease progression under control which leads to end organ damage. By studying these pathways and their roles, we aim to identify potential new drug targets to control hypertension.
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    Potential Role of SHP-1 in Angiotensin II-induced Insulin Resistance
    Barbat, Antonio; Banes-Berceli, Amy
    There are many contributing factors to the development of Type II diabetes mellitus (DM2), including both genetics and lifestyle factors, such as poor diet and lack of exercise. On the molecular level Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 (DM2) is characterized by the development of insulin resistance, in which cells do not correctly respond to the effects of insulin. The molecular mechanisms that are responsible for the development of insulin resistance are not well understood and are of significant importance, considering the high prevalence of DM2 in our population. It is known from the current literature that the proteins AKT, PI3Kinase, JAK2, SHP-1 and PTEN are involved in the pathology of DM2, but there is much to be learned yet. This thesis investigated the role of the intracellular protein SHP-1 to determine if Angiotensin II utilized it in the molecular mechanisms of insulin resistance. I used sample tissues from canine kidney cortexes that were treated with various concentrations of insulin and Angiotensin II. These samples were generated by our collaborator at the Medical College of Georgia. We hypothesized that an increase in SHP-1 activity would result in decreased AKT activation, leading to insulin resistance and eventually DM2.
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    Role of the PI3K/Akt pathway in human renal cell carcinoma
    (2015-06-18) Rishi, Sunny; Banes-Berceli, Amy
    Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common form of renal cancer. Currently, RCC accounts for 9 out of 10 cases of kidney cancer diagnosed in the United States. According to the American Cancer Society, there were approximately 65,150 new cases in 2013 and 13,680 deaths were expected from this disease. Current data clearly shows that RCC responds very poorly to current chemotherapy and radiation treatment options. This results in invasive surgery being the only viable option in many cases. Therefore, there is an urgent need for better clinical treatment options. As with other forms of cancer, there have been suggestions of altered functioning of intracellular signaling pathways responsible for the pathogenesis of RCC. Treatment with drugs that inhibit these particular pathways could lead to apoptosis of renal cancer cells and improvement in patient outcomes. Since PI3K and members of its intracellular signaling cascade are often activated in different cancers, we investigated whether this pathway was involved in RCC. Our study is the first to reveal the activation of PI3K pathway in human RCC biopsies with a comparison across all grades of cancer.