Previous Research Projects
Kansas Red a novel, pH sensitive fluorescent compound and response in the C. elegans intestine.
As a research technician at the University of Kansas, I characterized the responses of novel, fluorescent molecular probes in different tissues of the nematode, C. elegans. These fluorescent probes were designed to identify tissue specific proteases whose activity might be harnessed to improve the pharmacokinetic properties of drugs and enhance their delivery to specific sites of action. I contributed to the discovery that the fluorescence intensity of our probes changed rapidly in response to the acidification of the C. elegans intestine.
Dioscorea bulbifera (air potato or aerial yam).
* Image curtesy of the Brisbane City Council weed identification tool.
As an undergraduate at the University of Central Florida, I investigated the evolution of a signaling pathway involved in regulating the spatial patterning of stomata on the Arabidopsis leaf surface. I cloned and sequenced a homolog of the TOO MANY MOUTHs (TMM) gene, which encodes a receptor like protein, from a non-model organism, Dioscorea bulbifera. I used bayesian analysis to create phylogenetic trees of the TMM gene family, and used confocal microscopy to examine stomatal patterning in Dioscorea bulbifera.