Glen M. Wickersham García
Undergraduate Student
Dept. of Natural Sciences & Biotechnology
Sagrado Corazón University
San Juan
Home Research
Mentor: Jose E. Garcia Arraras, PhD
Project: Identification of neurotrophic factors and their putative receptors in the sea cucumber H. glaberrima
Project Description: The field of regenerative medicine and precision medicine aims to use growth factors, transcription factors, and other regulators to target specific cellular mechanism to regenerate tissues and organs. In humans, the ability to regenerate their nervous system is highly limited by many issues that are not yet fully understood. In contrast, other animal species have amazing regenerative capacities. H. glaberrima, like other echinoderms, has been shown to be a potential model to understand nervous system regeneration. One of the components we are exploring is the reinnervation of the regenerated intestinal tissue. Exploration of putative factors identified from regeneration transcriptomes has allowed the identification of several vertebrate orthologues. Using in silico methods, we were able to identify two different putative neurotrophic factors and at least one receptor from H. glaberrima transcriptomes. The encoded proteins, obtained from both neural and intestinal transcriptomes, show a high sequence similarity to members of the neurotrophin family and their receptors. Specific conserved regions for these genes were compared with other homologues from echinoderms and humans. Further studies of these genes could lead to the determination of their roles in regenerating tissue and their possible importance in the regeneration of the organs.
Summer Research
Mentor: Wert (Katherine J. Wert)
Project: Photoreceptor Degeneration in a Novel Mouse Model with Overexpression of a Human Gene Involved in Macular Degeneration
Project Description: The macula is a specific region of the retina responsible for our central visual field and contains many photoreceptors. Without vision in this region, patients are no longer able to recognize faces or perform independent daily activities. As the causes for macular degenerative disease are not well understood, there are very few treatment options available for patients suffering from these conditions. Thus, there is a critical need to understand the mechanisms behind the degeneration to assist in identifying therapeutics to prevent or delay macular degenerative disease. Currently, there are some genes shown to be associated with inherited macular degenerative diseases, although studies have yet to prove them causal or identify the mechanism in which they lead to disease.