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When examining the medical doctrines of previous empires, they reveal the influence of religion, societal attitudes, and the historical context that influenced the scholars that penned them. The advancements during the Islamic Golden age can be seen in the field of medicine, which had the Greco-Roman medical corpus as their foundation and the source of the theory of the four humors and anatomical beliefs. This paper will analyze the effect of cultural, societal, and historical influences on the medical doctrines of Muslim medieval physicians in the Golden Age and the works of the Roman physician Galen, and demonstrate how these effects result in similarities and differences in medical practice and the understanding of disease and anatomy. Due to translation efforts that were supported by religious views on the accumulation of knowledge and the efforts of the Abbasid empire, resultant acceptance of the theory of the four humors and anatomical doctrines is observed in the treatment and perception of disease, which would consist of this paper's focus on surgery, diet therapy and associations with nature. However, with further analysis of the extent of this acceptance and the findings in the Islamic medical doctrines, the differences in experimental methods, religious interpretations, and cultural attitudes shows a deviation from the Galenic tradition, with the second set of the paper's focus being human dissection, cause of disease, and experimentation. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the impact of religion, societal attitudes, culture and the accepted paradigm on the practice of medicine and the study of anatomy, and what would cause a challenge against the legacy of Galen.
ContributorsAlzuhairi, Fatemah Saad (Author) / Vélez-Ibáñez, Carlos (Thesis director) / Smith, Brian (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies have experienced substantial losses due to colony collapse disorder (CCD) since the first officially reported cases in 2006. Many factors have been implicated in CCD, including pests, pathogens, malnutrition, and pesticide use, but no correlation has been found between a single factor and the occurrence of CCD. Fungicides have received less research attention compared to insecticides, despite the fact that fungicide application coincides with bloom and the presence of bees. Pristine fungicide is widely used in agriculture and is commonly found as a residue in hives. Several studies have concluded that Pristine can be used without harming bees, but reports of brood loss following Pristine application continue to surface across the country. The primary objectives of this study were to determine whether Pristine causes an aversive gustatory response in bees and whether consumption of an acute dose affects responsiveness to sucrose. An awareness of how foragers interact with contaminated food is useful to understand the likelihood that Pristine is ingested and how that may affect bees' ability to evaluate floral resources. Our results indicated that Pristine has no significant effect on gustatory response or sucrose responsiveness. There was no significant difference between bee responses to Pristine contaminated sucrose and sucrose alone, and no significant effect of Pristine on sucrose responsiveness. These results indicate that honey bees do not have a gustatory aversion to Pristine. A lack of aversion means that honey bees will continue collecting contaminated resources and dispersing them throughout the colony where it can affect brood and clean food stores.
ContributorsMcHugh, Cora Elizabeth (Co-author) / Jernigan, Christopher (Co-author, Committee member) / Burden, Christina (Co-author) / DeGrandi-Hoffman, Gloria (Co-author) / Smith, Brian (Thesis director) / Fewell, Jennifer (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This study illustrates the abilities of the honeybee, Apis mellifera, to learn and differentiate between patterns solely off their spatial frequencies. Patterns were chosen based off of calculations derived from the measurements of the physical construction of the apposition compound eye, which led to predictions of what the bees could theoretically see. The hypothesis was then that bees would have a visual threshold where patterns with spatial frequencies that fall below this line should be easily distinguishable, and patterns above the threshold would have scores that mimic if the bees made choices randomly. There were 9 patterns tested, all with different spatial frequencies and in the colors of black, white, and gray. The bees were tested on their learning and pattern differentiation abilities with 10 pattern comparisons, with the lower frequency of the two being associated with an unscented sucrose solution reward. The results were surprising in that the previous studies pointing towards this visual threshold were inaccurate because of some of the patterns being learning in an intermediate ability. These intermediate scores suggest that the calculations predicting what the bees could see clearly were slightly wrong because it was more likely that the bees saw those images in more of a blur, which resulted in their intermediate score. Honeybees have served as a useful model organisms over the decades with studying learning involving visual information. This study lacked in its total numbers of trials and bees tested, which could have led to incomplete results, and this showing of an intermediate score and ability. Future studies should continue in order to advance this understanding of a perceptually and cognitively advance processing animal.
ContributorsBalsino, Brandon Bartholomew (Author) / Harrison, Jon (Thesis director) / Smith, Brian (Committee member) / Duell, Meghan (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
This study was conducted to observe the effects of vitamin C supplementation upon the expression of sICAM-1 in asthmatic subject. Two groups were created, each with a sample size of 4 subjects. One group was the vitamin C group (VC) and the other was the placebo group (PL). The study was analyzed through observing concentrations of biomolecules present within samples of blood plasma and nasal lavages. These included vitamin C, sICAM-1 expression, and histamine. The following P-values calculated from the data collected from this study. The plasma vitamin C screening was p=0.3, and after 18 days of supplementation, p=0.03. For Nasal ICAM p=0.5 at Day 0, p=0.4 at Day 4, and p=0.9 at Day 18. For the Histamine samples p=0.9 at Day 0 and p=0.9 at Day 18. The following P-values calculated from the data collected from both studies. The plasma vitamin C screening was p=0.8, and after 18 days of supplementation, p=0.03. The change of vitamin C at the end of this study and the combined data both had a P-value that was calculated to be lower than 0.05, which meant that this change was significant because it was due to the intervention and not chance. For Nasal ICAM samples p=0.7 at Day 0, p=0.7 at Day 4, and p=1 at Day 18. For the Histamine p=0.7 at Day 0 and p=0.9 at Day 18. This study carries various implications although the study data was unable to show much significance. This was the second study to test this, and as more research is done, and the sample size grows, one will be able to observe whether this really is the mechanism through which vitamin C plays a role in immunological functions.
ContributorsKapadia, Chirag Vinay (Author) / Johnston, Carol (Thesis director) / LaBaer, Joshua (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
Selenium, a group 16 metalloid on the periodic table, is a necessary mineral for many organisms. Trace amounts of selenium are essential for normal development, antioxidant protein function, enzyme function, and hormone regulation (Burden et al., 2016). However, when selenium is found in toxic amounts in organisms, it has been found to substitute for sulfur in proteins, which can be toxic to these animals, and cause oxidative stress (Quinn et al., 2007). Using the previous research done with acute exposure to organic and inorganic selenium compounds, we hypothesized that the inorganic sodium selenate would significantly decrease learning and memory recall for both chronic and acute exposure. We also hypothesized that the consumption of organic methylseleno-L-cysteine by honey bees would decrease learning and memory recall for both the chronic and acute exposure. We further hypothesized that protein carbonyl content would be increased due to oxidative damage caused by selenium in both the sodium selenate and the methylseleno-L-cysteine treatment groups, but that the inorganic selenium compound would increase the carbonyl content more than the methylseleno-L-cysteine. To run the experiments, three tents outside had two colonies in each tent. One tent contained the sodium selenate group, another had the sucrose control, and one contained the methylseleno-L-cysteine group. The treatment groups were fed selenium in their sucrose feeders. The first part of the experiment was training the bees by using proboscis extension response (PER) to teach them to extend their proboscis to the rewarded odor and not to the unrewarded odor. This was done by pairing the rewarded odor with a sucrose reward and not pairing it with the unrewarded odor. Then their short-term and long-term memory recall was tested. The second part of the experiment was checking for oxidative damage by measuring the protein carbonyl content in the bees. Three boxes were set up with the same three treatment groups as used in the tents. The treatment group bees were exposed to selenium in the sucrose feeders and in the pollen patties. After one week, the living bees were removed and frozen. They were then homogenized to extract protein. The first assay run was the protein content assay to establish a standard protein concentration for samples. Then a protein carbonyl assay was run, to determine the protein carbonyl content. Overall, the experiment found that exposure to selenium negatively impacted honey bees learning and memory recall significantly. Chronic exposure to the inorganic selenate reduced the bees' long-term memory abilities to differentiate between odors. With methylseleno-L-cysteine, it had no significant effect for the chronic exposure, but for the acute exposure, it had a significant impairment on their abilities to distinguish between the rewarded and unrewarded odors during conditioning. Our results showed that from our experiment there appeared to be no significant effect of selenium exposure on the increase of carbonylation content in the different treatment groups. This is most likely due to the fact the carbonyl content was not detectable because the protein concentration was low in the samples (approximately 3.5 mg/mL).
ContributorsWinski, Alexandra (Co-author) / Winski, Brandon (Co-author) / Smith, Brian (Thesis director) / Harrison, Jon (Committee member) / Burden, Christina (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most highly diagnosed cancers in the United States and accounts for 9.5% of all new cancer cases worldwide. With a 50% five-year prognosis, it is the second highest cancerous cause of death in the U.S. CRC tumors express antigens that are capable of inducing an immune response. The identification of autoantibodies (AAb) against tumor-associated antigens (TAA) may facilitate personalized tumor treatment in the form of targeted immunotherapy. The objective of this study was to observe the AAb expression raised against a 2000 human gene survey in late-stage colorectal cancer using the Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Arrays (NAPPA). AAbs from serum samples were collected from 80 patients who died within 24 months of their last blood draw and 80 age and gender matched healthy control were profiled using NAPPA. TAA p53, a well-established protein that is one of the most highly mutated across a variety of cancers, was one of the top candidates based on statistical analysis, which, along with its family proteins p63 and p73 (which showed inverse AAb response profiles) warranted further testing via RAPID ELISA. Statistical analysis from these results revealed an inverse differential relationship between p53 and p63, in which p53 seropositivity was higher in patients than in controls, while the opposite was unexpectedly the case for p63. This study involving the AAb immunoprofiling of advanced stage CRC patients is one of the first to shed light on the high-throughput feasibility of immunoproteomic experiments using protein arrays as well as the identification of immunotherapy targets in a more rapid move towards specialized treatment of advanced CRC.
ContributorsSzeto, Emily (Author) / LaBaer, Joshua (Thesis director) / Qiu, Ji (Committee member) / Demirkan, Gokhan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
The focus of this project was to look at alternative treatments for endocrine resistant breast cancer (ERBC), which are breast cancers that have become resistant to hormone therapies such as Tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors. The first part of this project involves investigating the relationship between histone de-acetylase inhibitor Vorinostat and Tamoxifen in MCF7 G11 cells, Tamoxifen resistant sub-clones, according to the PSOC Time grant. The second part involves targeting the androgen receptor (AR) in MCF7 sub-clones with AR antagonists, Bicalutamide and MDV3100, and investigating the possible usage of AR as a biomarker, due to over-expression of AR in ERBC, in accordance with the Mayo ASU Seed Grant.
The synergistic effects between Vorinostat and Tamoxifen observed through a phase II study on breast cancer patients resistant to hormone therapy may involve more than the modulation of ER-alpha to reverse Tamoxifen resistance in ERBC cells. RT-qPCR of genes expressed in Tamoxifen resistant cells, trefoil factor 1(TFF1) and v-myc avian myelocytomatosis viral oncogene homolog (MYC), were evaluated along with ESR1 and Diablo as a control. MYC was observed to have increased expression in the treated cells, whereas the other genes had a decrease in their expression levels after the cells were treated for 3 days with Vorinostat IC30 of 1 µM. As for targeting the AR, MCF7 Tamoxifen sensitive and resistant cells were not affected by the AR antagonists to determine an IC50. The cell viability for all MCF7 sub-clones only decreased for high concentrations of 5.56 µM - 50 µM in Bicalutamide and 16.67 µM – 50 µM of MDV1300. Furthermore, hormone depletion of MCF7 G11 Tamoxifen resistant sub-clones did not show a great response to DHT stimulation or the AR antagonists. In the RT-qPCR, the MCF7 G11 cells showed an increase in mRNA expression for ER, AR, and PR after 4 hours of treatment with estradiol. As for the DHT treatment, ER, AR, PR, and PSA had a minimal increase in the fold change, but the fold change in AR was less than in the estradiol treatment. The Mayo Clinic will investigate the possible usage of AR as a biomarker through immunohistochemistry.
The synergistic effects between Vorinostat and Tamoxifen observed through a phase II study on breast cancer patients resistant to hormone therapy may involve more than the modulation of ER-alpha to reverse Tamoxifen resistance in ERBC cells. RT-qPCR of genes expressed in Tamoxifen resistant cells, trefoil factor 1(TFF1) and v-myc avian myelocytomatosis viral oncogene homolog (MYC), were evaluated along with ESR1 and Diablo as a control. MYC was observed to have increased expression in the treated cells, whereas the other genes had a decrease in their expression levels after the cells were treated for 3 days with Vorinostat IC30 of 1 µM. As for targeting the AR, MCF7 Tamoxifen sensitive and resistant cells were not affected by the AR antagonists to determine an IC50. The cell viability for all MCF7 sub-clones only decreased for high concentrations of 5.56 µM - 50 µM in Bicalutamide and 16.67 µM – 50 µM of MDV1300. Furthermore, hormone depletion of MCF7 G11 Tamoxifen resistant sub-clones did not show a great response to DHT stimulation or the AR antagonists. In the RT-qPCR, the MCF7 G11 cells showed an increase in mRNA expression for ER, AR, and PR after 4 hours of treatment with estradiol. As for the DHT treatment, ER, AR, PR, and PSA had a minimal increase in the fold change, but the fold change in AR was less than in the estradiol treatment. The Mayo Clinic will investigate the possible usage of AR as a biomarker through immunohistochemistry.
ContributorsVorachitti, Merica (Author) / LaBaer, Joshua (Thesis director) / Anderson, Karen (Committee member) / Gonzalez, Laura (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
A coincidence reporter construct, consisting of the p21-promoter and two luciferase genes (Firefly and Renilla), was constructed for the screening of drugs that might inhibit Olig2's tumorigenic role in glioblastoma. The reporter construct was tested using an Olig2 inhibitor, HSP990, as well as short hairpin RNA targeting Olig2. Further confirmatory analysis is needed before the reporter cell line is ready for high-throughput screening at the NIH and lead compound selection.
ContributorsCusimano, Joseph Michael (Author) / LaBaer, Joshua (Thesis director) / Mangone, Marco (Committee member) / Mehta, Shwetal (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) is still not fully understood in the scientific community. Evidence has shown that viral infections are one of the important environmental factors associated with the disease development. Seven of the top T1D related viruses were selected to study the prevalence of viral humoral response in T1D patients using our innovative protein array platform called Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Array (NAPPA). In this study, each viral gene was individually captured using various PCR based techniques, cloned into a protein expression vector, and assembled as the first version of T1D viral protein array. Humoral responses of IgG, IgA, and IgM were examined. Although each class of immunoglobulin generated a wide-range of reactivity, responses to various viral proteins from different proteins were observed. In summary, we captured most of the T1D related viral genes, established viral protein expression on the protein array, and displayed the serum response on the viral protein array. The successful progress will help to fulfill the long term goal of testing the viral infection hypothesis in T1D development.
ContributorsDavis, Amy Darlene (Author) / LaBaer, Joshua (Thesis director) / Qiu, Ji (Committee member) / Desi, Paul (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Identifying disease biomarkers may aid in the early detection of breast cancer and improve patient outcomes. Recent evidence suggests that tumors are immunogenic and therefore patients may launch an autoantibody response to tumor associated antigens. Single-chain variable fragments of autoantibodies derived from regional lymph node B cells of breast cancer patients were used to discover these tumor associated biomarkers on protein microarrays. Six candidate biomarkers were discovered from 22 heavy chain-only variable region antibody fragments screened. Validation tests are necessary to confirm the tumorgenicity of these antigens. However, the use of single-chain variable autoantibody fragments presents a novel platform for diagnostics and cancer therapeutics.
ContributorsSharman, M. Camila (Author) / Magee, Dewey (Mitch) (Thesis director) / Wallstrom, Garrick (Committee member) / Petritis, Brianne (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor) / Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics (Contributor) / Biodesign Institute (Contributor)
Created2012-12