Shelbi Parker (NILES LAB)

Creating a New Malaria Vaccine by Displaying Antigens on the Parasite Surface

Current malaria vaccines utilize either subunit or whole-cell approaches and are inefficient in offering protection. I propose a combination, where a whole parasite serves as a chassis for protein presentation to reap the benefits of specific, chosen antigens on the parasite’s vacuolar membrane surface. Parasite lines were generated with conditional expression of protein fusions and characterized in and out of RBC hosts. This design could protect across the parasite life cycle to combat infection, growth, and transmission.

Becca Black (GRODZINSKY LAB)

Inflammatory Mediators Characterize Donor-specific Response to Dexamethasone in Human PTOA Model

Osteoarthritis affects nearly a quarter of our adult population in the U.S., but there is no current disease-modifying drug. The steroid dexamethasone has shown promise as an anti-catabolic drug for OA treatment, but much remains to be understood about its effects on joint tissues as well as differences in response across patient populations. Here we use a proteomic approach to demonstrate donor-specific differences to Dex treatment in a human osteochondral explant PTOA model that are correlated to changes in immune factor release.