TRIP Phase 2: The Birth of an Idea by Casey Kim

Hi everyone!  It’s been a little while!  I cannot believe it is already the sixth week of TRIP!  We just wrapped our Kickoff Experiments and will start our Independent Projects soon.  Here’s a short recap of the results of my experiment: As a reminder, I chose to investigate the effects of head trauma on fly anxiety and whether St. John’s Wort, a known antidepressant, could counteract those effects.  I hypothesized that the head trauma would increase anxiety, while the St. John’s Wort would somewhat mitigate these effects to a level of normalcy.  To measure this, I used an open field test, or a centrophobism assay, where I measured how often the fruit flies crossed the center of a small dish, how long they spent in the center, and how much time they spent moving.  The idea is that more anxious flies will spend more time on the outside of the dish, while the calmer flies will spend more time in the center.  After some tedious data analysis, I found that my data did, in fact, validate my hypothesis.  Flies with head trauma were found to be more stressed, but St. John’s Wort was also found to successfully reverse these effects (even more than I had originally thought!).  I presented these findings to my TRIP instructors and peers, where I received some valuable feedback and listened to some fascinating presentations about the others’ tests and findings.

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As for the next few weeks, my Independent Project will focus on natural vs. pharmaceutical anti-inflammatory substances on immune function.  The inspiration for my project was actually my own medications.  I’ve had severe Atopic Dermatitis my whole life, and although there are many types of treatments, a type of medication called a JAK inhibitor was one of the few to work for me.  JAK, or Janus kinase, inhibitors are a type of medication designed to treat inflammatory conditions and overactive immune systems; they do this by blocking signals for specific enzymes in the body (lucky for me, the JAK/STAT pathway in Drosophila is very similar to that in humans and has been heavily researched).  As I am currently on a JAK inhibitor myself, I was curious about how pharmaceutical treatments would affect the flies as opposed to more natural ones.  To do this, I will be comparing the effects of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a JAK inhibitor found in green tea, and heparin, a coagulant (blood thinner) involved in JAK/STAT pathways.  To mimic an “eczema-like” condition in an organism that doesn’t have skin, I will be simulating inflammation with hydrogen peroxide as my stressor.  For this experiment, I will have six vials (control, EGCG only, heparin only, stressor only, EGCG + stressor, and heparin + stressor).  As for measuring the effect on immune function, I will primarily be using the Melanization Assay, or as it’s otherwise affectionately been nick-named the “Larva Torture Assay.”  Since the production of melanin (melanization) is a critical process in Drosophila healing, you can measure the activity of their immune system by subjecting them to a damaging environment (hence the “torture” part) and seeing how dark they get.  Overall, although I am not certain how this project will go or what issues I may face down the road, I am beyond excited to begin.  

I would like to give a HUGE thank-you to Dr. Maskalenko and Dr. Austria for even entertaining my idea of testing something related to skin.  It means the world to me that I am able to test something so close to home.  I will keep you all posted on what comes of my project in the weeks to come.

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