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Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Volume 160 No. 36 SERVING SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
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Marc d’Alarcao hands Jaedyn Rollins, biological sciences and systems physiology master’s student, the first place award at the Grad Slam event at the Hammer Theater on Tuesday.
Spartans show graduate research Graduate students present their studies in three minutes using one slide By Enrique Gutierrez-Sevilla STAFF WRITER
The College of Graduate Studies hosted the Grad Slam at the Hammer Theatre for graduate students to present their research projects on Tuesday. Grad Slam is a research communication presentation where graduate students have three minutes and one slide to present their research to judges and a non-specialist audience, according to the San Jose State website. The judges consisted of Kate Forrest, the 1st place winner at last year’s Grad Slam, Stefan Frazier, a professor of the department of linguistics at SJSU, David Korsmeyer, the Deputy Center Director for Research and technology at NASA’s Ames Research Center and principal scientific researcher at Genentech, Meenakshi Goel. Holt Hanley, SJSU alumnus and meteorologist, was the emcee for the event. “It’s a pretty awesome event where you take a massive amount of ideas and research and then condense them, make it more concise, and take an idea that you have shared with somebody else,” Hanley said. The 1st place prize winner would be awarded a $1,200 check, meanwhile the 2nd place prize winner is awarded $800 and the audience choice winner would be awarded $500. Jaedyn L. Rollins, biological sciences and systems physiology master’s student, won 1st place with her presentation, “Utilization of the RhD Locus as a Safe Harbor for Gene Editing Applications.”
“There are over 10,000 different diseases in which a single functional gene is missing and due to this unreadable sequence, the body doesn’t function as it should,” Rollins said. “If we were to insert a healthy version of this gene into an individual’s DNA, they could be cured.” She said in her research, she evaluates a specific DNA location that could be safe for gene insertion. “This location determines if you have a positive or negative blood type, called the RhD locus,” Rollins said. She gave the example of someone with blood Type A negative where the gene at the location is nonfunctional and individuals with a nonfunctional RhD gene are normal because the DNA location can be disrupted without causing any problems. A negative blood type is a rare blood type determined by genes inherited from parents, according to the Give Blood website. “We hypothesize that the RhD locus can be a safe place for gene editing,” Rollins said. “To insert a gene into DNA, we first need to make a cut in the DNA using CRISPR Cas9 technology.” CRISPR Cas9 technology modifies genes by cutting DNA and letting it repair naturally, according to the CRISPR Therapeutics website. She said CRISPR CAS9 includes three parts, a molecular scissor that cuts DNA of guide RNA that guides CAS9 to a specific location and a repair template that repairs the break in the DNA with the gene that’s
PHOTOS BY ENRIQUE GUTIERREZ-SEVILLA | SPARTAN DAILY
Speech language pathology master’s student Peace Lu presents her research on stuttering diagnosis criteria for bilingual children at the Grad Slam event at the Hammer Theater on Tuesday.
being inserted. “We made our guide RNA match the DNA found at the RhD locus so that it can tell CAS9 where to cut there,” Rollins said. “Our repair template contains gene called GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) that glows green so that we can visually prove when it is successfully inserted and then added these three CRISPR components to human blood cells and confirmed that the GFP gene was not only inserted at the correct location, but also functional, as observed by this green glow.” Rollins said the next step is to repeat the process but instead insert the gene that is responsible for the bleeding disorder, Hemophilia A. Hemophilia A is a hereditary bleeding disorder that alters blood coagulation, according
to the National Library of Medicine website. “If successful, this innovative technique of using the RhD locus as a safe place for editing our genetic document can be applied to curing several diseases,” Rollins said. Rollins said winning 1st place at the Grad Slam was surreal. “I didn’t think it would happen, when they read my name, I was very shocked,” Rollins said. She said winning to her meant to be more confident in the way she communicates her research. “It’s sometimes hard to know whether what you’re saying the audience is understanding, so this kind of reaffirms that I am able to communicate my science,” Rollins said. Rollins said she needed to include how CRISPR works and why it can impact the clinical
field overall in her presentation. The second place winner Hoang-Vi Vu, biological sciences master’s student, presented “Assessing the Effects of a Molecule on Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy”. “Globally, close to 60% of new cancer cases require some type of treatment, and other 40% of them experienced the side effects of pain numbness and tingling, all of which are associated with balance skills, motor skills and fine coordination skills,” Vu said regarding the common side effects of chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy. She said there’s no current treatment or therapy that can cure CIPN and wants to know whether it could be prevented in the future. GRAD SLAM | Page 2