What was the focus of your research?

It was on the copper dependent increase in neurodegeneration due to amyloid beta protein and the metabolic growth rate decrease due to copper. So basically, I’m expressing a protein in the eye of a fly, and then I’m either giving them copper or not giving them copper and seeing if that protein causes the eye to shrivel up. That mimics what happens in Alzheimer’s disease, and so I’m looking to see if copper is going to increase the degeneration due to Alzheimer’s disease, or lessen it, or do nothing. My research found that it didn’t have any effects, which was kind of surprising because a lot of previous research has indicated that the copper should make it worse. I did find it decreased their growth rates. For instance, if I gave them about two milli-molar copper it would take them a day or two longer to pupate than it normally would take them. In the research, it’s kind of like two different fields looking at the metabolic growth rates and looking at the eye, and so I wanted to do a study where I combined both of those and looked at the effects.

What is the significance of your research?

Finding out why my research had different results than other things that I had looked at could be important. The amyloid beta proteins that I was expressing, using a certain gene are slightly different from the ones I had seen in other studies. Theoretically, it shouldn’t really have made a difference, but it did. Finding out why there was a difference there might actually give us an indication of what copper is affecting in pathways.

How was Hillsdale able to help you with your research?

Obviously them literally paying me to do this over the summer was awesome. I worked part time while I was doing the research, but if I wasn’t being paid, that would have been a lot more difficult to survive over the summer and pay for rent and stuff. Having a fruit fly program here because Dr. Nam works with fruit fly research was also helpful. And then the chemistry department helped me as well with getting the copper sulfate that I used to deliver the copper into the fruit flies. 

What was it like presenting your research?

It was honestly really cool. It was interesting to see other research that other schools were doing, and I was kind of expecting that with Hillsdale as sort of a small school the scope of our research projects might be a bit smaller than some of these other big schools. But that is not what I found at all. We were definitely among the most impressive research projects. 

What are your future plans?

I’ll be going to the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine this summer, and they have four campuses, but I’m going to the one in Florida because I want to be warm. It’s right outside of Tampa, and it’s kind of sweet because it’s like 30 minutes away from all the beaches.