Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2023

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Air Quality: Comparison of PM2.5 Levels in Evaporative vs Central Air Homes in Utah County Using Filter-Based Sampling

Alisandra Olivares, Taylor Christensen, Paula Chanthakhoun, Jim Johnston, and Darrell Sonntag

PM_2.5 is particulate matter that is less than 2.5 micrometers. Combustion of fuels, gas, natural gas, and wood are contributors to the production of PM_2.5.
The Long-term Effects of Grazing on Desert Soils in the Great Basin

Alexander Olson, Neil Hansen, Loreen Allphin, and Sam Spackman

The Desert Experimental Range in the Great Basin region of southwestern Utah was created by President Hoover in 1933 to study cold-desert rangeland ecology and observe the effects of cattle and sheep grazing on the arid ecosystem. This 225 square kilometer area was initially set up with a series of paddocks and exclosures. Various grazing intensities throughout multiple seasons were permitted within the paddocks since its origin. For the purposes of this research, samples were taken within a given exclosure and the greater paddock to monitor the long term effects of grazing and its permanent or semi-permanent impacts. Samples were taken at a depth of about 10 cm given the difficulty of extracting from such a terrain. All samples were collected on the same day.
Developing Improved Water Catchment Systems to Benefit Rangeland Restoration

Ethan Ostraff, Kevin Steele, Ezekiel Jensesn, and Matthew Madsen

1st place open house

Restoring damaged and disturbed lands can be difficult and expensive with increasing drought and changing climatic conditions. Wicking boxes or other irrigation forms can improve restoration efforts' success. These technologies provide a consistent water supply, which often enhances seedling growth and survival in dry conditions. However, current water catchment technologies are limited and often difficult to use. Factors such as production costs, size, and labor needed to install these devices typically make current water catchment technologies inefficient for large-scale use.
Is God a Magician or Scientist?

Sarah Palmer, Josh Oliver, Jessica Abele, and Jamie Jensen Ph.D

There is a body of evidence in biology education indicating that most American undergraduate students believe evolution acceptance to be an aesthetic position (1). Introductory biology professors at Brigham Young University have gathered essays written by students entering the class on their experiences with evolution since about 1980. Because BYU is a religious college, most of these students wrote about how their understanding of God impacts their acceptance of evolution. To learn whether student perceptions of God have changed in the past 30 years, we qualitatively analyzed these essays from a cohort of students in 1992 and another cohort of students in 2018.
New Species Discovery in Eriastrum (Polemoniaceae) in the Californian Red Mountains

Kaitlyn Pankratz and Leigh Johnson

Characterized in the flowering plant family Polemoniaceae by wooly hairs on the calyces and bracts associated with the flowers and found in dry areas of western North America (1).
Mystifying Mimics: The Influence of Distribution on Mimicry

Taylor Probst, Dallin Kohler, Alison Whiting, and Jacob Searcy

Many animals display bright colors or patterns to advertise or warn predators that they are dangerous. Coral snakes effectively use bright red and yellow bands to warn of their venom. There are also many harmless snakes which try to copy or mimic the color patterns of the coral snakes to gain that same protection from predators without the venom. This is known as Batesian mimicry. It has long been thought that for mimicry to be effective, both the dangerous animals and their mimics need to be found in the same geographic area. This study focuses on two species of kingsnake, Lampropeltis pyromelana and L. knoblochi, that mimic the Sonoran coral snake, M. euryxanthus. The distribution of both kingsnakes stretch far outside the geographic range of the coral snake, and there is significant variation in the banding patterns seen in these mimetic species. According to mimicry theory the bright red banding pattern should be disadvantageous to the kingsnakes outside of the range of the coral snake. We hypothesized that as distance from the coral snake range increases, the mimetic accuracy of the kingsnake species will decrease. We calculate the accuracy of mimicry in both kingsnake species and compare that accuracy across their distribution in order test the hypothesis that selection for Batesian mimicry is stronger in sympatry
The Making of a Dichotomous Key: Challenges and Opportunities

Anna Pugmire, Raechel Hunsaker, Ashlyn Baker, and April Hulet

Dichotomous keys are tools that use paired statements to identify organisms. Botanical Dichotomous Keys focus on botanical structures within the paired statements and enable a user to identify a variety of plant species. Within the range management community, dichotomous keys are often used to identify plants while in the field. Identifying unknown plant species in the field is important for assessing potential fire fuel, and creating habitat or livestock management plans. In a survey of wildlife and wildland conservation students at BYU, students were asked to describe their opinion of dichotomous keys in 3-4 words. The most common responses were: technical, confusing, frustrating, hard, and interesting. In an effort to address the challenges described by students, we are creating a series of dichotomous keys that will include pictures and use less technical botanical language, with the ultimate goal of creating dichotomous keys that are accessible to a wide range of people. and will encourage people to gain the skills necessary to identify various plant species.
Find Gene Expression Data Quickly

Grace Salmons, Aaron Joyce Fabelico, James Wengler, and Stephen R. Piccolo

Public repositories are:
- vital for validating studies
- incredible for addressing novel hypothesis.
However, it can be difficult to find data related to discrete topics due to:
- large quantity of data
- heterogeneity in how researchers describe their data and study designs.
Manual annotation of data cannot keep pace with the rapid pace of science. We turned to Natural Language Processing (NLP) for a solution!
Polymer Coated Urea: Microplastics in the Urban Landscape

C. J. Seely, B. T. Geary, and Bryan G. Hopkins

Polymer Coated Urea (PCU) is an effective fertilizer.

Microplastics, from a wide range of waste materials, pollute water bodies.

One potential source of microplastics are from PCU fertilizers if the coatings are transported overland into water bodies.

Various urban landscape systems vary in the potential for surface runoff.
THC on the brain: Adult vs. Adolescent Changes

Addison Smartt and Jeffrey Edwards PhD

Δ9 -tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) has been demonstrated to cause elimination of cannabinoid 1 receptor (CB1) mediated long term depression (LTD) of GABA neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain. Through electrophysiology and quantitative PCR experiments, this study reveals that LTD elimination is more pronounced in adolescents than adults, giving an explanation for the increased risk of THC dependency in adolescence. However, after a seven day withdrawal period, these effects were reversed. The data also supports the hypothesis that removal or desensitization of CB1 receptors from the synapse is an important mechanism of THC-induced neural and cognitive changes.
A Transcriptomic Analysis of Triple Negative Breast Cancer Revealing Alternative Drug Therapeutics

Mauri Dobbs Spendlove, Jenna Birchall Poulsen, Naomi Rapier-Sharman, and Brett Pickett

Breast cancer is the most common tumor type in men and women combined this year the National Cancer Institute estimates there will be 290 560 new cases in the United States and 43 780 deaths 1 Triple Negative Breast Cancer ( lacks three typical surface markers of breast cancer estrogen receptor ( progesterone receptor ( and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER 2 which are common targets for endocrine or drug therapy, severely limiting TNBC treatment options 40 of TNBC patients will die within five years of diagnosis 2 Additionally, it has heightened risk for metastasis after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (defined as chemotherapy followed by surgical extraction of the tumor) compared to non TNBC 3 and the post surgical recurrence rate of TNBC is as much as 25 2 The poor prognosis and low success rate of surgical treatment and chemotherapy underline the necessity of new treatment options Discovery of new drugs would enable better treatment of TNBC and could greatly improve patient survival Using a computational workflow, Automated Reproducible MOdular Workflow for Preprocessing and Differential Analysis of RNA seq Data ( we identified differentially expressed genes in TNBC cells Publicly available RNA sequencing files were obtained from the National Center for Biotechnology Information ( Gene Expression Omnibus ( database ARMOR used RNA sequencing data from high throughput sequencing and massively parallel computing to map and quantify the sequencing reads from each clinical sample to the human transcriptome We determined genes that are overexpressed or under expressed compared to healthy cells We then contextualized the genes identified by ARMOR into signaling pathways using SPIA (Signaling Pathway Impact Analysis) Our third software, Pathways 2 Targets contains a drug database and elucidates drugs that have known interactions with these enriched signaling pathways, ranking them based on how many pathways they can target Our findings predicted existing, FDA approved drugs that could be relevant therapeutics for TNBC, which can then be evaluated in future experiments and clinical trials These results could improve survival rates and quality of life for patients with TNBC.
Figures in biological journal articles are often unfriendly to people with color vision deficiencies

Harlan Stevens, Arwen Oakley, and Stephen Piccolo

8% of men have red-green color vision deficiencies (CVD).

We focused on deuteranomaly and deuteranopia (deficiency in seeing green) since it is by far the most common CVD.

Colorblind unfriendly figures hinder equity in research and discourage individuals with CVD from pursuing science.

To determine how often researchers use colorblind-unfriendly figures, we classified and labeled 5000 images.

Our annotated dataset will be freely available in the hope that it will prove helpful to other researchers.

We created a computer vision model using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to classify images as colorblind-friendly or not.
Oxidation State of SNAP-25 and Formation of Adducts

Jarom S. Sumsion, Samuel W. Shumway, Tasha M. Chambers, and Dixon J. Woodbury

SNARE proteins drive neuronal exocytosis by forming a 4-helix coiled-coil. This mechanism requires SNARE proteins to undergo a disordered-to-ordered state transition. SNAP-25 is unique among the SNARE proteins because it contributes two alpha helices to the 4-helix bundle, compared to Synaptobrevin and Syntaxin which only contribute one alpha helix each. Furthermore, neurons express SNAP-25 in two different isoforms, SNAP-25A and SNAP-25B, depending on the brain region and the developmental stage of the neuron, but the benefit of having two isoforms is unknown. A key difference between these two isoforms is in the location of the four cysteines in the cysteine-rich region of the linker connecting the two SNARE domains. We hypothesize that cysteine location and redox state combine to alter the structure (and function) of each protein. Using circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, we observe structural similarities and differences between SNAP-25A and SNAP-25B. Using mass spectrometry, we demonstrate that sulfur containing reducing agents form adducts with the cysteines. Through CD spectroscopy, we show differences in protein folding with temperature, oxidation state, and presence of adducts on SNAP-25. By understanding how oxidation affects protein folding, we hope to better understand differences between the two isoforms of SNAP-25 and how
Indoor/Outdoor Ozone in Evaporative Cooler vs Central Air Homes in Utah County

Braedon Tarone, Seth Van Roosendaal, Darrell Sonntag PhD, and James D. Johnston

Research Question How do indoor and outdoor concentrations of ozone compare between homes which use central air conditioning and homes which use evaporative coolers?
Higher Incidence of Parasitic Copepods in Female Host Rockfish Species Call for Improved Restoration and Commercial Management Strategies

Alyssa Walters and Mark C. Belk

Host-parasite interactions are key components in shaping ecosystem and community structure. In parasitism, the host maintains the life of the parasite and can have its fitness influenced as a result. This can be especially problematic for commercial fish projects, as well as species management.
Investigation of the utility of various detergents to disrupt Staphylococcus aureus biofilms

Jocelyn Wells, Aleksi Solorio, Lucy C. Bowden, and Bradford K. Berges Ph.D.

3rd place poster design

Staphylococcus aureus is a dangerous human pathogen that causes about 20,000 deaths per year in the US1

S. aureus forms biofilms (surfaceassociated complexes of bacteria) and bacterial clusters, both of which complicate treatment and experimentation

We hypothesized that we could use a chemical surfactant in combination with mechanical agitation to break up biofilms and bacterial clusters
Has Coral Abundance in Hawaii Changed Since 2007?

Natalie Wride and Richard Gill Ph.D

2nd place poster design

Hypothesis: Molokai, Hawaii’s southern fringing reef has experienced a decrease in coral abundance from 2007 to 2022.