The University Of Nebraska At Omaha ( Uno ) - 1210 Words

For the last year and a half, I have had the privilege of studying Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), an apicomplexan parasite. This parasite infects an estimated 30-50% of adults worldwide, most of whom are unaware of their infection. Because it is a close cousin of Plasmodium falciparum, the cause of human malaria, it is also considered a model organism for malaria, a disease that claims the lives of over a million people a year. Thanks to this close relationship, a drug-like compound that has efficacy against one organism will likely have efficacy against the other as well. This research experience lead me to develop a great interest in biomedical research, prompting me to continue on in the same laboratory for my Master’s degree, which I†¦show more content†¦gondii in a forward genetic screen of a library of compounds, which was published in â€Å"Chemical Genetics of Plasmodium falciparum†. The portion of the project that my thesis involved was the random mut agenesis of parasites using the chemical mutagen ethyl methanesulfonate to generate a population of parasites that contained every possible mutation within their genome. Then drug pressure was applied to these populations to identify the KG3-resistant populations of parasites. The resistance of these parasites was assessed via their IC50. As a result of this project, I have learned a number of laboratory skills, including cell culture, genetic manipulation, compound preparation, and fluorescence-based IC50 assays. The overall project is ongoing, and is now a portion of my master’s thesis. The other major project of my undergraduate career was investigating the effects of testosterone on T. gondii growth both in vivo and in vitro. Preliminary data produced by our lab had shown testosterone to have an effect on T. gondii growth in vitro. This effect was not confirmed, thus we proposed an experiment to test the in vitro effects on a larger scale, allowing statistical significanc e to be established. If testosterone were to have an effect on the growth of the parasite, the options for treatment could be expanded through further scientific inquiry. For the in vitro portion of the study, much of my work was focused on a plaque assay. This is an assay that allows