research and work
CIRCADIAN RESEARCH
In 2015, I joined the Musiek Lab at Washington University’s Medical School in St. Louis as a Research Associate. The Musiek Lab is a circadian or clock lab. The circadian clock regulates the time cycle of the human system.
The Musiek Lab specifically focuses on how the circadian clock affects the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration (e.g. Alzheimer’s) in the mammalian brain. We also study how the clock system regulates oxidative stress and neuroinflammation.
The research here is an overview into the science behind the clock mechanism and also a way for me to display the amount of background research that goes into science experiments.
① FEEDBACK LOOP?
A primary clock feedback loop includes:
- Protein CLOCK & BMAL1
- Members of the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH)-PAS (Period-Arnt-Single-minded) transcription factor family
- Initiate transcription of target genes Period (Per1, Per2, and Per3) and Cryptochrome (Cry1 and Cry2)
- Negative feedback PER:CRY heterodimers repress their own trancription
② THE CONNECTION?
The v
③ AESTHETICS
Over the three years I have been a Research Technician at the Museik Lab at WashU, I have been taken by the beauty of science and the information it provides us.
The projects I researched revolve around transgenic mice models designed to mimic and display symptoms of Alzheimer’s. The images below come from various mice and cell lines aged to different ages. It takes months to years to age lab mice to get the following images from them.
I wonder: How can scientific imagesbe better appreciated by those outside of the science world? How can the aesthetics of these visuals become an entry point into science for the general public?
The projects I researched revolve around transgenic mice models designed to mimic and display symptoms of Alzheimer’s. The images below come from various mice and cell lines aged to different ages. It takes months to years to age lab mice to get the following images from them.
I wonder: How can scientific imagesbe better appreciated by those outside of the science world? How can the aesthetics of these visuals become an entry point into science for the general public?
④ COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Brain Discovery: Outreach Program,
St. Louis MO
What is an educational approach to reach and excite 4th-6th grade students about science, especially Neuroscience, through a more creative, hands on experience?
Brain Discovery is a neuroscience outreach program for 4th-6th graders led by Washington University scientists. Classrooms are paired with a "scientist visitor" who visits the class weekly over a six-week period. Students have an opportunity to explore the brain and nervous system through hands-on experiments and activities, while learning about the scientific process and what it means to be a scientist.
To get out of my lab routine, my coworker and I set out to have a more people-first approach to our science practice. We created Brain Discovery in 2015 to expand our love for science to community work in our city of St. Louis, and it has been successfully running for 2 years.
What is an educational approach to reach and excite 4th-6th grade students about science, especially Neuroscience, through a more creative, hands on experience?
Brain Discovery is a neuroscience outreach program for 4th-6th graders led by Washington University scientists. Classrooms are paired with a "scientist visitor" who visits the class weekly over a six-week period. Students have an opportunity to explore the brain and nervous system through hands-on experiments and activities, while learning about the scientific process and what it means to be a scientist.
To get out of my lab routine, my coworker and I set out to have a more people-first approach to our science practice. We created Brain Discovery in 2015 to expand our love for science to community work in our city of St. Louis, and it has been successfully running for 2 years.
Curricula
I helped design a six week curriculum to help students engage in the scientific method and have fun learning science through interactive experiments. Below is a sampling of the experiment handouts to help guide students through the scientific method and class acitvity.
A 5th grader from a public school fills out his data.
In week 2 of Brain Discovery, students learn about how the brain communicates with the body. The Reaction Time worksheet, shown above, is an experiment design to demonstrate how fast our body recieves messages from the brain. Students are introduced to behavoir tests and tests their own reflexes through a ruler drop experiment. They record where they catch the ruler and how fast they were able to react to a sudden surprise drop of a ruler.
Students have fun seeing how fast they can react. Disruptions occur, but students are easily put back on track when they see when their hypothesis matches their findings.
Continuing off of Week 2, Week 3 shows how our body receives messages from our brain. We show students how messages are sent from the brain to the body by exposing them to cells, the basic building block of the body. They are able to compare cheeks cells from brain specific cells called neurons, which is shown in the experiment above.
Students loved collecting their own cheek cells and seeing the mouse neurons under the microscope. Students report saying that it was their first time using a microscope and that they really felt like a scientist.
⑤ PUBLICATIONS
Griffin P, Dimitry JM, Sheehan PW, Lananna BV, Guo C, Robinette ML, Hayes ME, Cedeño MR, Nadarajah CJ, Ezerskiy LA, Colonna M, Zhang J, Bauer AQ, Burris TP, Musiek ES. (2019) Circadian clock protein Rev-erbα regulates neuroinflammation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 116:5102-5107.
Leng Y, Musiek ES, Cedeño MR, Cappuccio FP, Yaffe K. (2019) Association between circadian rhythms and neurodegenerative diseases. Lancet Neurol, 18:307-318
Lananna BV, Nadarajah CJ, Izumo M, Cedeño MR, Xiong DD, Dimitry J, Tso CF, McKee CA, Griffin P, Sheehan PW, Haspel JA, Barres BA, Liddelow SA, Takahashi JS, Karatsoreos IN, and Musiek ES (2018) Cell-Autonomous Regulation of Astrocyte Activation by the Circadian Clock Protein BMAL1. Cell Rep, 25::1-9.e5. CLICK HERE FOR FULL TEXT
Kress GJ, Liao F, Dimitry J, Cedeno MR, FitzGerald GA, Holtzman DM, and Musiek ES (2018) Regulation of amyloid-β dynamics and pathology by the circadian clock. J Exp Med, 215:1059-1068. PMC5881473. CLICK HERE FOR FULL TEXT