(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016-01-25)
Taylor, Anna
The Gulf of Mexico underwent multiple environmental changes in 2010 and 2011, including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and a large in increase of freshwater input from the Mississippi River. Both of these events had the potential to change nutrient dynamics. In this study, I focused on the changes of nutrient dynamics in surface water in the northern Gulf of Mexico and what brought about those changes. It was found that surface water nutrient concentrations of nitrate, nitrite, and phosphate were much higher in the year 2011. This change was found to be due to the freshwater input from the Mississippi River through geographical location and relation to salinity.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-12-12)
Dattilo, Zachary
Identifying chemicals that can promote regeneration in damaged liver tissue could be critical for curing various liver diseases and accelerating the healing of liver damage. In order to study the regeneration of developing livers in zebrafish, acetaminophen was explored as a possible method for liver ablation. A chemical screening of over 250 novel compounds with unknown cellular targets and 75 compounds with stem cell targets was performed in order to identify some promising promoters of regeneration. Acetaminophen was found to successfully destroy the liver tissue of developing embryos, demonstrating its usefulness as a method of ablation in order to study regeneration. The chemical screening revealed several novel compounds and cell signalling pathways that show promise for successfully promoting liver regeneration.