Identifying key molecular mechanisms and targets for therapeutic development in sporadic neurodegenerative diseases has been challenging. Therefore, in-depth investigation of genetic forms of disease can provide valuable insight into pathogenic disease mechanisms. The discovery of genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) has highlighted the importance of the autophagy/lysosomal and mitochondrial/oxidative...
Pollution-intensive industrial manufacturing processes threaten the health of ecosystems and societies through toxic waste streams and energy intensive processes that lead to greenhouse gas emissions. Biological systems present more sustainable routes to many useful industrial chemicals by using enzymes at low temperatures, but the time and effort required to optimized...
Vertebrate brains evolved to facilitate a diverse array of behaviors and internal cognitive processes. Theories of neural function have proposed that neural computation is organized within populations or ensembles of neurons. Here, we identify ensembles of neurons in the striatum, the main input nucleus of the basal ganglia, in which...
Recent progress in the field of nanomaterials has enabled significant advances in optoelectronic devices such as solar cells, light-emitting diodes, photocatalysts, and sensors. Nanoparticles feature superior optical and electronic properties that arise from quantum confinement and therefore cannot be attained used bulk materials. However, further developments in the field of...
Nanomaterials are increasingly incorporated in modern day life, from the biogenic viruses that cause pandemics and the mineral crystallites embedded alongside collagen in our bones, to the anthropogenic nanomaterials that are small but powerful components of sunscreen and paint, swimming pool algaecides and wound dressings, cancer treatments, bicycle frames, and...
Selecting the best material to deliver optimum performance in real-world applications is one of the most significant challenges in engineering. Hundreds of thousands of computationally-predicted, but experimentally unexplored materials exist today in the public inorganic material databases as candidates for consideration. This thesis discusses three projects in the domain of...
Vaccines, such as those against smallpox virus, polio virus, and yellow fever virus, have saved millions of lives. However, many infectious diseases, such as HIV-1, still lack a preventive vaccine. In addition, various vaccines, such as those against Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 require boosters and may not confer 100% lifelong protection...
Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) has emerged as a transformative paradigm that enables the co-design of products, materials, and their manufacturing processes. A gamut of computational tools, such as manufacturing process simulations and multiscale materials analyses, have been developed henceforth by their respective research communities. However, it remains challenging to...
The Escherichia coli ribosome is a molecular machine capable of sequence-defined polymerization of -amino acids into proteins, a feat unmatched by any other current synthetic catalyst. It is complex in its structure, comprised of 3 RNA parts (the 5S, 16S, and 23S ribosomal RNAs) and 54 ribosomal proteins (r-proteins). Efforts...
Public memory studies in rhetoric have typically neglected how we use shared memories to form, maintain, and pass down social norms through the objects we encounter and the practices we participate in during our everyday lives. This is especially true for children’s toys, because they are understood as essential objects...