My name is Claire and I am currently a senior Biology major at UMass Amherst. As one of the first recipients of the RichCo Undergraduate Zebrafish Research Award, my research partner Renee Owen and I have spent two years of our undergraduate careers in the Karlstrom Lab, in collaboration with the Timme-Laragy Lab, researching the toxic effects of "forever chemicals" of the PFAS family on embryonic development in zebrafish.
Traces of these PFAS compounds are now found in the blood of most Americans, newborn infants included, and have been linked to slowed metabolism rates, obesity, and hyperglycemia, possibly due to disrupted pancreas function. To better understand how PFAS exposure might affect pancreas development, we are examining how PFAS exposure affects cell proliferation and pancreas growth in zebrafish embryos and larvae. By using transgenic lines that label the exocrine pancreas with the fluorescent GFP protein, we are able to image the size of the exocrine pancreas and quantify cell proliferation.
Traces of these PFAS compounds are now found in the blood of most Americans, newborn infants included, and have been linked to slowed metabolism rates, obesity, and hyperglycemia, possibly due to disrupted pancreas function. To better understand how PFAS exposure might affect pancreas development, we are examining how PFAS exposure affects cell proliferation and pancreas growth in zebrafish embryos and larvae. By using transgenic lines that label the exocrine pancreas with the fluorescent GFP protein, we are able to image the size of the exocrine pancreas and quantify cell proliferation.
We have compared the effects of PFAS treatment across different tissues, such as the brain, and found that different tissues respond differently to PFAS exposure, with the pancreas being among the most sensitive tissues. We hope this work can contribute to our understanding of how these forever chemicals may be affecting human development. I am grateful to RichCo Labs for providing me not only with a robust long-term research experience, but also with opportunities to present our work to a professional audience, such as the 2023 Northeast Regional Meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology. I am now compiling the research we've conducted into a manuscript and defense as a part of my Senior Honors Thesis prior to my graduation.
Following graduation, I will be moving on to conduct research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Genomic Medicine in Boston, MA before applying to medical schools next spring."