Project Title: How to Increase Anti-Angiogenesis Through Increased Isoflavone Synthase Expression
BASIS Advisor: Dr. Murthy
Internship Location: Intel
Onsite Mentor: Mr. Xing Su
Cancer has prevailed for centuries, and yet we are nowhere close to finding a cure. However, we have developed a wide variety of treatments to attack or treat cancer. One method of treatment is anti-angiogenesis. Angiogenesis is the process of blood vessel formation. By preventing angiogenesis, cancer cells are essentially starved to death as they have no way of gaining nutrients. There has been research done on anti-angiogenic properties of foods like soy; for mung beans, research has identified that isoflavones are a key part of the anti-cancer properties. Conducting my research at Intel, I aim to write a research paper that compares isoflavone synthase 2 (which are involved in making isoflavones, proteins that can help prevent angiogenesis or blood vessel formation) mRNA expression levels at different times and different parts of plants during germination in mung beans. I will accomplish this by designing a primer and running qPCR (Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction) which will allow me to quantitate mRNA levels and thus indirectly quantitate amount of isoflavones. Currently, there are many organizations that are focused on making purified extracts, and I believe my research can help with effectively extracting isoflavones. This could also help with people who are growing mung beans in identifying the most beneficial time to harvest.
My Posts
Week 10!
Apr 28, 2019
So I’ve collected a lot of data from PCR. One thing that is important for me is that I can not directly quantify the mRNA levels. To do that, I would need to have a standard curve that I could compare to. Instead I am performing relative quantification. I can compare the mRNA amount to […]
Week 9
Apr 21, 2019
Another week of PCR and hopefully soon I’ll be able to have results and a conclusion! Working with PCR, I now realize the amount of chemistry and math I have to understand. There are so many dilutions and reactions I have to prepare (Thank you Dr. Davies and Dr. B!). One important aspect of the […]
Week 8
Apr 14, 2019
Finally we have moved past RNA extraction and moved onto qPCR. This week I wanted to talk a little about designing the primers and setting up qPCR. PCR was one of the first techniques we learned about in biology. We all learn about how there is a primer and the temperature changes and there are […]
Week 7
Apr 08, 2019
So finally week 7 was the last week of mRNA extraction. This week I’ll tell you about some of the issues we had collecting mRNA. One big issue was that we did not have a homogenizer. We had no way of mushing up all of the plant tissue. Thus we had to do it by […]
Week 6
Mar 31, 2019
Sorry for the repetitiveness, but this week yet again was another week of RNA extraction. My original plan was to extract RNA then run PCR, but we ended up finding it more effective to grow all of the soybeans and extract their RNA all at once. I will keep this post fresh by talking about […]
Week 5
Mar 24, 2019
I don’t really have much to say for this week. Basically, I just went through the same process as last week for RNA extraction. This week, I did use more samples though. I’ve mainly been focused on making sure that all of the samples can be used by keeping all the variables controlled and keeping […]
Week 4: Into the Lab
Mar 10, 2019
This week, I finally entered the lab! Some people on last week’s blog asked what the complications with the mung beans were and it was just a problem with the chemical Trizol not being able to extract the RNA efficiently with mung beans. We found that Trizol worked better with soybeans. So this week I […]
Week 2 and 3
Mar 04, 2019
Hi everybody, So there have been some changes to my schedule. Some chemicals were a bit late coming to the lab. Mainly I have been doing research and sort of pre-trials. I have continuously been growing my beans and making sure that I know the conditions and how long it takes to grow them. After […]
Week 1 How to Increase Anti-Angiogenesis Through Increased Isoflavone Synthase Expression
Feb 18, 2019
As a student in Cancer Biology and the family member of a cancer survivor, angiogenesis (the creation of blood vessels) was an interesting topic to me. The wonderful Dr. Murthy showed our class a Ted Talk called “Can We Eat to Starve Cancer” all about anti-angiogenic foods. Through my personal experience of having a condition, […]