Abstracts for Fall Oral Presentation Session 1B

December 3rd, 2025 | 11:00am - 11:45am | SUB 316

• 11:00 a.m. - Luis Montenegro - Project 1: Organelle-target discovery for selective amoebicidal therapy

  Mentor: Daniel Clark
  College: College of Science
  Department: Microbiology
  Abstract:  Primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), caused by Naegleria fowleri, remains devastating despite current treatments. We set out to discover organelle vulnerabilities that could be exploited for rapid, selective amoebicidal therapy. We created Montenegro’s Medium, a low-cost open culture formulation, and paired it with a reproducible 96-well screen that reads necrosis (LDH, 24 h), apoptosis (caspase-3, 48 h), and mitochondrial potential (JC-1, 72 h) in amoeba-only and HeLa + N. fowleri co-culture. Plates were normalized when the positive control and NoRx on that plate were separated; where they were close, we reported raw signal. Where normalization was used, NoRx was set to 0% and the positive control to 100%; preset blanks were excluded. At the doses tested, amoeba-only signals stayed near baseline, while co-culture injury fell with perturbations of the ER/secretory pathway, thapsigargin + brefeldin A (± metformin), and mitochondrial potential was preserved at 72 h. These data nominate ER/COPII traffic and ER–mitochondria Ca²⁺ coupling as tractable organelle targets to pursue for fast kill with human selectivity, and they provide an open pipeline (medium + raw plates + analysis) that any lab can reuse. We outline concrete next steps, dose–response matrices, combination indices, and delivery strategies (lipid carriers/prodrugs), to translate organelle hits into brain-deliverable candidates.

• 11:15 a.m. - Holland Vernon - Seasonal variability in microbial metabolisms within Great Salt Lake microbialite communities

  Mentor: Carie Frantz
  College: College of Science
  Department: Geology
  Abstract:  We investigated the seasonal dynamics of microbial metabolisms in Great Salt Lake sediments, a system often described as a carbonate factory due to microbially mediated precipitation and dissolution processes. Using sediment samples collected across multiple seasons, sites, and depths, we analyzed the relative abundance of key metabolic groups to assess temporal patterns in the distribution of these groups. Our profiling revealed distinct seasonal trends in several metabolisms, supporting the hypothesis that microbial activity varies predictably over time. However, other metabolisms exhibited more complex or inconsistent patterns, likely influenced by environmental variability and the limited duration of our time series. These findings highlight both the potential and limitations of short-term seasonal studies in capturing microbial processes in hypersaline ecosystems.

• 11:30 a.m. - Shang Nelson - Population Models and Spatial Bifurcation Behavior

  Mentor: Amila Muthnayake
  College: College of Science
  Department: Mathematics
  Abstract:  We analyze positive solutions to a steady-state reaction–diffusion equation arising in ecology, which models the diffusion of a species within a patch. We examine how boundary parameters representing the likelihood of individuals exiting the habitat upon reaching its boundary affect the behavior of the species. Using sub and super solution structures, we determine the ranges of patch sizes that correspond to the existence and nonexistence of solutions. Our analytical results reveal that there are certain small patch sizes where the species can survive; however, as the patch size increases, dead zones may appear where no species can persist. For sufficiently large patch sizes, we again obtain the existence of positive solutions. These theoretical findings are supported by numerical results obtained using the quadrature method.