Biomedical Sciences and Technology: Dissertations and Theses

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12521/721

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    Gender Disparity in Studying Chemistry
    (2021) Semerzier, Carlo
    This applied dissertation was designed to determine if there is a difference between students’ gender, ethnicity, and age and their performance in General Chemistry I at a Christian University in Florida. Many scientific studies reveal the existence of a gender performance gap in chemistry: women mostly underperform men. Certain factors reported by researchers and cited in this study that might contribute to this gap include self-efficacy, math ability, prior conceptual knowledge in chemistry, attitude toward chemistry, spatial ability, discrimination, learning styles, and exam types. This quantitative research study used retrospective data from 113 students from eight sections (2016-2019) of a General Chemistry I course. Each participant was enrolled in one of the eight sections and was taught by the same instructor. The final course grade was the dependent numeric variable, and gender, ethnicity, and age were the independent categorical variables. For all statistical analyses, student's t-test and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used. Data analysis revealed a significant difference in the final course grade between gender who study General Chemistry 1 in higher education. There was no significant difference in final course grades between the ages categories: younger than 21 years old and 21 years old and older. Additionally, there was no significant difference in final course grades between ethnicities. The findings suggest that female students underperformed their male counterparts in general chemistry I in higher education, and the final course grade in General Chemistry I was not affected by students’ age and ethnicities.
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    Partial Characterization of PF13_0027: A Putative Phosphatase of Plasmodium Falciparum
    (2013) Campbell, Christopher
    Signal transduction and stage-specific gene expression are essential components of Plasmodium falciparum development. In this study, the putative phosphatase PF13_0027 is investigated as a critical component of intraerythrocytic development contributing to maturation of the late trophozoite. This putative phosphatase was identified during the course of a large-scale insertional mutagenesis project by insertion of the piggyBac (pB) element, containing a human dihydrofolate reductase (hDHFR) drug selection cassette into the open reading frame (ORF) preventing expression and attenuating parasite development. PF13_0027 codes for a protein with a rhodanese (RHD) and dual specificity phosphatase (DUSP) in a tandem arrangement typically identified with mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphatases (MKP). Despite numerous INDELs, the tertiary structure is conserved when compared to the solved structures of MKP homologs. The expression profile reveals transcripts at all stages of the blood cycle with a highest relative abundance in the late trophozoite. Restoration of the phenotype was achieved through genetic complementation using the complete PF13_0027 open reading frame (ORF) under the control of its endogenous promoter. A homology model of PF13_0027 was developed for structural analysis and evaluated using in silico high-throughput screening (HTS) to identify antimalarial compounds with predicted affinity to the active site and used to challenge parasites in vitro. This study reveals that PF13_0027 is a vital component of asexual development and a potential target for a new class of antimalarial compounds targeting phosphorylation pathways in P. falciparum. Discovery of the functional role of this unknown ORF provides additional insight into the importance of MAPK signaling in P. falciparum.