Home Department: undeclared
Mentor: Anna Gloyn (Pediatrics - Endocrinology & Diabetes)

“Towards Discovering the Genetic Basis of Type 2 Diabetes through Antibody Immunoprecipitation”

Type 2 Diabetes is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, affecting roughly 1 in 10 Americans. Thanks to a modern bioinformatic technique known as Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS), hundreds of potential causal signals have been identified that might increase a person’s risk in developing diabetes. Based on two of these signals, genes known as CALCOCO2 and PROX1, Alina is generating her own publicly available protein-protein interaction (PPI) dataset in both the human pancreatic beta-cell and liver cell model. This will be done by endogenous and overexpression immunoprecipitation and mass-spectrometry. After data analysis and assessment, Alina will integrate her findings with those from publicly available databases, hoping to better understand the mechanism behind a person’s risk of developing diabetes.