Vitis vinifera is economically one of the most important plant species. The U.S.A. is the fourth highest wine-producing country, where 87% of grapes harvested from Vitis vinifera are used for wine production. Top state producers include Texas, which encompasses eight American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). Comprehensive characterization of metabolites and biomarkers to uncover signatures specific to the producing regions has been accomplished by leading wine-producing countries. Central Texas endures harsh environmental conditions such as heatwaves and drought during the growing season in comparison to other regions, but wine produced in this region is considered of singular high quality, showing a major increase in wine production in the last decade. Thus, it is imperative to identify wine metabolites and biomarkers specific to the Central Texas region. To our knowledge, there is no research precedent on the relationships between grapevine physiology-metabolism and berry-wine composition over the course of a growing season. Herein, the goal is to characterize for the first time, the metabolomic profile of 17 grapevines from 5 vineyards located in the Texas Hill Country and Mesa AVAs using mass-spectrometry based metabolomics. The second aim is to analyze the produced multivariate data to obtain information about correlations, similarities, and differences between measured metabolites and grapevine varietals using XCMS and MetaboAnalyst. The following metabolomic workflow stages have been accomplished: 1) harvest of grapevine samples, 2) extraction of metabolites of 1/3 of samples using a liquid-liquid extraction 3) experimental analysis using high-resolution mass-spectrometry for untargeted metabolomic profiling, and 4) identification of over 100 metabolites.

Protein biologics are an integral component of biomedical technology and treatments available to patients worldwide. The process by which a human pharmaceutical drug proceeds forward from a research lab to a phase I trial is intricate and requires strict adherence to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines. Frequently, it is necessary to develop an upscaled process which is feasible for clinical trials. The mission of the Gates Biomanufacturing Facility (GBF) is “to accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into human clinical trials as safely, efficiently, and cost effectively as possible according to high quality standards.” For the GBF to produce pharmaceutical quality products, it must adhere to Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) regulations by the U.S. FDA as applied to human pharmaceuticals. Therefore, a solid foundation on Good Laboratory Practice (GLP), laboratory safety, sterile technique, and ISO Clean Room procedures are vital to daily operations. An active project within the Biologics Development and Manufacturing department, is development of a therapeutic vaccine. This project involves technical steps including media and buffer preparation, expressing proteins through fermentation, cell lysis, purification through multiple chromatography steps, and formulation by tangential flow filtration. After the product is manufactured, analytical assays are required by Title 21 of the U.S. FDA Code of Federal Regulations to show potency, identity, safety, and purity. Additional projects will include generation of a research cell bank utilized to generate a master cell bank for production of cGMP grade protein biologics suitable for animal toxicology studies and human clinical trials.

Mycobacterium abscessus (Mabsc) infections occur in more than 5% of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), are associated with great lung function decline and are increasing over the last decade. Antibiotic treatment for Mabsc infection can take many months and is often not successful at eradicating the organism, requiring long-term maintenance therapy. The conventional recommended treatment consists of 3-4 drugs, which together have an eradication rate as low as 20% in Mabsc subspecies abscessus. The goal of this project is to collect experimental data to build an in silico model, INDIGO-MABSC, for predicting synergistic and antagonistic antibiotic interactions to treat Mabsc infections in order to identify synergistic interactions between 2 or more antibiotics. RNA was isolated from bacterial cultures treated with individual antibiotics and transcriptomes were sequenced to identify drug-induced gene expression changes. Using broth microdilution checkerboard assays with pairs of antibiotics, we observed how the combinations impacted the growth of Mabsc type strain ATCC19977. This presentation will report efforts to collect sufficient sequencing data and show putative synergistic interactions between drug pairs. Preliminary sequencing data demonstrates that drugs with similar mechanisms of action induce similar gene expression changes and that some drugs induce few or no expression changes, suggesting that higher drug concentrations will be needed. We plan to collect additional RNA from bacteria treated with higher doses of these drugs. We will also perform additional checkerboard testing for INDIGO model training and use these data to build the initial iteration of the INDIGO model to begin testing and refining.

Contamination of water is a major concern across the world with waterborne diseases being a major cause of death, especially in developing countries with the greatest risk to children. Today the primary methods of water purification involve chemical additives, which have been shown to form dangerous byproducts, harmful to both human health and the environment. Recent engineering has developed novel filter membranes functionalized with antimicrobial nanoparticles like silver and copper. These studies, however, also suggest that metal nanoparticles can leach into filtered water, causing negative effects on health in even small amounts. This project aims to produce a filter using nanofiber functionalized with the affordable, naturally occurring, and non-toxic antibiotic peptide Magainin II, as a safer approach to water sanitization. We hypothesize that Magainin II will bind strongly to the nanofiber and cause lysis of passing bacteria while remaining immobilized on the fiber. I will chemically graft Magainin II onto electrospun nanofiber to create a functionalized filter membrane which I will then pass E.coli contaminated solution through. By collecting the filtrate, I will be able to analyze and compare the disinfection abilities between the control and functionalized membrane to demonstrate that our functionalized nanofiber is an effective tool to safely sanitize water. Protein detection techniques will confirm that Magainin II remains immobilized on the fiber and does not leach into the filtrate. Filtration devices constructed using biological material are a relatively new concept with the potential to be safer and more cost-effective alternatives to earlier methods of purification.

The current preferred treatment for cancer is oral chemotherapy because it is the most efficient and does not have as many side effects as other cancer treatments. However, there is a lot of work to be done to improve the efficacy of chemotherapy since it kills healthy cells along with cancer cells. Targeting is an especially useful approach in cancer therapy, as most of the commonly used anticancer drugs have serious side-effects because of their adverse effect on healthy cells. In other words, anticancer drugs in chemotherapy have poor bioavailability when it comes to targeting cancer cells, which greatly limits their applications in cancer treatment. Thus, to improve the drug bioavailability and avoid premature release of the anti-cancer drug before it reaches the targeted cancer cells, targeted drug delivery systems based on nanomaterials are now being explored. Since most cancer cells have a more acidic environment compared to normal cells, an efficient way to control the drug release behavior is by using pH as a stimulus. An experiment will be conducted using an oral drug delivery system in which double helical mesoporous silica nanotubes will be encapsulated with doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX), a well-known anticancer drug, which will then be released at specific pH level in the body to target cancer cells.