Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2003

Mentor: Steve Kernie M.D.
Department: Pediatrics/Center for developmental biology
Room number: NB5.220A
Mail Code: 9063
Phone number: 8-4183
E-mail: Steven.Kernie@UTSouthwestern.edu
Project title: Quantifying the induction of neural stem cells following traumatic brain injury in nestin-GFP transgenic mice.

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 0945-01-01-1

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects) animal/basic

Brief Description of Project: While an undergraduate student in my lab, Monisha made a construct for a transgenic mouse. We now have several stable lines of this mouse that expresses GFP under the control of the neural specific form of the nestin promoter. Nestin is expressed in neural stem cells and following traumatic brain injury there is upregulation of these stem cells. Monisha's project will be to quantitate using FACS analysis the number of nestin postive cells before and after injury in the brains of transgenic mice. This should give us some idea of how strong the proliferative response is that is induced by traumatic injury.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students: Pritam Ghosh worked in my lab last summer that resulted in an abstract presented at the Society for Critical Care Medicine's annual meeting and won one of 4 research awards (out of a total of 600+ abstracts).

Return to UT Southwestern Homepage

Return to Student Research Projects Index