Statistically, Asian Americans have significantly lower traffic accidents than any other minority group in the United States. However, there exists a stereotype that Asian Americans are a bigger risk on the road than any other ethnicity. This study explored the perspectives of Asian Americans, specifically Korean American women living in the city of Bellevue. Despite having enough English speaking skills to live comfortably in America, they had either a difficult time understanding roadway signs and posts, or if they did, it was not intuitive at first glance or within the time span necessary to make a decision on the road. The major problem that these Asian Americans felt was that in their homeland, many traffic decisions were made based on their instincts due to minimal roadway signs, or enforcement was so minimal that conforming to these traffic laws were not a priority to them. They reported that this mentality was reinforced more so because even when traffic laws were ignored, accident rates were low. This suggests that Asian Americans, though involved in less traffic accidents, make decisions less-rapidly, are confused on the road, or less readily conforming to traffic regulations. This study helps uncover a largely untapped field of study involving traffic safety within minority groups, and will further contribute to future research in similar topics.

This project focuses on using microbiota to determine environmental changes in Puget Sound, specifically benthic foraminifera. Benthic foraminifera are single celled organisms that produce a shell and live at the bottom of the ocean. Because foraminifera have characteristic ecologic requirements, they can be used to document environmental changes over time. In addition, foraminifera’s short reproductive cycle (weeks to months) and species specific reactions to environmental changes enable high resolution studies of ecosystem health and reaction to mitigation efforts. By examining the density, diversity and assemblage composition of foraminifera in samples of sediment several determinations can be made about environment in the local region at the time the sediment was deposited. This study focuses on stations in Bellingham Bay, WA using 11 sediment samples taken between 1997 and 2011 by the Washington state Department of Ecology. From 2002 to 2006 a clear drop in foraminiferal density is observed in Bellingham Bay. This indicates a serious change in environment for the area during this period; changes that may include an increase or decrease in pollution, an increase in pH, or changing climatic conditions. In the Bellingham Bay area a very low species diversity is also observed. This lack of diversity can also indicate various climatic or other environmental conditions. For example, the most dominant species in these samples, Eggerella advena, is known to colonize areas of sewage pollution in other bays. By comparing the Bellingham Bay stations to others in Puget Sound, it will be possible to document environmental shifts over the last 15 years.

Puget Sound is home to countless aquatic species, all of whom are dependent on healthy water conditions. At the bottom of the trophic web are foraminifera—single celled organisms that directly reflect the environment they live in, because each species has a very narrow range of acceptable habitats. Foraminifera can be used to assess local conditions on a very fine scale, and to assess the large-scale health of the body of water. This type of study has been done on numerous bodies of water throughout the world and is well proven, but has never been applied to Puget Sound. As a small part of this overarching project, I focus on identifying and analyzing foraminifera from Port Madison, a part of Puget Sound relatively sheltered from anthropogenic impact. Port Madison thus acts as a control with which to compare samples from other locations in Puget Sound. Preliminary results indicate that Port Madison has a very high diversity of foraminifera with at least 12 different species immediately apparent, but a relatively low abundance of about 28 foraminifera per gram of sediment. In comparison with other locations throughout Puget Sound, this shows that anthropogenic conditions decrease the diversity of foraminifera, and areas like Port Madison where little anthropogenic activity is present yield higher diversity. Data from sheltered areas help build a knowledge base for a healthy Puget Sound, which in turn gives us an idea of what to work toward in future attempts to promote a healthier Puget Sound.

Within the previous year, over half of a million people died from malaria and ninety one percent of these deaths occurred in Africa. My research studies the living conditions of the Maasai tribe in correlation to the prevalence of malaria, intestinal parasites, and head fungus. During field research in Tanzania these were the three most widespread diseases among the three hundred patients treated. The life cycles and causes of each disease were studied individually to distinguish how specific environmental and household factors contributed to the transmission of the diseases. Relevant factors of the living conditions were identified. I hypothesized that the incidence of disease would be reflected in the prevalence of the elements relating to the transmission of disease. I collected data on the living conditions in Tanzania by visiting Maasai households and evaluating the following criteria: the presence of a fire inside the house, the presence of feces and/or garbage in the household, the number and size of the windows in each household, the number of people living there, the number of people who were sick living there, the presence of uncontained animals in the compound, the presence of mosquito nets, the type of material used to make the house, the presence of a toilet, and the presence of a cover on the toilet; if applicable. Analysis of the results suggests that for each disease, the relevant factors of living conditions matched expectations in all three diseases. These results suggest that by making certain improvements to the living conditions of the people in the Maasai village, it would be possible to reduce the prevalence of the tropical diseases of malaria, intestinal parasites, and head fungus.

Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 is a methylotroph that metabolizes reduced C₁ compounds. In particular, methanol metabolism by M. extorquens AM1 requires two cofactors: tetrahydromethanopterin (H₄MPT) and tetrahydrofolate (H₄F). MeOH is first oxidized to formaldehyde, a highly toxic compound. MtdB is involved in formaldehyde oxidation to formate using H₄MPT and both NAD+ and NADP+ as co-substrates. Formate is the branching point for either further oxidation to CO₂ or assimilation. MtdA is a NADP+-specific enzyme that uses H₄F to generate methylene-H₄F, the intermediate that enters the assimilatory serine cycle. Previous in vitro studies have shown that MtdA is capable of using both cofactors and more efficient using H₄MPT. This suggests that it may have a dual role in both the oxidation and assimilation steps of methanol metabolism. However, in vivo, MtdA is unable to fully substitute MtdB as an mtdB mutant is auxotrophic on methanol. Interestingly, when MtdA was over-expressed the same mutant was no longer methanol sensitive. This observation poses two questions: 1) What is the role of MtdA in the H₄MPT pathway? And 2) Why is MtdA activity unable to substitute for MtdB activity in vivo? To answer these questions, we identified that an mtdB mutant is able to grow on methylamine and that this growth is H₄MPT dependent. This suggests that MtdA under this condition is able to substitute for MtdB. Further, we identified that a higher defect on growth on methylamine correlated with increased MtdA expression. This strongly suggests the accumulation of a toxic compound. We have also shown that the different phenotypes of mtdB on methanol and methylamine are due to an alternative pathway for methylamine oxidation. Together, our results suggest that MtdA is a key factor for regulation of carbon flux from the oxidative pathway and the assimilation pathway on one carbon compound metabolism.

Childbirth is considered one of the most painful events a woman may experience. Labor analgesia with an epidural or intrathecal opioids is an option that most women opt to receive nowadays. It has been hypothesized that genetic variability explains, at least in part, the large inter-individual variability in the observed response to neuraxial opioids. Pain perception and the analgesic response to opioids are most likely polygenic (affected by multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms across different candidate genes). The Landau Lab is investigating the association between the analgesic effect (potency) and duration of action of intrathecal fentanyl (ITF) in parturients and common polymorphisms of µ-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) and catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene. We hypothesized that duration of ITF will be longer in A118 homozygotes of OPRM1 and Met158 of COMT (A/A-Met/Met) compared to women carrying a different allelic combination. We performed a secondary analysis on data from a study on 184 parturients receiving a combined-spinal epidural for labor analgesia. The primary outcome was duration of analgesia from ITF dose (25mcg) to request for additional analgesia (via epidural). There was no significant difference between genotypic groups (p=0.358) although there was a trend for longer duration of ITF in A/A-Met/Met women [n=38; 81min (CI 95% 70, 92)] compared to Met/Met not A/A women [n=11; 63min (CI 95% 46, 80]. These findings suggest that genetic variants of OPRM1 and COMT genes may affect the response to intrathecal fentanyl for labor analgesia and warrant further investigation as this may have relevant clinical implications.