SOM Theses and Dissertations
Recent Submissions
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Comparison of one year post-injury outcomes between intensive locomotor training and conventional therapy after motor incomplete spinal cord injury
Background: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is often a devastating condition that negatively affects an individual’s physical, psychological, and social well-being requiring extensive rehabilitation. The majority of all SCIs are ... -
Investigation of traditional and deep neural sequence models for biomedical concept recognition
The goal of this dissertation is to improve state-of-the-art biomedical concept recognition. The task has a long history, but performance improvement is still an open research question. The dissertation has three main ... -
Lysophosphatidic acid suppression of CD8 T cell signaling and function
Immunotherapies have demonstrated the utility of targeting the immune system for eradication of tumors, yet a majority of patients remain refractory to such treatments. Therefore, further advances in our understanding of ... -
Human maternal obesity in the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in a germ-free mouse model : identifying the role of the infant gut microbiome
Maternal metabolism and obesity contribute significantly to the risk of obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in the next generation, however the causal drivers of this relationship are currently unclear. ... -
Pharmacokinetics and renal safety of tenofovir with ledipasvir/sofosbuvir
Individuals may be infected with Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) due to shared routes of transmission. HCV is curable with 8-12 weeks of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy. However, ... -
High altitude pregnancy as a model for uteroplacental hypoxia : identifying therapeutic targets for preventing fetal growth restriction
Arguably a population with the greatest unmet need for therapies is pregnant women. Despite the risk of maternal and offspring perinatal morbidity and “programming” of adult disease in the offspring, there is a lack of ... -
Reward processing in healthy adolescents and adolescents with Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe eating disorder that predominantly affects young females and typically begins in adolescence. These studies aimed to understand the underlying neurobiology of adolescent AN by assessing ... -
Building a brain : interrogating how the α-tubulin gene TUBA1A contributes to neurodevelopment
The importance of microtubules during the development and appropriate function of the nervous system has long been acknowledged. The highly complex coordination of cell proliferation, differentiation, migration, neuronal ... -
Nuclear receptor regulation of a luminal breast cancer stem cell population
Crosstalk between nuclear receptors is emerging as important in regulating breast cancer (BC) treatment response and progression. Estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and retinoic acid receptor (RARα) are ... -
Developmental origins and heterogeneity of the neocortical oligodendrocyte lineage
The formation of neocortical circuits during development requires coordinated production of excitatory projection neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes from a shared pool of neural progenitor cells. While we are beginning ... -
Characterizing MIR137HG variation and contribution to risk for schizophrenia
The MIR137HG gene encoding microRNA-137 (miR-137) is associated with risk for schizophrenia (SZ) through genetic and functional studies, however, the molecular mechanisms underlying risk remain unknown. Through this work ... -
Mechanisms of immunoglobulin somatic hypermutation during retroviral infection
A potential HIV-1 vaccine should stimulate a broadly neutralizing antibody (bNAb) response, which overcomes HIV-1 mutational escape to typical NAb responses that develop by covering a wide variety of HIV-1 strains. bNAbs ... -
High incidence of SMAD4 loss and associated susceptibility to combined PARP inhibition with radiation in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas
SMAD4 loss is associated with increased survival and genomic instability, and contributes to the initiation/progression of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCCs). SMAD4 loss, while not directly targetable, is ... -
Centrosome number homeostasis : lessons from CEP135 isoform dysregulation in breast cancer
The centrosome, comprised of two centrioles surrounded by pericentriolar material, is the cell’s central microtubule organizing center. Centrosome duplication is coupled with the cell cycle such that centrosomes duplicate ... -
Transcriptional regulation of Cux2 in neural progenitors of the developing telencephalon : towards uncovering mechanisms of fate specification preceding neurogenesis
During neocortical development, neurons are produced by a diverse pool of neural progenitors. A subset of cortical progenitors express the transcription factor Cux2 and are fate-restricted to generate corticocortical ... -
Transcriptional regulation of the PIK3CD gene in human cells and schizophrenia and consequences of dysregulation on neurodevelopment
PIK3CD encodes the PI3K catalytic-subunit, p110d, a lipid kinase critical for immunity and linked to neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia (SZ). In non- neuronal cells, PIK3CD expression is regulated at the ... -
Immunomodulatory effects of the short chain fatty acid butyrate on gut mucosal T cells in the setting of HIV-1 infection
The gastrointestinal tract is profoundly affected during acute and chronic HIV-1 infection. Early in the course of the infection, there is a breakdown in gut epithelial barrier integrity, high levels of viral replication, ... -
Building and breaking down the blood-brain barrier
The fine tuning of cellular events and regulatory signals during vascular development in the central nervous system (CNS) is emerging as an important facet of brain vascular health and function. Through these complex events ... -
RNA terminus chemistry potentiates decay events that target HAC1 mRNA during the unfolded protein response
RNA repair enzymes catalyze rejoining of an RNA molecule after cleavage of phosphodiester linkages. RNA repair in budding yeast is catalyzed by two separate enzymes that process tRNA exons during their splicing and HAC1 ... -
Targeting cell intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms involved in the initiation and maintenance of non-small cell lung cancer
Despite advancements in understanding the molecular underpinnings involved in the pathogenesis of lung cancer, it remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. While the revolution of targeted therapies has ...
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