 |
Photo by Irene Fertik UCLA
Today
Biology major Shahrouz Ganjian (left) and graduate student
Gregory Oswell have been working together in the lab of pathologist
Aarno Palotie to pinpoint the genes that make some people
more susceptible to crushing migraines.
|
undergrad research opportunities abound
Student's work could lead to migraine relief
BY STUART WOLPERT
UCLA Today
UCLA biology major Shahrouz Ganjian likes his classes, but is he
content to learn science just in the classroom?
“No way,” said the senior adamantly. “In class,
you’re told what’s already known. You don’t own
the material. I wanted to discover something myself. When you do
your own research, you don’t know what you’re going
to find. You have to make new connections and solve problems.”
Ganjian’s zeal to chart his own path through areas still
unexplored by scientists and other scholars exemplifies the extraordinary
commitment many UCLA undergraduate researchers have made to find
answers to complex problems.
Ganjian, for example, conducts research on one of the most debilitating
types of migraine headaches — migraines with aura —
that afflicts tens of millions of people worldwide, preceded by
dizziness, blurred vision or visual images.
Driven to learn where it comes from and what causes it, Ganjian
began working two years ago in the laboratory of pathologist Aarno
Palotie to pinpoint the precise genes that make people more susceptible
to these migraine headaches.
From approximately 3,000 genes that could play a critical role
in migraines with aura, Ganjian and graduate student Gregory Oswell
have now narrowed it down to some 50 genes after producing a detailed
map of the region affected in the brain. They are now studying two
genes intensively. Ganjian, who speaks five languages, published
his research in the 2003 edition of the UCLA Undergraduate Science
Journal and is writing a research paper for submission to a peer-reviewed
scientific journal.
The research could lead to new, improved treatment, perhaps even
a cure, said Ganjian, a UCLA Wasserman Undergraduate Research Scholar,
who has also received an Edith and Lew Wasserman Scholarship.
“I love research,” he said. “I have always been
interested in how the mind works. Where is memory stored? So much
about the mind is not known. This research on migraine with aura
is a lot of fun, and it can help a lot of people.”
The breadth and depth of undergraduate research at UCLA were demonstrated
recently when more than 30 undergraduates presented their original
research at the annual Southern California Conference for Undergraduate
Research at UC Irvine. They included:
- Omid Michael Foladi, a fourth-year history major and Wasserman
Undergraduate Research Scholar. He is evaluating the role that
the Spanish Inquisition played in the lives of Jews and Conversos
living in medieval Spain, under the guidance of Professor Teofilo
Ruiz, chair of the history department.
- Alana Lerner, a microbiology major working in the laboratory
of neurobiologist Anna Taylor. Lerner is looking at how the immune
system is impaired in rats whose pregnant mothers consumed alcohol.
- Martha Webber, a fourth-year English major and a Rose Gilbert
Research Scholar. Working with English Professor Vincent Pecora,
she is focusing on an aspect of British literature in the late
19th century involving texts by French writer Charles Baudelaire
and German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
- Giselle Galang, with a major in microbiology, immunology and
molecular genetics. She is studying two mutants of a carrier protein
involved in eukaryotic metabolism and regulation under Richard
Weiss, professor of chemistry and biochemistry. The project she
presented involved her research at UC Riverside on a signal transduction
pathway that eukaryotes use to respond to environmental stimuli.
|
