RARE Students: Summer 2021
Lehigh's Rapidly Accelerated Research Experience (RARE) is a focused pre-admission-to-graduation STEM immersion program. Lehigh undergraduate students Nnamdi Chima-Anyanka and Giovanni Martinez joined the Vavylonis group in Summer 2021. Nnamdi worked with graduate student Aaron Hall to model electrostatic interactions of type II myosin tails, which mediate their oligomerization. Giovanni Martined worked with postdoc David Rutkowski to simulate formation of microspikes in lamellipodia using Brownian dynamics simulations. The photos below show their poster presentations at Lehigh's 2021 Research Day.
The Biosystems Dynamics Summer Institute at Lehigh gives undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in interdisciplinary research teams focused on problems related to the life sciences. Our 2019 team with students Rongke Liu (majoring in Statistics) and Julia Skrapits (majoring in Molecular Biology) worked on simulations of confined actin filaments and image analysis of C. elegans motion, with the guidance of Physics Ph.D. student Danielle Holz. Both Rongke and Julia received best poster awards at the 2019 Lehigh University expo!
RARE students: Summer 2018-Spring 2019
Felix Quintana, Undergraduate student,
Lehigh University
Rebecca Davis, Undergraduate student,
Lehigh University
Lehigh's Rapidly Accelerated Research Experience (RARE) is a focused pre-admission-to-graduation STEM immersion program.
Felix Quintana and Rebecca Davis performed computer simulations of actin filaments as RARE students in summer, 2018 and presented posters of their results at the 2018 Summer Expo at Lehigh. Felix Quintana continued research in the Vavylonis group through 2019, working with graduate stiudent Brandon Horan. He presented his research on coarse-grained modeling of formin proteins at the 2019 annual Biophysical Society meeting and at the 2018 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students, in which he received a poster award. Felix was also awarded an XSEDE Empower (Expert Mentoring Producing Opportunities for Work, Education, and Research) internship (2019). He was selected and participated at the NSF-funded Cell Hackathon (2019) that covered his trip to UCSF to work with other students and researchers in interdisciplinary projects in quantitative and computational bioscience.
The 2010 BDSI team, headed by Dr. Xiaolei Huang and Dr. Dimitrios Vavylonis, continued the work started in the summer of 2009 on actin filament polymerization through computer-based curve fitting and tracking.
Jen Colquhoun participated as a junior at Lehigh University, majoring in Biochemistry. Over the summer, she used JFilament to track actin filaments in 3D and 4D GFP-CHD images of dividing fission yeast (provided by the lab of J.-Q. Wu). Her analysis demonstrates the process of assembly of the actin contractile ring in dividing fission yeast through a dynamic filament meshwork.
Christopher Devulder participated as a junior at Lehigh University, majoring in Physics and Mathematics. He quantified static and dynamic properties of actin cables in fission yeast cells using JFilament. He used these data to investigate the role of mechanical forces involved in the shape and position of these actin bundles, their dynamics of remodeling and their polarization across the cell.
Peter Wallerson participated as a junior at Columbia University majoring in Biomedical Engineering on the Biomechanics Track. Over the summer, he created a Java tool for modeling the shapes of membranes of cells. Combined with the already existent method of tracking actin filaments, this will allow further analysis of the role of the cytoskeleton in cell shape and dynamics.
Nikola Ojkic, PhD student,
Department of Physics, Lehigh University
Tian Shen, PhD student
Department of Computer Science, Lehigh University
The 2009 BDSI team, headed by Dr. Xiaolei Huang and Dr. Dimitrios Vavylonis, concentrated on the study of actin filament polymerization through computer-based curve fitting and tracking.
Michael Fedorka participated as a senior at Lehigh University majoring in bioengineering, on the biopharmaceutical track. The scope of his studies has supplied him with an extensive background in chemistry, biology, and math in their engineering and scientific applications. Over the summer he worked with the Huang-Vavylonis team to develop software and computational models to analyze actin polymerization.
Lisa Vasko participated as a junior at Lehigh University studying Applied Mathematics and Actuarial Science. In this project, she created a Java tool for actin filament tracking using the stretching active contours method.
Ashley Ruby participated as a senior at Lehigh University, majoring in Behavioral Neuroscience. During the span of the project, she measured filament growth rates from TIRFM images and analyzed the data. She gained experience with the use computational methods in biomedical image analysis.
Matthew Smith, PhD student,
Department of Physics, Lehigh University
Tian Shen, PhD student
Department of Computer Science, Lehigh University
