2017
Bridges
What I have learned that is useful to me & how it is useful:The person who has had the biggest influence on my life & where I see myself in 10 years from now:I would say that both my parents have the biggest influence on my life, but since I already mentioned how my mother has impacted my education in the previous blog, I’ll mentioned how my dad has impacted my life. My father is the biggest influence in my life because he has a strong faith in God that keeps my family strong. During difficult times my father, the head of the household, is the one who encourages my family and I to have faith that our needs will be met. We would pray and with time, things begin to change for the better. It’s through the difficult times that we learn how to stay positive and hopeful. Even in times that I have fear, such as being nervous of presenting to a crowd of people or doing something out of my comfort zone, my father would tell me to pray for strength.
In 10 years from now (in the year of 2027), I see myself doing my residency at North Country HealthCare Family Medicine in Flagstaff, AZ. I would be in my second year during this time and have had the opportunity to teach and mentor medical students as part of the program. The rotation that I would have been doing would be in Apache County, Coconino County, Navajo County, and the northern part of Yavapai County. Doing rotations at these places would give me the stability to care for patients with different backgrounds when I work on the Navajo reservation. I will be fully equipped and ready to use what I learned at my future employment at the hospital in Tuba CIty or Kayenta, AZ. By this time, I would have been through many obstacles to have this spot within the residency program. I would have already completed my medical school at University of Arizona, along with a Masters of Science degree in Cellular and Molecular Medicine. I would have earned my Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences at Northern Arizona University and Associates of Sciences degree at Coconino Community College.
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The importance of my research project and to who it benefits:The research that I am conducting is important because studying the role of genetics can help elucidate the functioning of microRNA and its relation to cancer. When figuring out what contributes to prostate cancer risk there are many disparities that come to mind, such as age, ethnicity, lifestyle, health, access to medical treatment, etc. The role of genetics is also a possible disparities that could contribute to prostate cancer risk, but it is not fully understood. Therefore, studying the genetic differences (aka SNPs) affecting the oncomir microRNA-27 cluster within the Native American population, we can better understand the role of genetics and the racial disparity as a risk factor for prostate cancer. MicroRNA has been shown to influence the mechanism of a variety of human disease, including cancer. In result, by understanding the functioning of a microRNA and its relation to cancer; microRNA has the potential of becoming the next generation of diagnostics and therapeutics. Specifically, a drug that is developed for miRNA-targeting will have the ability to alter any disturbances within the gene that results to cancer. For example, a drug that can alter the likelihood of the development for drug resistance in variety of malignancies that can alter the mutation’s resistances of cancer cells to chemotherapeutic agents. Therefore, altering any genetic variations can be considered as a tumor suppressor (a gene that protects a cell from one step on the path to cancer). In addition, the relative importance that genetics plays as a cause of racial disparities in prostate cancer is also unknown. Therefore, by comparing our data of the Native American individuals with other ethnicities, we can have a clear understanding of racial disparities being a risk factor which helps researchers understand the progression and treatment of prostate cancer. For my research, I am specifically focusing on the oncomir microRNA-27 cluster which has been known to affect prostate cancer risk, but has not been examined in Native Americans. Therefore, examining this gene within the Native American population is imperative for us to understand the racial disparities aspect of it. Studying the genetic variation and frequencies has the potential to affect our health by influencing race-based medicine that is focusing on the unique genetic expression of an individual's ancestors. Although race-based medicine is controversial, I believe that it could help individuals find a drug that best fits their needs. Here is a short excerpt from an article that I read Race and medicine: Not a black and white question, “...Luca Luigi Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford University showed that the frequencies of different alleles of genes for several blood and immune-system proteins vary geographically. It is now starting to be accepted that these sorts of variation can matter for health. If so, searching for genetic variations in different racial groups is not only acceptable, but also obligatory.” As you can see, my research impacts the Native American population, the insight of genetic variation in different racial groups, and the development of microRNA diagnostics and therapeutics. MicroRNA researching is an innovative study that can lead to more discoveries. How my family's background affected the way I see the world:My family's background includes: living by the word of God and doing our best in our education. Having parents that have faith in God, who supports me in my education and knowing people who are uneducated living on the Navajo reservation, has lead me to attend college and strive to succeed in medical school. From a young age, my parents taught my siblings and I to have faith in God, which has been beneficial in my life. Whenever, I felt discouraged, especially with not knowing the outcome of things, I put my trust in him. Therefore, I would feel at ease and it usually helps me view things positively. What I would pray for is guidance in my life, in my education and that I will accomplish great things. In addition, I would also pray that everything will fall into place. I believe that being a Christian has set a strong foundation in my life and has blessed me with wonderful opportunities. Along with obeying God, my education is my second priority. Having parents that encourage me to do my best in my education has made me realize that graduating from college is achievable. As an elementary student, I knew that attending college was expected of me, but I knew little about what it takes to be a college student. It was until my middle school year that I began to understand that having excellent grades would influence my acceptance into a university. When I was in high school, my mother went back to college at College America in Flagstaff and studied in nursing. Since my family lives in Inscription House, AZ, she made the sacrifice of staying in a motel throughout the week in order to attend classes and to have time to study. When she was back home, she was always studying; even late into the night. At times she cried and felt like giving up. However, she always managed to overcome her doubts and keep on pushing through. With that, I believe that seeing how my mom went through all that, it has motivated me to never give up in life, especially as a college student. I was also inspired to become a doctor by seeing my mother studying the human anatomy and by attending some of her classes. Seeing how she practiced giving other students in her class a shot in the arm was eye catching. As for living on the Navajo reservation, it’s common to know several people who are uneducated. As for example, shimásání (my maternal grandmother) never went to school, even as a child. She was raised to tend to her livestock (horse, cows, goats, & sheep), herd sheep, weave Navajo rugs, butcher sheep, and that’s how she survived. Her income was through selling Navajo rugs, some of her livestock, along with potteries. My uncle from my father’s side, only went to elementary school and now he is the pastor at my church. Knowing that they were unfortunate to get the same education as me, but still managed to make living has motivated me to aim to achieve the impossible. Overall, by keeping faith in God, having people to motivate me with my education, and striving to make difference attending college, I believe that I can become a medical doctor and I will work on the Navajo reservation to help my people and inspire others. Update on how my research has developed so far and what I still expect to learn:Last week, the lab manager who usually assists me with my research project sent off my re-platted cloned plasmids to the University of Arizona for sequencing, before she left for her vacation. I am unsure of when she will return to the lab and what to do with the sequences that I got back earlier this week. However, I had a post-doc student help me analyze the returned sequences. I also plan to keep myself occupied by reading articles to better understand the function and biogenesis of microRNA (miRNA). So far, I have read an article called MicroRNAs in Common Human Diseases which states that, “miRNA plays an essential role in gene expression regulation at post-transcriptional levels.” Which means that miRNA has the ability to control the gene expression once the DNA has transcribed into RNA then, into messenger RNA. Hence, miRNAs also has the ability to control vital biological processes such as cell division and death, cellular metabolism, intracellular signaling, immunity and cell movement. The article also explains how miRNA (lin-4) was discovered in Caenorhabditis elegans, roundworm, in 1993. It wasn’t until seven years later that they used the same approach to identify another miRNA (let-7). This just proves that there was inefficiency with these type of research: forward genetics and standard molecular biology techniques. Including the lack of enthusiasm among researchers who suspected that miRNA was only seen in worms. Therefore, this miRNA research was discovered not too long ago and with the combination of the Human Genome Project it has made the study of miRNA expression possible. Certain miRNA expression patterns could be disease-specific and hold great prognostic value. As for cancer related miRNAs, they are potentially useful for developing not only early diagnosis but also novel anti-cancer strategies. With these known it could contribute to early detection of cancer and potentially deliver profound benefits to the public health. I also plan to read about how the gene that I am working with, miR-27a associates with numerous of cancers, including prostate cancer. I would like to learn more about the biological function of miR-27a that determines the protein synthesis. Whether the gene upregulates or down regulates a pathway that can promote or hinder the susceptibility to cancer. I would then, research the rs895819 SNP (since the other SNP is not documented) to see how it affects the susceptibility of cancer too. Finally, I will read about the molecular process of how cloning works as opposed to only learning the procedures. So far, I have analyzed the sequences that I received from the University of Arizona Genetic core using bioinformatic tools, such as Sequencher and Linux Terminal Interface. With these tools, I genotyped these two SNPs (rs895819 and the rs76454774) that were in the data set of sequencing results from the sanger sequencing platform. Which I then, imported into Linux Terminal Interface to genotype the 32 colonies of each SNP with less of hassle as opposed to analyzing them one by one using Sequencher. It was my first time using the Linux Terminal Interface, bioinformatic tool, which was confusing to learn because of all the difficult commands there were and how to navigate through it was complicated. If I missed a character I had to re-enter the whole command again. I also had to constantly remember to only use the arrows on the keyboard to get to a certain place on the line of the command. It wasn’t like Word document, where you could just click to a certain line of a sentence using the mouse. However, with the help of a post-doc student I was able to enter the numerous commands that the software offers. From the results of analyzing, I found the genotype to 28 colonies out of 32 colonies for each SNP which is enough data to continue onward with my project. There originally 16 colonies that I grew, however when I platted the plasmid products (aka each colonies) I doubled them so that it matched with a forward primer (M13F) and reverse primer (M13R). Therefore, each SNP has a total of 32 colonies due to the forward and reverse primers. The other 4 colonies that were unidentified are useless data because of all the noise that were present. The noise are weak signal traces which are basically, failed DNA sequences. The purpose of analyzing these sequences is to confirm that the two SNPs are cloned. Overall, I have been able to analyze my returned sequences using the Linux Terminal Interface to figure out the genotype to each of the colonies for both rs895819 and rs76454774 SNP. Now that I have these data, I assume that I will compare it with results from other databases for both the SNPs. Other than that, I will continue to read about miR-27a and cloning to better understand my project. What I would be doing if you were not in Bridges for the Summer and my most challenging aspect of attending college:If I were not in the Bridges program this summer, I would be using this time to do something productive such as working or taking classes, maybe even both. Every since my freshman year of high school, this is what I have been doing. From freshman to junior year of high school, I have been taking summer classes with the Upward Bound program at Southern Utah University. The following summer, I worked for the first time at Lower Antelope Canyon. Then, I participated in the Bridges program the two summers following. Therefore, I would contribute my time to opportunities that can enhance my knowledge and build on my experiences. I would work as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at some facility here in Flagstaff. I earned my CNA license a couple of months after I graduated from high school and I’ve yet to use my license to work in the health care facility. As a result, the expiration of my license is coming up and I just thought that I should work enough hours to be able to renew it next year. Besides, I worked hard to earn it so I should at least use it to get more experiences working with patients. Plus, it’s a great way to earn some money for this coming school year too. I would also take a math class at Coconino Community College (CCC), so that I can take pre-calculus this fall. Supposedly, the intermediate algebra class that I took at Southern Utah University and the statistics class that I took last year is not an acceptable prerequisite for pre-calculus. Therefore, I can either take the prerequisite or take the math placement test. As for the placement test, I’ve only took the test as a high school student to earn dual enrollment but didn’t score as good. So, taking the test should be interesting this time around. I’ve printed out a practice test, so hopefully with studying I don’t have to take the prerequisite class this fall. All things considered, I am thankful that I am apart of the Bridges program because I am building on my research/ laboratory skills. Working in a molecular biology lab brings many insights of how miRNA promotes or hinders the susceptibility of cancer. It’s also a great experience to share when applying for medical school. On top of learning new skills, having the opportunity to a take class at Northern Arizona University (NAU), to work in the laboratory, and to get paid is astounding. It’s like winning a lottery because paying for college alone is expensive. That said, I feel like the most challenging aspect of attending college is paying for tuition. Due to the high cost of tuition here at NAU, I’ve decided to attend school at CCC straight out of high school. This was beneficial because the cost of living in Flagstaff was another concern for me too. For my first semester in Flagstaff, I resorted to staying in a hotel with complimentary breakfast. At that time, I was new to staying in Flagstaff without my parents and I couldn’t imagine being in an apartment alone. In addition, I was not ready to sign my own lease to an apartment. Some weeks, I go to stay with my friend at her brother's house. From there on, we both signed a lease to an apartment that I now live in. Overall, participating in the Bridges program is my first choice of how I would like to spend my summer. This program is the opportunity that I search for because it meets both taking a class and the ability to work. As for the cost of tuition, I’m glad that I am attending CCC and to have a friend to split our rent with. Not that, that’s the only reason she’s my friend. Trust me she’s an amazing friend, ever since high school. My Research & Thoughts of my project: Lynelle, Did you know that prostate cancer is the second leading cancer in men and that the mortality rate is higher in the Native American population compared to other ethnicities? This means that a Native American who is diagnosed with prostate cancer tends to have an aggressive form of this cancer compared to other ethnicities. The research group in Jason Wilder’s genetics laboratory focuses on the discovery and analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and their relation to prostate cancer. Acknowledging the many disparities that could potentially affect the Native American susceptibility to prostate cancer, we will focus on the genetic aspect of it. With the help of the human haplotype map created by the “HapMap Project,” finding a common or rare genetic variants that associate with a complex disease is achievable. However, the Native American population is the most unrepresented population. Therefore, my research project is to better understand the role of genetics as a risk factor for prostate cancer in the Native American population by focusing on the genetic variation of the oncomir microRNA-27(mir-27) between ethnic groups. Genetic variation of miR-27 has not been examined previously in Native American populations. A microRNA is a short non-coding RNA that can prevent certain messenger RNA from coding a specific protein causing functional and physiological disruptions. This summer, I will continue my previous research project focusing on two different SNPs that I discovered within the region of mir-27 in 39 Native American samples. A SNP is a variation at a single position in a genome and once a SNP occurs within a gene, the gene is identified as having more than one allele. SNPs have been known to be associated with certain diseases and cancer. mir-27 is associated with various types of cancer making it an oncomir. The two SNPs that I discovered are, rs895819 and rs764547746. The first SNP, rs895819 is a common SNP that affects the mir-27 processing and function; this increases the risk of prostate cancer in Native American population. The second SNP, rs764547746 is novel which means that it has not been discovered in the human genome. This summer my project will focus on cloning these two SNPs using E. coli cells and analyzing the cloned sequences using bioinformatic methods. I began my cloning experiment on June 20th (Tuesday) and completed it on June 22nd (Thursday). This Monday I sent my cloned plasmids to The University of Arizona Genetic core in Tucson for sequencing. Looking back to the beginning of my cloning experiment I was amazed to have grown just enough E. coli colonies on my Luria-Bertani Kanamycin plates to proceed onward with the procedures. I was informed that it was most likely that there would be no growth on the first try, so repeating the cloning procedure would be necessary. However, I got enough colonies to continue with the rest of the procedures. On Wednesday, is when I received my sequences from U of A and it wasn’t until today that I am now analyzing my data using a computer software called Sequencher. So, far I have been unable to assemble my forward and reverse primers/ individuals which means that I can’t confirm if my SNPs are cloned. This has happened because I platted the wrong primers before I sent my product to U of A. Therefore, I would have to re-plate my product with the correct primers and send it off next week. Overall, I should be able to analyze my sequences next week and hopefully find cloned SNPs in all my colonies. My fear for my project is that if there is no SNPs showing up when I analyze my sequence, then I would have to re-clone from the beginning which could be time consuming. However, I hope for the best outcome of finding the SNPs. Either way, this is a great learning experience and practice. Again, the discovery of the population-specific miR-27 polymorphisms may elucidate the disparity in prostate cancer mortality within Native Americans. -Joshelle How I am taking care of myself & how my week has been:Hello Everyone, I hope you all enjoyed your week and you are now ready for the weekend. I know I am (tehe, that sounds so cheesy!). These past two weeks has been all about cloning the two SNPs that I discovered last summer by using E. coli cells and analyzing the cloned sequences using bioinformatic tools. Aside from lab work, setting time for myself allows me to not burn out by the end of the week. With that said, my time outside of the lab are mainly spent at the gym or at my apartment. Throughout the week Lynelle and I would go to the gym at the Health and Learning Center at 5:30pm. Most of the time we aim to work out for about 1-2 hours. During this time, we would talk to each other about our day, how our research is going, and other things like what friends would talk about. At my apartment, I have the place to myself for the summer since my roommate is back in Page, AZ. There’s not that much that I do besides relax and watch some movies on Netflix. For the weekends, I would go home every other week. Last weekend, I went to a family reunion with my mom and younger siblings at Cactus Valley; located on top of Black Mesa. All the families that were gathered are all descendants of the Yeii Dine’e Tachiinnii family from Cactus Valley and most of them I have never met. It was interesting to meet my distant relatives on my mother’s side of the family. At the event, they also had games and races which I participated in. I ran the one mile race with my younger siblings which was fun but my throat burned throughout the race. I bet it was from the heat. Despite the heat, in the end I placed second in the female category and was given a medal which was awesome. The next day my family and I visited my younger sister at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. Where she is attending school through the Upward Bound program that I once did when I was a high school student. We ate together and she was telling us her funny stories of her time there. Out of our family, I would say she is the funny one. She is always making jokes and making others laugh. Overall, setting time for yourself is beneficial. Also spending time with your family and friends is nice too! Speaking about friends, I’m always down to hang out with my roommate/bestie (Kaylee B.) when she makes her surprised visits into town. We usually would eat out, buy Dutch Bros coffee, watch movies, and drive around town. Anyway, hope you all enjoy your weekend and happy 4th of July! Hello, my name is Joshelle Tsinnijinnie. I am a member of the Navajo Nation, from Inscription House, Arizona. Shí eí Kinłichíi’nii nishłį́, dóó Táchii’nii báshíshchiin. Bit’ahnii dashíchei dóó Tábąąhá eí dashínáłí. I am of the Red House people clan, born for the Red-Running-Into-Water clan. The Folded Arms people are my maternal grandfather’s clan and the Edge Water people are my paternal grandfather’s clan. I am a returning member of the Northern Arizona University Bridges Program. I first joined this program last summer and had such an amazing experience working in Dr. Jason Wilder’s lab that I decided to participate again.
I am a student at Coconino Community College (CCC), here in Flagstaff, AZ and I am a part of the CCC2NAU program. I have one more year at CCC before I transfer to Northern Arizona University where I plan to major in biomedical science. Initially, I was interested in pursuing a career in nursing. However, the more time I spent on conducting health research, I developed an interest working with the experimental aspect of the health field. Therefore, majoring in biomedical science will allow me to learn more about experimenting within the health field. As a career, I want to become a medical doctor and maybe even conduct health research too. I am a Page High School alumni since 2015. I am the second oldest out of five siblings. I enjoy hiking, baking, watching movies, and occasionally I like to read fiction novels. My first time writing a blog using Weebly was quite difficult; especially having to navigate through so many tool options. Now as I return back to my old website, refreshing my memory of how to navigate through the editing site has been helpful. It’s also nice to review my blog entries from last summer. It brings back many memories of my time spent in Flagstaff, places I visited, working in the lab, and the goals I wanted to accomplish. It has also amazed me how my initial career plans has changed because of my participation with the Bridges program. As for my research, I will be continuing my research from last summer of “Identifying miR-27 Polymorphisms in Native Americans” Specifically, I will clone the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that I found by using bacteria. I don’t fully know the details of how I will be conducting the experiment, but what I do know is that it will consist of a time frame of 3 days. Within in those 3 days, it mainly consist of allowing the bacteria to grow within an incubator for a specific amount of time. So far, I have ran a reaction of the 2 individuals that appeared to have a SNP. I also placed them into a thermal cycler and ran a gel to see if they had the amount of base pair that I was expecting. Once that was done, I made broth that was for my agar plates and for my broth medium. Overall, I am excited to continue my research project and to hopefully get some interesting results. |
AuthorHello! Feel free to read over my 2016 summer's blogs too. Archives
August 2017
End of the Summer Video |