Third Annual Three Minute Thesis Competition

[Speaker: Paul Peck] From Nasik, India, and the College of Arts and Sciences, the presentation “Sex Influences Wiring,” please welcome Aditi Chaubey. [Audience applauds.] Ready, set, pitch!

[Speaker: Aditi Chaubey] A question that has puzzled scientists, doctors, psychologists, and even Hollywood, is what makes men and women different? We know that beyond the physical features and the inner anatomy, there are differences even in the brain, and the millions of neurons that make up these brains. Unfortunately, women's brains have been completely neglected from studies on neurological disorders, something that has only been revised in the past 40 years. Research has shown that men and women are different when it comes to the different aspects of neurological disorder stages: onset, progress and even response to drugs. Studies have also shown that men and women are different when it comes to pain perception, with women being more susceptible to pain than men. But we don't know why and how this is and studies in human brains are very difficult, as you can imagine.

Enter C. elegans. These tiny one-millimeter long worms have really tiny brains made up of only 302 neurons. But fundamentally, they are functionally similar to how complicated human brains work. So, studies in brains of worms can give us an insight into how human brains work.

There are two sexes when it comes to C. elegans: Hermaphrodite or females shown here in red and males shown here in blue. The question I asked was simple: are there differences in the pain perception between these sexes? And there indeed were. Hermaphrodites were more responsive to painful stimuli and responded highly or even more than males. Males tended to ignore the harmful stimuli and kept moving on.

The next question I wanted to ask for us: was it the sex or the brain that was responsible for this behavior? And to answer that I use genetic and molecular biology tools to design worms that had the sex of their brain completely divorced. Yes we could do that. Now we had hermaphrodites with male brains and males with hermaphrodite brains. And to our surprise, their behavior completely switched. So, hermaphrodites were now behaving like males and males were now responding like hermaphrodites. So, it was indeed the sex of the brains that was responsible for the differences in pain perception that we saw.

Imagine doing this in humans—changing the sex of the brains. Makes for a good script for a romantic comedy, but in reality it is impossible to do so. My research will help understand pain perception better, and maybe come up with drugs that will be designed only for a specific sex.

On this International Women's Day, I can confidently say that there would be a day when women won't have to suffer in pain, and will go out and seize the day. Because why should men have all the fun? Thank you.

[Audience applauds and cheers.]

[Speaker: Paul Peck] This gentleman represents the Roswell Park Graduate Division and Horseheads, New York. His presentation: “Demystifying the Fog: Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems.” Well I deliver to you: Zachary Dunbar. [Audience applauds.] Ready? You look like you're ready. [Zachary poses on stage like he is holding a baseball bat.] Set... [Audience laughs] [Paul throws an imaginary ball to Zachary who hits it with his imaginary bat. Audience laughs.] Pitch!

[Speaker: Zachary Dunbar] Raise your hand if you know what an e-cigarette is. [Several audience members raise their hands.] Wow that's a lot of you. Okay, hang with me you might learn something, okay. E-cigarettes can also be called electronic nicotine delivery systems. And the definition for what that means is right in the name. Electronic: these are products that are heated by batteries instead of burning. Nicotine delivery: you use them to inhale and exhale nicotine. And systems: they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. So, you may have a massive vaporizer that you use on YouTube videos to look cool, or a tiny little JUUL that you use to take one hit and be done. They still have the same point—you're using these products to get a nicotine fix. And speaking of JUUL that brand made more than a billion dollars in profit in 2017. So, there's a lot of controversy around using these products because they're so popular.

So if you want to start to understand the controversy behind e-cigarette use and win a lot of Twitter fights, you have to understand who's using the products, how they're using those products, where they're using their products, and what those products use means to a passerby. How these products affect nearby people, plants, dogs, cats, babies. To start to understand that, my study looked at people who are cigarette and e-cigarette smokers—to stop it being confusing and I'm going to refer to those cigarette smokers as tobacco users—so we looked at those individuals using a national data set, and we probed their reasons for use in smoke-free places. Those are places where you can't smoke tobacco. What we found was that if you're a person who thinks your e-cigarette is safer to use than regular tobacco, you were more likely to report using that e-cigarette in places you can't smoke tobacco. Now that has a lot of important policy ramifications because there's things called smoke free indoor air laws, and those are meant to protect people from hazardous exposure to tobacco smoke. But if you're vaping in those places who knows what you're exposing people to?

So to start to understand what kinds of chemicals are in the aerosol, we introduce study two and three where we are using JUUL and Blue brand e-cigarette devices. We're smoking them in a controlled setting and we're assessing the airborne nicotine, PM 2.5 and heavy metal exposure posed to people from the e-cigarette aerosol. And the reason for that is so that you can start to understand the risks posed by these people—by the use of these products.

So raise your hand again if you think that future product regulation should be based in science instead of industry recommendations or guesswork. Now pat your back because you get it. So that's what this study is all about, that's what this thesis is all about, doing science to provide regulatory findings and framework for future regulations. [Claps hands.] Thanks.

[Audience applauds.]

[Speaker: Paul Peck] Next presenter hails from the Graduate School of Education via Poughkeepsie, New York. Her presentation: “Celebrate the First: Learning from Successful First-Generation College Students.” This graduate student is Heather Hagenbuch. [Audience applauds.] [Speaker: Paul Peck] Heather, ready, set pitch!

[Speaker: Heather Hagenbuch] Okay so I got to be honest, my research project stems from the fact that I did the PhD process all wrong. Completely backwards. You see, I was already teaching and advising at a university, working in a program that specialized in supporting first-generation college students. Now, like anyone here I wanted to be good in my job. So, I took out books and read articles and read as much as I could about first-generation college students. Specifically, I looked for articles on how do we help first-generation college students be successful. And you know what? There was a depressingly small amount of literature. People weren't talking about that.

You know that makes sense. You see, there are 3.6 million first-generation college students in the United States and that is because one out of every three students is first-gen. First-generation college students graduate at a rate of about 65 percent. Whereas their peers graduate at a rate of about 82 percent. There is a true disparity there. So, these researchers are not wrong. We want to know why is this happening, why are there different rates among students?

Well you see, I went to work every day and met some of the most talented people of my life. Not to mention, I myself, was first-generation. So, the focus on first-generation college students not doing well—it didn't seem right. It didn't fit the people that I met every day. So, we began to say what happens if we change the framework?

There are close to a million first-generation college students every year who do not complete the degree we're seeking. But instead of focusing on why is that, why don't we look at the over 2.5 million first-generation college students that are graduating? Why don't we take their daily lives from a national perspective and say tell us about the things that helped contribute to your degree completion? What helped you get through college? Let's learn from you. What kinds of things can we do as administrators in higher education to help make the pathway more streamlined for students?

So, what this research project does, is it looks at a national level data set and begins to analyze what students are doing on a daily basis. Specifically looking for activities that we can include in the college curriculum: writing assignments, working with research professors getting to know about graduate school and the research process early on in their career. And so, the idea is let us increase the number of students that are graduating. As a society, how much better are things going to be when students who come to college and say, "I have a passion, I want to learn about something," are able to navigate the college process? But we really need to learn about what helps get these students through. So the idea is just changing the framework. Graduate. Let's hear their stories. What do they have to tell us that can support the world around them? So, we've got some great promising results coming forward, and we look forward to continuing adding things in our college curriculum. Thank you.

[Audience applauds.]

[Speaker: Paul Peck] She hails from Boise, Idaho, and the College of Arts and Sciences. Presenting “Bulgaria to Buffalo: Bridging Past and Present”, it's Ashlee Hart. Ready, [audience applauds.] set, pitch!

[Speaker: Ashlee Hart] I may be the most boring archaeologist that you've never heard of, because I don't raid tombs or carry a whip like Indiana Jones. In reality, archaeology is the study of ancient garbage by overly caffeinated workaholics. [Ashlee points to herself.] So, when you're in a hurry to get to your morning class and you trip over your cat, breaking your coffee mug remember that this discarded crockery is what future archaeologists will study about your life. These seemingly mundane pieces provide insight into the human experience. This is why I chose to study over 20,000 broken ceramics, from nearly 3,000 years ago, during my year as a of Fulbright Scholar in Bulgaria. The archaeologists studying your mug will quickly learn it was made by Buffalo China, sometime in the last hundred years, based on a stamp on the bottom.

In the case of much older ceramics however, this type of analysis requires analytical testing. The first test I used, I used x-rays to force ceramics to give up energy which was measured and assigned to different elements. The comparison of elemental signatures between the ceramics and the local clay sources, allowed me to pinpoint the exact location where clay was acquired. In the second test I sliced ceramics thinner than paper to analyze the material added to the clay and the firing conditions that inform conclusions about the vessel function. The results of these testing revealed that a manufacturing change occurred. The local potter's adopted a new technology. The pottery wheel, which ultimately led to changes in everything from clay acquisitioning to firing, and vessel form and decoration.

Understanding how and why change occurs is the most difficult task for archaeologists. Interpreting that a cat was responsible for your broken mug is quite presumptuous, no matter how true. In my research, my hypothetical cat is connected to debates about Greek Colonialism. The typical assertion is that Greek colonies caused major changes within the local population. i.e., the pottery wheel. But my research revealed that the local potters continued to make the same handmade pottery in the same technological tradition, throughout the period. While the wheel-made vessels went through a cycle of use and then were discarded.

Humans have utilized ceramics for thousands of years without major changes in the basic form and function, throughout different historical periods, making them important indicators of cultural change. New technology promotes advancement and change, but oftentimes traditions are maintained. These Bulgarian ceramics have never been systematically analyzed. So, the results inform new perspectives about the past and began to fill a gap in history.

So the next time you are sitting at a coffee shop, consider the much deeper history behind the mug. Not just in terms of the long history of manufacturing that led to this invention, but also think about the archaeologists in the future that will use that exact mug to write a dissertation or thesis about the resurgence of Buffalo based on your actions and experience in that coffee shop. Thank you.

[Audience applauds.]

[Speaker: Paul Peck] From the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, a native of Tehran, Iran. He's presenting: “The Future of Wind Turbines: 3D Printed Blades.” Please welcome Hamid Khakpour. [Audience applauds.] Ready, set, pitch!

[Speaker: Hamid Khakpour] 1.2 billion people in the world do not have access to the electricity. Nine out of 10 are breathing polluted air leading to seven million deaths each year. Wind energy—as the largest new green energy—is a great solution for these problems. It produces low-cost electricity. It also creates jobs. In fact, the wind turbine technician is currently second fastest growing job in the U.S.

However, in order to sustain its growth, the technology must continue to evolve and get better efficiencies. And that's why the turbines are getting bigger. Because the bigger ones are more economical in creating electricity. Sandia National Lab is working on a 650 feet plate. It's so big that I couldn't even fit it within this screen. [Points to projector screen behind him.] However, the current design and manufacturing methods and infrastructure do not facilitate implementation of larger turbines. Moreover, the current blades have fixed geometry. And they are optimal only for one wind speed, while we know that the wind speed is constantly changing. These challenges made International Energy Agency to call for novel rotor design. Now if you have a solution that's tackling all of these problems, well, you can run the table in this 65 billion dollar green market. And that's what we targeted with our novel design called A M Blade, which won the NSF iCore award.

It’s a modular blade made out of 3D-printed segments. The blade has a flexible structure and adjusts itself to the optimal shape using the actuator as when the speed changes. The 3D printing was selected because it can create complex geometries required for our design. This emerging technology also removes the need for molds that can cost up to five million dollar. Moreover, this design reduces the loading on the structure and consequently failure of the turbine. So, this designs modularity makes its transportation easier. It increases the electricity production and it reduces the maintenance cost.

We envision that as 3D printing evolves it will be possible to print the blades right at the installation site. And as a result, resolve the transportation issue completely. Now if you have a turbine and you're looking for a win-win trade you better call A M Plate. Thank you.

[Audience applauds.]

[Speaker: Paul Peck] Can artificial intelligence help end poverty? Well the lady with that answer, from nearby Williamsville, direct from the School of Computer Science and Engineering. Say hello to Neeti Pokhriyal. [Audience applauds.] Neeti, ready, set, pitch!

[Speaker: Neeti Pokhriyal] More than 330 million people live in extreme poverty in Africa. The important factor in ending poverty is assessing it accurately and frequently so that appropriate policies can be planned. Thus, my research focuses on building techniques for improved measurement of poverty.

Current ways to estimate poverty include detailed household surveys and census which cost billions of dollars and five to 10 years. Irrespective of whatever measure the government takes in reducing poverty, they always need a baseline—kind of poverty maps which show the distribution of poor people across the country.

As a part of this work, I traveled to Senegal in West Africa, which has persistently high levels of poverty. These are the poverty maps for the country. [Neeti points to her slide projected on a screen.] The one on the left shows the existing poverty map. And it is evident how dividing the country into four course regions makes it very difficult to pinpoint where poor people live. The map on the right is obtained using my methodology. And where we predict poverty at fine resolution, thus making it very easy to pinpoint people living in extreme poverty throughout the country.

For this work, I use very new data sets like mobile phone data, satellite imagery, open street maps and environmental data. In totality, these data sets capture information about the interaction of human population, environmental factors, accessibility to schools, hospitals, markets, and so on. So, factors that are all related to poverty. Then we build a machine learning model that learns to capture—that learns the patterns within this data and estimates poverty for the entire country and will do so very accurately.

The significance of this research lies that now poverty can be estimated accurately, frequently, and can be pinpointed easily in between long cycles of census and surveys. There’s another significance: Poverty can be estimated in areas of conflict and remote areas which are difficult for census takers to travel.

This work was published at the proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. Currently, I’m involved in building such techniques for other countries, like Haiti, which is one of the poorest countries in western hemisphere. And also closely working with the local governments of these countries so that the actual benefit of this research reaches to the most vulnerable of human population like women and children. Thank you.

[Audience applauds.]

[Speaker: Paul Peck] Our fifth presenter of the day he's from nearby Newfane, New York, via the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Presenting on “Precision Medicine Through Computational Drug Re-purposing.” Let's welcome Jim Schuler. [Audience applauds.] Ready, set, pitch!

[Speaker: Jim Schuler] Current drug discovery pipelines are broken. It takes more than 15 years and over two billion dollars to bring a new drug to the market. And what do we, the patients, get for all this time and money invested into research and development? We get high costs at the pharmacy and drugs whose advertisements on TV include a cornucopia of side effects that are worse than the disease they're treating.

My research in computational drug re-purposing simply means I use computers to find new uses for already FDA-approved drugs to make this whole drug discovery process more efficient and more effective. Nobel prize-winning scientist James Black described drug re-purposing as the type of drug recycling and the most fruitful way to discover a new drug.

One classic example of drug re-purposing is Viagra. Originally developed to treat high blood pressure and chest pain, male participants in the early clinical trials of Viagra noticed some peculiar side effects pop up so to speak. [Audience laughs.] This secondary unintentional use of the drug was a serendipitous discovery.

One aim of my work is to make the entire process systematically serendipitous. Medicines work through their interaction with proteins, the small molecular machinery inside your cells. In my computational modeling of all FDA-approved drugs and all human proteins, which you see several models up on the screen right there, I claim that a drug may be used to treat diseases normally associated with a different drug, if their profiles of protein interactions are similar.

In addition to molecular binding data, I incorporate other types of data into my models and can validate my claims using data entered into electronic medical records. All models and science have their limitations, but my models are larger, more accurate and thus more useful than any which have come before.

Changes in your DNA means that your proteins are different than my proteins, and are different than your neighbors proteins. Which means that medicines work differently in each of us. Traditional drug discovery pipelines don't have the ability to predict or detect these changes. Meaning that real people such as yourself suffer from low efficacy of drugs and a burden of side effects. It is easy and inexpensive for me to incorporate your unique set of proteins into my models so that I am able to claim a drug can be used to uniquely target your disease. Let me say that again: I can make individualized drug re-purposing predictions.

The goal of precision medicine needs two things to be realized: being able to determine your genome and knowing what drug can tailorly target your genome. Science has already succeeded in sequencing your genome for less than a thousand dollars. My work is critical in the realization of that second step. Bringing an already developed drug specifically targeted to treat your disease for perhaps even less than that amount. Thank you.

[Audience applauds.]

[Speaker: Paul Peck] From the country of Iran, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences presenting the “Fountain of Youth From Embryonic Life” please welcome Aref Shahini. [Audience applauds while Paul walks off stage.] [Paul offstage] Wait! Aref I forgot the most important part! [Paul walks back on stage, audience laughs.] Wow how about that I forgot the most important part! He's over there waiting for me like you’re supposed to say something! All right ready, set, pitch!

[Speaker: Aref Shahini] Hi. So, you know that as we age, we lose all our strength. We are not as strong like how we used to when we were young. When we are 25 we lift quite heavy. When we are 90, no, we are not gonna do that. So and did you know that actually we have spent 18 billions of dollars every year for disability? Did you know that 45 percent of our aging population are frail? How can we overcome that? What is the resolution to that?

To this purpose we look into the physiology of skeletal muscle. Those muscles that are responsible for movements. And what we find is that those stem cells that are in the muscle are responsible for regeneration of muscle throughout life. However, when we are old those stem cells are also old. They are exhausted. They cannot form muscle for us. So, what I do in my research is that I look into way to make those old stem cells young again. To this end I seek help from embryonic life. Embryonic life is that first stage of life when the embryo is forming. And interestingly there is a gene that is active in that first stage that maintains youth in the baby.

What we do in the lab is that we take that gene using gene editing tools and we invert it into the old stem cells of an adult. And what we observed was fantastic. Those old stem cells become young again, they could form muscle again. For an old individual this is amazing. The muscle that was being made it was functional. So, what we can do down the road is that we can use gene therapy methods to include this gene from the embryonic life into the old stem cells of an adult. And therefore, that person will gain back his regenerative capacity. He will gain back his muscles like when he used to when he was 25. He will be able to probably lift and run like how he was young.

This has a broad impact on our society and at us living altogether because now our elderlies are stronger, they are able to take care of their everyday tasks. And not only we are going to save those billions of dollars that we pay for disability, but we are going to gift a healthy aging to our aging population. To our baby boomers who are the senior citizens of today, and for me and you as a young adult it means a brighter future. It means that in a close future we will be aged stronger. And we will live a better life. And for science it means a new venue a new chain of thoughts that aging is reversible. You heard me right aging can be reversed. Thank you for listening.

[Audience applauds.]

[Speaker: Paul Peck] He comes from the College of Arts and Sciences. A native of China and he's asking us today is flu following you in your leisure time activities? I certainly hope not but I can't wait to find out the answer from Shiran Zhong. [Audience applauds.] Ready, set, pitch!          

[Speaker: Shiran Zhong] Last time you got a flu instead of who it came from, have you ever thought about where it came from? During last year's flu season over 6,000 influenza cases were reported in Niagara and in Erie counties. We all know that the spread of influenza has been largely facilitated by human mobility. But when we talk about human mobility most people only focus on where you live or where you work.

In fact, we can easily get a flu during our leisure time activities such as meeting a friend in a restaurant, going to the church, or listening to a talk right here in this room. [Audience laughs.] Very few studies have been concerned about leisure time activities because it is super challenging to collect such information through traditional approaches.

Our memories are tricky. If I ask you where did you go in the past week you may not be able to remember it all. You may remember that you went to the Galleria and spend a fortune there but you may have forgotten that you went to Wegmans. So, a much more advanced approach of data collection is much needed here to investigate the impact of leisure time activities.

In the past few years our spatial network lab has developed a smartphone app to track people GPS locations which can help us to track their leisure time activities. At the same time we also asked about their health status—if they got the flu or not. So, this can help us to understand the association between their leisure time activities and spread of influenza.

In total we recruited more than 2,000 participants from Niagara and Erie counties. And now we are using some techniques such as deep learning, a very powerful machine learning approach to investigate the regularity of their leisure time activities. And what we find interesting is that some people tend to go to the gym every week, probably because they are more self-disciplined. Some people tend to go to the barbershop and the church approximately every three weeks, which implies that they are more likely to skip the church instead of skipping a barbershop. Those people they are probably exposed to a different level of health risk due to the different regularity in their leisure time activities.

So, knowing about when and where people go in the leisure time and how often they go, can help us to better estimate their vulnerability to health risk. And also can help us to identify the high risk areas. And now we are also collaborating with some on-campus institution to develop some vaccination distribution strategies. And we believe that our research can help devise the intervention strategy that can effectively contain the spread of influenza, reduce the burden of a health care and most importantly save lives. Thank you very much.

[Audience applauds.]