UROP Proceedings 2010-11

Study of Blood Cell Development using Zebrafish ModelAdvisor : WEN Zilong / LIFSStudent : LIAO Yingyue / BICH(UROP1100 & 1200, Spring 2011 & Summer 2011)Microglia is a type of blood cell existing in the brain and spinal cord and serves the functionas macrophages. Microglia is important because it scavenge damanged or dead cells andinfectious agents, and therefore acts as the primary immune defense in the central nervoussystem. Despite its critical role, much of the background of Microglia is still unknown.Zebrafish is often used as a powerful system for developmental study such as Microglia, andZebrafish plays a rather essential role in scientific research as a vertebrate model organism. Inthis project, Zebrafish is used as a model to investigate the effect of Microglia dysfunction inthe brains of mutant fish.Study of Blood Cell Development using Zebrafish ModelAdvisor : WEN Zilong / LIFSStudent : LU Wei / BICH(UROP1100 & 1200, Spring 2011 & Summer 2011)Zebrafish has proven to be an excellent model organism to study blood cell development, asits blood system shares many similarities with mammalian models and humans. In this project,Zebrafish is used for studying inflammatory response and immunity. There have been severaltransgenic strains of Zebrafish which mark neutrophils and macrophages respectively withfluorescence, enabling direct visualization of these cells in the transparent Zebrafish embryosor larvae. Thus, detailed analysis can be performed to study their cellular behavior andinteractions in the immune response cause by injury or infection.G Proteins and their Regulators in Cancer BiologyAdvisor : WONG Yung Hou / LIFSStudent : CHAK Wing Po / BICH(UROP1000, Summer 2011)Guanine nucleotide-binding proteins (G proteins) are GTPases serving as signal transmitters.Cancer can be regarded as uncontrolled cell growth with enhanced cell proliferation andreduced apoptosis caused by changes in cellular signaling pathways. G protein signaling,intricately associated with cell survival and proliferation, has been found to be involved incancerous tissues and their activation in metastatic sites. Several studies also found thecontribution of altered expression and activity of G proteins in tumorigenesis. Undoubtedly, Gprotein signaling plays an important role in cancer biology.9