{"id":12338,"date":"2016-07-28T14:25:41","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T18:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/?p=12338"},"modified":"2016-07-28T14:25:41","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T18:25:41","slug":"surfs-up-2016-rhode-island-undergrads-in-research-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/2016\/07\/28\/surfs-up-2016-rhode-island-undergrads-in-research-21\/","title":{"rendered":"SURF’s up 2016: Rhode Island undergrads in research"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI don\u2019t want to leave the lab. This has given me more clarity of what I want to do and what I want to accomplish.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Gabrielle_Matthew\"<\/a>Research fellow:<\/strong> Matthew Gabrielle
\nHometown:<\/strong> Bellingham, MA
\nSchool:<\/strong> Roger Williams University<\/a>
\nMajors:<\/strong> Biology, Chemistry
\nMentor:<\/strong> Avelina Espinosa
\nProject:<\/strong> Entamoeba<\/em> spp<\/em>. as models to explore the effects of environmental stress due to climate change in marine protists<\/p>\n

Matthew Gabrielle arrived last fall on the RWU campus freshman year, undeclared for a major and thinking he might head down the pre-law track.<\/p>\n

But then, he says, he took some science classes so he wouldn\u2019t fall behind on his requirements and started working with Associate Professor Avelina Espinosa. Gabrielle says he didn\u2019t have much research experience, but he found that he liked running experiments.<\/p>\n

That led to applying for the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship<\/a> (SURF) program with Rhode Island NSF EPSCoR and spending his summer working in Espinosa\u2019s lab, studying the impact of climate change on Entamoeba spp<\/em>., a parasitic species that live in humans or a variety of animal hosts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re altering the conditions in which they grow and monitoring their health,\u201d explains Gabrielle. \u201cI do protein gels to see what proteins it excretes under different conditions and changing acidity levels associated with climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parasite Entamoeba histolytica<\/em>, when ingested, causes the disease amebiasis, which is responsible for about 100,000 human deaths per year. The\u00a0Entamoeba\u00a0<\/em>is found in poor quality drinking water of third world countries and causes dysentery for those who ingest it, forming cysts that the liver can\u2019t process.<\/p>\n

The project seeks to gain a better understanding of how climate change may impact the way in which the\u00a0Entamoeba<\/em>\u00a0communicate and group together, and whether they will thrive or decline under the altered conditions.<\/p>\n

Gabrielle says working on an open-ended project has given him newfound responsibilities and provided opportunities to develop skills, grow confidence, and gain independence \u2014 all of which doesn\u2019t happen in the typical school year lab, where students follow set procedures rather than figuring out things on their own.<\/p>\n

Pausing from his work to talk about his SURF experience, Gabrielle says with a broad smile, \u201cI don\u2019t want to leave the lab. This has given me more clarity of what I want to do and what I want to accomplish. I definitely want to go to grad school in some capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story and photo by Amy Dunkle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI don\u2019t want to leave the lab. This has given me more clarity of what I want to do and what I want to accomplish.” Research fellow: Matthew Gabrielle Hometown: Bellingham, MA School: Roger Williams University Majors: Biology, Chemistry Mentor: Avelina Espinosa Project: Entamoeba spp. as models to explore the effects of environmental stress due […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21,51],"tags":[87,252,570,597],"class_list":["post-12338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-surfsup","tag-amebiasis","tag-entamoeba-histolytica","tag-rhode-island-nsf-epscor","tag-roger-williams-university"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/rinsfepscor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}