SHS Senior Emily Dodd Named Regeneron STS Scholar

By Nick Cirillo, President

Each year, about 1,800 student scientists across the United States submit their research to the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search in hopes that their research will be highlighted. This January, Somers senior Emily Dodd was selected as one of the nation’s top 300 student scientists, winning $2,000 each for her and Somers High School’s STEM programs, a platform to highlight her research, and a chance to engage with Regeneron scientists and fellow top student researchers.

Emily’s research primarily focuses on identifying relationships between proteins which play a role in Parkinson’s disease, with special interest towards nonmotor symptom cognitive dysfunction. To gain some more insight into Emily’s research and how the science research program at Somers High School helped her develop her research skills, I sat down to ask Emily a few questions.

NOTE: The below is a transcription of our interview, lightly edited with Emily’s approval and input.

Nick: Could you give me a quick overview of your project?

Emily: Sure! I have been looking into the cognitive mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease and the basis of neuronal plasticity, which is how neuronal connections change over time. We know that, as you grow older, neurons don’t exactly get any bigger or become more multiple. It’s really those changing connections that form the basis of learning and memory.

We have a good reason to believe, in Parkinson’s disease, that this is dysregulated, specifically through these two proteins that I researched, metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 and 5, and the scaffolding protein Homer1. Because we think their interaction is important to neuronal plasticity, therefore causing some of the cognitive deficits we see in Parkinson’s disease, my project is to see if that interaction is changingin Parkinson’s disease. If so, we would consider this relationship between mGluR1/5 and Homer1b/c to be a possible therapeutic target in the future.

N: How did you discover your project topic, and what training did you undergo to learn the necessary skills to conduct your research?

E:  The entire project itself was a continuation of previous research that a PhD student had started back in 2018, where they found these LRRK2 G2019S mice [a mouse model for Parkinson’s disease] weren’t able to have LTP, or long-term potentiation. We know that LTP is a very good thing, it’s traditionally the basis of learning and memory since it strengthens synaptic connections, so the fact that these Parkinson’s disease mice weren’t experiencing that became quite a bit of a problem. And paired with some trafficking deficits in some neurons, we were trying to figure out why this was. This project is a response to that, saying that “We find these plasticity deficits and these trafficking deficits because of the relationship between mGluR1/5 and Homer1b/c changing.”

For each step of my project – going and identifying proteins through immunostaining, then imaging those proteins and analyzing them – I had a good amount of training. For immunostaining protocols, I learned from Fatema Begum, she’s an undergraduate researcher at Dartmouth who helped me out a lot through that process. For imaging and analysis, I worked closely with my mentor, Dr. Swati Gupta, and another high school student named Nikhat Menan. It was really interesting, as the exact way in which I processed my images had never been done in the lab before – most of the field’s previous analysis was only 2D, limiting our knowledge to only surface area. Because we wanted to calculate Homer1b/c volumes and obtain 3D data, we became the first members of our lab to learn that process. So it was a lot of experimenting and seeing what you thought was right through your own experiences.

N: If you had another year in the science research program, in what direction would you bring your project?

E: I would probably try to look more towards therapeutic treatments and seeing what could be done to reverse the increased interaction between mGluR1/5 and Homer1b/c we’re finding in Parkinson’s disease. That can be done in multiple ways; one of the ways it’s done now is using bicuculline treatments. That’s because there’s Homer1b/c, which I looked at, but there is also Homer1a, which is another isoform of the Homer1 protein. If that’s expressed, it has the potential to reverse some of the weird things we’re seeing in the Parkinson’s disease [LRRK2 G2019S] mice. So I’d want to do that in neuronal cultures by decreasing Homer1b/c and mGluR1/5 interaction and increasing Homer1a binding to mGluR1/5 instead.

N: How has the science research program at SHS specifically helped you over the past three years?

E: Oh, it’s been so nice. I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. Coming in as a sophomore, it has definitely prepared me for communicating with others, creating PowerPoints, and getting a better idea of what the research field actually looks like. I’d say in all parts of that, my FROG mentors [older science research students who serve as guides to younger ones] helped me a lot. I formally had Peyton DiSiena, and more informally, Kaitlyn DeRosa, helping me out through each of those processes, through sending emails, but also creating PowerPoints, so it definitely prepared me a lot for going and talking to people through email, getting ready for interviews, and things like that.

N: If you could research an entirely different topic, maybe in college, what would you be interested in pursuing?

E: Well, I know for a fact that I’d want to stay in Parkinson’s disease research. My papa [grandfather] passed away from it my freshman year, so I’d want to stay in that field. If I wanted to go and change the direction of the project, and maybe research something a tad bit different, I’d probably want to look at… That’s actually really hard, I really like my research. I might want to work more on the clinical side of things, because I’d be looking into med school.

And that marked the end of my interview with Emily! After high school, Emily will be attending Washington University in St. Louis, with plans to pursue medical schooling. Her passion and knowledge of her research shines through, and she’d love to talk about brain slices with you if you have any questions!