Introduction

Welcome to the Group 24 BIPOC Neuroscientist Spotlight Final Project. The purpose of this project is to highlight the achievements of BIPOC neuroscientists across the United States.

Group members:

Sabrina Bunar
Laith Blan
Alex Harvey
Milena Hernandez
Rohan Kalelkar
Baylee Materia

Erica Glasper

Dr. Erica Glasper was raised in Norfolk, Virginia. Growing up, she was a member of her elementary school's program for “Gifted and Talented” students. For high school, Glasper was accepted into a Magnet School for Health and Science Professions. As a student at this institution, Glasper had the unique opportunity to take many classes at the Eastern Virginia Medical School during her high school years (Ribic, 2021).
Despite having this scientific and medical background, Glasper did not enter college with a set career in mind. Her career aspirations changed multiple times throughout her schooling. For years, she wanted to be a lawyer. In high school, her sights shifted to cardiothoracic surgery. It was not until she was in college that she discovered her desire to become a scientist. Furthermore, it was not until later in her college years that she decided on neuroscience as her area of specialty (Ribic, 2021).

Dr. Glasper received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. She went on to receive both her Master of Arts Degree in Psychology and her PhD in Psychobiology and Behavioral Neuroscience from Ohio State University (“Erica Glasper, Phd: Ohio State College of Medicine”, n.d.). During her graduate years at Ohio State, she studied how health outcomes are altered by positive social interactions (Ribic, 2021).
After receiving her PhD, Dr. Glasper completed postdoctoral training from the Princeton Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. During her five years here, she mainly studied brain plasticity. This influenced her current work as an independent researcher (Ribic, 2021).

Dr. Glasper's Lab at Ohio State University focuses on neuronal plasticity. Specifically, she studies how both rewarding and stressful experiences affect the structure and functions of our brains. Her research is very interdisciplinary, combining knowledge and techniques from behavioral endocrinology, psychoneuroimmunology, and behavioral genetics (“Erica Glasper, Phd: Ohio State College of Medicine”, n.d.).
Dr. Glasper has made great contributions to the field of neuroscience. Her lab was the first to observe alterations in hippocampal dendritic morphology and behavioral function induced by social bonding and fatherhood in mice (Ribic, 2021). In other words, she confirmed that the brains of new fathers undergo structural changes when they interact with their children.

In her research, Dr. Glasper focuses on neuroplasticity. This is a process that involves long-term potentiation, a process in which strong, repeated receptor activation results in the strengthening of synaptic transmission. Moreover, she also studies neurogenesis in the hippocampus of adult California mice and how the process is affected by parental behavior. Both neurogenesis and neuroplasticity are topics we covered extensively in class (Bear et al., 2016).

Zu Wei Zhai

Dr. Zu Wei Zhai was born in 1986 in New York and is the son of Xiang Zhai and Ruo Hong Zhai (Facebook and Whitepages, 2022).
He attended and then graduated from Murry Bergtraum High School For Business Careers in Manhattan, New York (Facebook, 2022).
He previously lived in Pittsburgh where he was employed at the University of Pittsburgh, also where he completed a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience and then later his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Middlebury, Zu Wei Zhai 2022).
He moved to Vermont in 2017 to continue his contributions to the world of neuroscience. He currently works at Middlebury College as an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience (Middlebury, Zu Wei Zhai, 2022).
Zhai declined to comment any further concerning his personal life.

Dr. Zu Wei Zhai completed a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience from Middlebury in 2007, later earning a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Pittsburgh in 2015. (Middlebury, Zu Wei Zhai 2022)
Dr. Zhai joined the Middlebury Faculty in 2017 after completing the NIDA T32 postdoctoral training in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine (Middlebury, Zu Wei Zhai 2022)

Dr. Zhai's research focuses on the relationships between childhood adversity, neurocognitive development of self-regulation abilities, and the risk for substance and behavioral addictions. (Middlebury, Zu Wei Zhai 2022)
Dr. Zhai participated in a research study about the use of cannabis and alcohol related to age and how this affects childhood development and the risks involved with alcohol and cannabis use disorders. (Zhai, Apa PsycNet 2013)
Dr. Zhai also participated in a research article that studied mental health concerns among intern doctors. (Zu Wei Zhai, Google scholar citations 2021)

Dr. Zu Wei Zhai's research covered the topics of childhood development as well as the role that addiction plays in developing children. He also was involved in research studies related to self-regulation behaviors and the cognitive knowledge behind the function of this topic.
In one specific study he took part in, it included studies surrounding mental health concerns, insomnia, and loneliness among intern doctors. In our neuroscience class, one of our later lessons overlapped with the ideas presented in the study, specifically related to sleep, insomnia, and mental health. Although the lesson does not cover insomnia specifically, it does mention that a deprivation of REM-sleep can cause issues with working memory and certain daily tasks (Bear, 2016).
In relation to mental illnesses both Dr. Zu Wei Zhai's work and the information presented in the later lesson of the class presented more knowledge regarding a stimulus-response that is occurring in the brain to cause an increase in stress and fear (Bear, 2016). There are several factors that affect the occurrence of a stressor, like loneliness while being an intern doctor throughout the pandemic, as studied in Dr. Zu Wei Zhai's research.

Daniel C. Lee

Daniel C. Lee is a black neuroscientist and associate professor at the University of Kentucky Department of Neuroscience in Lexington.
Lee's interest in neuroscience was strengthened during his late childhood when his grandfather, Daniel Lee, was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease.
Lee declined to comment any further concerning his personal life.

In 1999, he earned a B.S. in chemistry at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He then went on to receive a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences at Florida A&M University College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science in 2005.
Lee's career began in 2005 with postdoctoral training at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Medicine. He later became an Assistant Professor in 2010 and Associate Professor in 2017 at the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute at USF. In 2018, he became the Director of Neurogenerative Sciences at the USF College of Pharmacy. Lee started his current job in August of 2019, working at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine Sanders-Brown Center on Aging.

The Dan Lee Lab has three main research goals. The first is examining the role of polyamines, or substances with two or more amino groups (NH2) (Lee 2022), in tauopathies, which are diseases that can cause problems with cognition and abnormal behavior (Sandusky-Beltran et al. 2021). The lab found that polyamines normally prevent tau proteins from forming clusters, but polyamines with an acetyl group cannot do this (Dan Lee Lab 2021). This has enormous implications for using the polyamine pathway as a way to combat conditions like Alzheimer's Disease (Sandusky-Beltran et al. 2021).
Additionally, Lee works to further understand the effects of the arginine sensing pathway (Lee 2022). Certain amino acids, especially arginine, bind to receptor protein known as GPCR6a, which activates a protein complex called mTORC1. The lab hypothesizes that this pathway senses the concentration of arginine outside of cells (Dan Lee Lab 2021). Research shows that alterations of the GPCR6a cell signaling pathway and arginine sensing are associated with behavioral impairments like Alzheimer's Disease (Lee 2022). For example, one of his studies found abnormal arginine metabolism in mice with a human mutation in the gene that expresses the tau protein (Vemula et al. 2019).
Lee's third research focus is citrullination, which converts arginine to citrulline, another amino acid (Lee 2022). This is an alteration that occurs after translation, or the ribosomal protein synthesis using an mRNA template. It has been shown to neutralize proteins that previously had a positive charge (Dan Lee Lab 2021). He found that tau and similar proteins undergo citrullination. This supports the research that associates excessive citrullination with diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, and certain types of dementia (Lee 2022).

One of the concepts of NSCI 175 that Lee's research relates to is the basic functions of neurons and glia. We learned that microtubules are lengthy, tube-like structures that run down axons. There are certain microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs), one of which is tau. During Alzheimer's Disease, the tau breaks away from the microtubules and collects in the soma, contributing to the degeneration of axons.
This research also relates to the introduction to synaptic transmission and neurotransmitters, which was an integral part of this course. Lee studies the structure and function of polyamines, which impact behavior and have been implicated in tauopathies and other diseases caused by protein misfolding. NSCI 175 taught us about amine neurotransmitters like acetylcholine (ACh), dopamine (DA), and serotonin (5-HT), that only have one amine group. These chemicals impact behavior as well, and have wide-ranging effects on movement, mood, and sleep.
G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), or metabotropic receptors, were a crucial part of NSCI 175. We learned about slow-acting pathways in which a ligand binds to a GPCR and activates G-proteins, which activate effector enzymes and second messengers downstream. The arginine sensing pathway that Lee takes interest in is an example of such a pathway. Arginine is usually the ligand, GPCR6a is the G-protein, mTORC1 is the downstream complex.

Shelby Baez

Shelby Biaz grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and played basketball, softball, volleyball, and cross country in her four years during highschool. She would watch her school's athletic trainer and take notes of what they did to help athletes and thought maybe she could do something similar in her future. She ended up receiving her doctorate from the University of Kentucky and would study the psychological aspects of injury.

Dr. Shelby Biaz's original plan was to become a journalism major, and to follow up with law school. After becoming an athlete and a lifeguard she found herself enjoying the sports medicine field more.
The University of Kentucky has a reputation for being one of the top Athletic Training education programs in the nation, Dr. Shelby Biaz got an offer to join the master's program which is why she attended the university. After receiving her masters she was already immersed with the faculty and the research opportunities which is why she chose to stay and receive her PhD.
Dr. Baez received her Bachelor of Arts in Exercise and Sport Sciences from UNC Chapel Hill in North Carolina and earned a Masters of Science in Athletic Training in the University of Kentucky with a 4.0 GPA

Dr. Shelby Baez is an expert in the field of psychology behind injury and post traumatic stress. The neurologist has two main focuses on her agenda. Her first focus is to identify consequences of maladaptive psychological responses on the central nervous system. Her second focus is to examine the result of psychoeducational interventions and cognitive behavioral therapies on decreasing discord psychological responses after injury. Her research aims to improve long-term outcomes after traumatic knee injuries. Baez's research found sports injuries are damaging both physically and mentally. “Psychological factors, injury related fear, and belief in our abilities greatly determine an athlete's return to sport,” she said. “If a recovered athlete doesn't believe they can accomplish a physical task it's highly likely they won't.”

In one of her interviews she stated that she uses fMRI to measure brain activity. In this course we have learned about different methods used such as PET scans, fMRI, CT scan, and FMRI. With functional MRI, a magnetic field is used to generate images of the brain and overlay them with images showing the effects of the magnetic field on oxyhemoglobin (a measure of metabolism). It is also discussed how fear can affect specific functions of the body. Dr. Baez's main research revolves around knee injuries and in class we have learned about the Knee Jerk reflex which can help us understand some of the concepts revolving around knee injury. In a knee jerk reflex, the spinal cord contains an intricate network of circuits that control movement. Coordinated patterns of activity can be driven by both local input from dorsal root ganglion cells and distant signals from the cortex or brainstem. In concerns with traumatic knee injury we can expect to see defects when it comes to the knee jerk reflex.

References

Ribic, A. (2021, April 26). Episode 05: Erica Glasper, Phd - conjugate: Illustration and science blog. Conjugate. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://www.conjugate.blog/figures/episode-05-erica-glasper-phd

The Ohio State University College of Medicine. (n.d.). Erica Glasper, Phd: Ohio State College of Medicine. College of Medicine. Retrieved April 15, 2022, from https://medicine.osu.edu/find-faculty/non-clinical/neuroscience/erica-glasper-phd

Bear, M. F., Connors, B. W., & Paradiso, M. A. (2016). Neuroscience: Exploring the brain. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Zu Wei Zhai. Middlebury. (n.d.). Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.middlebury.edu/academics/neuro/faculty/node/649221

Zhai, Z. W. (n.d.). Apa PsycNet. American Psychological Association. Retrieved April 16, 2022, from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-32342-001

Zhai, Z. W. Google scholar citations. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://scholar.google.com/citations

Dan Lee Lab. (2021, May 20). Polyamine Biology in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Dan Lee Lab. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from http://danleelab.createuky.net/project-1/

Dan Lee Lab. (2021, May 20). Nutrient Sensing Dysfunction in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Dan Lee Lab. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from http://danleelab.createuky.net/project-2/

Dan Lee Lab. (2021, May 20). Posttranslational Modifications in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Dan Lee Lab. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from http://danleelab.createuky.net/project-3/

Lee, D. C. (2022). Daniel C. Lee, PhD. University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from https://med.uky.edu/users/dle325#profileTab1

Lee, D. C. (2022). Research Description. University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Retrieved April 14, 2022, from https://med.uky.edu/users/dle325#profileTab4

Sandusky-Beltran, L. A., Kovalenko, A., Placides, D. S., Ratnasamy, K., Ma, C., Hunt, J. B., Jr, Liang, H., Calahatian, J., Michalski, C., Fahnestock, M., Blair, L. J., Darling, A. L., Baker, J. D., Fontaine, S. N., Dickey, C. A., Gamsby, J. J., Nash, K. R., Abner, E., Selenica, M. B., & Lee, D. C. (2021). Aberrant AZIN2 and polyamine metabolism precipitates tau neuropathology. The Journal of clinical investigation, 131(4), e126299. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI126299

Vemula, P., Jing, Y., Zhang, H., Hunt, J. B., Jr, Sandusky-Beltran, L. A., Lee, D. C., & Liu, P. (2019). Altered brain arginine metabolism in a mouse model of tauopathy. Amino acids, 51(3), 513-528. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-018-02687-x

Google scholar citations. (n.d.). Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://scholar.google.com/citations

Debnath, P. R., Islam, M. S., Karmakar, P. K., Sarker, R., Zhai, Z. W., & Potenza, M. N. (2021, November 19). Mental health concerns, insomnia, and loneliness among intern doctors amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from a large tertiary care hospital in Bangladesh - International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. SpringerLink. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-021-00690-0

Log in or sign up to view. Facebook. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/zu.zhai

Whitepages. (n.d.). Summary. Whitepages. Retrieved April 19, 2022, from https://www.whitepages.com/checkout/summary?wp_medium=PersonContactInfoUpsell&wp_source=person_details&funnel_type=person_sem_onepages_1&wpId=Pl3lGj44dyE&skip=false&wp_content=CTA&wp_term=Relative&summary=seen

FEAR & CONFIDENCE IN REHAB with Shelby Baez | #OACS Vlog. (2021, May 7). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64ZBkL3dF_s

Shelby Baez, Ph.D., ATC. (2017). Linkedin. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelby-baez-ph-d-atc-54755969

'My Big Blue Home' | University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences. (2021, February 9). University of Kentucky. https://www.uky.edu/chs/about/news/%E2%80%98my-big-blue-home%E2%80%99