Undergraduate Student Research (January 2022 - Present)
Investigate the effects of temperature and age on body size and cellular immunity of female Anopheles gambiae, the African malaria mosquito, by measuring abdomen, wing, & tibia sizes and hemocyte numbers & efficiency, respectively.
Discovered warmer temperatures decreased abdomen and tibia sizes, but did not alter wing size, and abdomen size changed with adult age in a non-linear fashion.
Propose and build algorithm for automated counting of hemocytes from microscope images to accelerate investigations.
Enrich and develop research skills for microscopy, pipetting, and nano-injecting.
Acquire strong communication skills in paper writing and gain critical thinking and analysis practice through literature review.
Presented key findings at Poster Presentation at BSCI 1512L Poster Presentation Day (05/2022).
Published co-author manuscript to Journal of Insect Physiology in July 2023.
Barr, J.S., Estevez-Lao, T. Y., Khalif, M., Saksena, S. R., Yarlagadda, S., Farrah, O., Shivere, Y, & Hillyer, J.F. (2023). Temperature and age, individually and interactively, shape the size, weight, and body composition of adult female mosquitoes. Journal of Insect Physiology, 148, 104525. doi: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2023.104525
Strahl Lab, University of North Carolina, Chattanooga, TN
NSF Summer Undergraduate Research Experience in Biological Mechanisms Fellow (May 2023 - Present)
Investigate the role of the Ada2 protein within the SAGA protein complex in acetylating histones.
Evaluate binding patterns of Ada2 with histone tails via in vitro peptide pull-down and western blot and in silico docking.
Develop PyMol plugin, Seq2PTM, to automatically generate peptide with post-translational modifications to aid in silico exploration of histone tails binding with Ada2.
Interdisciplinary Computational Biology REU, University of Tennessee Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN
Undergraduate Student Researcher (May 2022 - November 2023)
Student recipient of National Science Foundation Grant Awards 1852042 and 2149956.
Examined the genomic context and phylogenetic distributions of fatty acid handling machinery in Gram-negative bacteria under mentorship for Dr. David Giles.
Developed phylogenetic trees for six key proteins in fatty acid acquisition and utilization (FadL, FadD, plsB, plsC, plsX, & plsY) via 4 different methods, using both amino acid and nucleic acids and the Mr. Bayes and RAxML algorithms, which suggest a more ancestral origin of the multiple homolog phenomena seen for two of the six proteins (FadL and FadD).
Utilized bioinformatic tools to generate protein models of bacterial fatty acid transporter (FadL) and explore docking with fatty acids, which suggest differing preferences for fatty acids and occupation of varying niches for the FaDL homologs.
Enriched computational and research skills in Python and NCBI Tools.
Acquired skills for computational tools (R, SWISS Model, Alpha Fold, PyMOL, & AutoDock Tools) in research.
Developed an interactive PowerPoint presentation and presented at Southeastern Medical Scientist Symposium (11/2023), Vanderbilt Undergraduate Fall Research Fair (09/2022), and at University of Tennessee Chattanooga Virtual Fall Research Conference (08/2022).
Submitted first-author manuscript to Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports, which is currently under review.
Saksena, S. R., Forbes, K., Rajan, N.N., & Giles, D. K. (2023). Phylogenetic Investigation of Gammaproteobacteria Proteins involved in Exogenous Long-Chain Fatty Acid Acquisition and Assimilation. Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports, 35, 101504. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrep.2023.101504.
Universal Screening Test for Cancer, Stroke from Atrial Fibrillation, & COVID Thrombophilia, Memphis, TN
Independent Research Project (January 2020 - January 2024)
Identified circulating precursor of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, Circulating Tumor Cell Clusters (CTCCs) & Microthrombi, respectively.
Demonstrated ultrasound differentiation of pathogenic precursor yeast surrogates from normal blood cell surrogates.
Improved accuracy of differentiation via implementation of a Computational Neural Network.
Acquired skills for computational tools (Python & Arduino C++), especially for machine learning.
Advanced research skills for microscopy and medical ultrasound.
Developed an interactive PowerPoint presentation and presented at Vanderbilt Fall Research Fair (09/2021), National Junior Science & Humanities Symposium (04/2021), and IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference (10/2020).
Awarded 1st place in Oral Presentation at TN Junior Science & Humanities Symposium (03/2021).
Recognized as a Regeneron Nationwide Science Talent Search Top 300 Scholar (01/2021).
Submitted first-author manuscript to Journal of Biosciences, which has been accepted for publication.
Saksena, S. R., & Rajan, S. K. (2023). Proof of Principle study using Saccharomyces cerevisiae for Universal Screening Test for Cancer through Ultrasound based Size-Distinction of Circulating Tumor Cell Clusters. Journal of Biosciences, 49, 14. doi: 10.1007/s12038-023-00399-3