As part of her PhD dissertation project, Paige has helped secure funding for the lab through TCU Invests in Scholarship to investigate how the common American "Western" diet and a plant-based Mediterranean diet can alter gene expression, and whether these alterations might be passed on to offspring.  Using wild-type mice, Paige will place animals on the two diets from weaning until they are 6-months of age and will then assess any changes in DNA methylation patters, which ultimately affects how genes are expressed.  Then, some animals will breed (within their dietary cohort) and their offspring will be weaned onto a regular animal diet common to all mice in the colony.  Paige will then assess whether any changes are transgenerational, or passed on to their offspring.

Bridey Brown, a former TCU Undergraduate Biology major, and now MS student in the lab of our co-investigator, Dr. Matt Hale (TCU Department of Biology) will perform the bulk of the DNA methylation analyses for this project.

In addition, funding will also allow Paige to investigate the changes in gut microbiome content to see if these changes correlate with changes in immune function.  Microbiome sequencing and analysis will be conducted by our co-investigator, Dr. Michael Allen, from the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center.

Additional co-investigators include Dr. Jada Willis, TCU Department of Nutrition, and Dr. Gary Boehm, TCU Department of Psychology and principle investigator in the TCU Neurobiology of Aging Labs.

Way to go Paige!

Dr. Michael Chumley, as part of a collaborative team, has been awarded another NIH award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.  The team includes the primary investigator, Dr. Kayla Green (TCU Department of Chemistry) along with Dr. Giridhar Akkaraju (TCU Department of Biology), Dr. Benjamin Janesko (TCU Department of Chemistry), and Dr. Hongli Wu (UNT Health Sciences Center).  The focus of the research is on the design of potential therapeutic compounds that can chelate divalent metal cations, scavenge oxygen free radicals, and act as anti-oxidants.  These compounds may be useful in treating many diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, and age-related macular degeneration.