Presenting thesis at Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Symposium

Author: Julliana Renales | Major: Biomedical Engineering | Semester: Spring 2024

During the Spring of 2024, I worked with Dr. Nelson from the Biomedical Engineering Department, in understanding the results of my initial study of macrophages in muscle wounds using the spatial transcriptomic method. Macrophages play an important role in immune response throughout the body. They have an important function of regulating immune response by differentiating into different pro- and anti- inflammatory cells. This is important when understanding the probability of a successful wound healing process. In this initial study, I visualized macrophage expression levels and distribution throughout muscle wounds at different points in the wound healing process by using spatial transcriptomic data. In my initial analysis it was seen that anti-inflammatory macrophage markers expression decreased but remained localized to site of the injury, while pro-inflammatory macrophage markers localized initially closer to the injury in the beginning but began to spread during healing. From these results, I was concerned in a lack of high contrast in the results, so I looked to literature to better understand macrophage behavior. In this I was able to make more complex conclusions about the macrophage behavior seen from my results. For example, the initial localization of antiinflammatory macrophages in the beginning could be indicative of the differentiation from proinflammatory macrophages while the localization of pro-inflammatory macrophages aligns with their role in signaling other cells to the injury site.

In this process, I reflected on this research process and remembered that as an engineer and a researcher that the research process is iterative. I learned that the process is not necessarily linear, and that once results have been found, it is important to circle back to the beginning with new knowledge to get closer to the goal. It is important in research to continue to search through literature for more angles and perspectives to understand these results.

I chose this topic because I wanted to develop my computational and data analysis skills. My mentor, Dr. Nelson, provided this opportunity to me after many meeting about my interests and trying different projects. I met Dr. Nelson my freshman year of college when I attended his lecture through an Honors College Seminar. His research piqued my interest and I reached out to him to discuss how I could be involved. Working with him has taught me to be open about my interest and not to be afraid of expressing what I am not fulfilled by. By openly discussing my interests, I was able to find a project that I was motivated by through interest. Through this research my greatest challenge was being alone on the project. There were very minimal computational projects in my lab and the spatial transcriptomic method had yet to be explored by our lab and others on our campus. Much of my time was spent searching for resources to even start my project and took a lot of time searching through literature to gain a thorough understanding of the method. Overall, this made me a stronger student and researcher as it taught me to manage a research project and set goals for myself.