Loading Gels

Author: Sebastian Boysen | Major: Chemistry | Semester: Spring 2024

My name is Sebastian Boysen, and I am majoring in Chemistry within the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Over the last few years, I have been conducting research with Dr. Nicholas Greene under the Cachexia Research Laboratory at the Exercise Science Research Center within the Department of Health, Human Performance, and Recreation. I recently defended my Honors Thesis over this work and will be graduating this summer after conducting a clinical research internship in Chile. Following this experience, I will continue to spend time abroad while furthering my passion for research. I will present my thesis findings at a conference in Ireland and later follow up on a clinical trial for a separate project in Romania.

At the university, my research involves studying the progression of cancer to determine why there is a severe loss of muscle—a syndrome known as cachexia. I used rodents with cancer-induced cachexia to investigate the abundance of various proteins in two key pathways (inflammation and mitochondrial metabolism) over time. I found dysregulation in these pathways, which not only helps paint a picture of how cachexia progresses, but also identifies possible targets for future treatments. Interestingly, my findings appear to provide an explanation at the molecular level for a sex difference our lab has previously reported since female mice seem to have less dysregulation in these inflammatory and metabolic pathways at the protein level.

I was first drawn to this work and joined the lab my sophomore year of college. After working on some projects in material science in separate labs and outside of the university, I sought to find a research group more aligned with my academic interest in medical research. At the same time, I was becoming more fascinated with endurance exercise, leading to an interest in muscle physiology. These joint interests led me to the Exercise Science Research Center as an outlet to merge the two.

As I studied cancer cachexia, I not only found the Greene Lab to be an excellent experience to learn more about the pathophysiology of disease, but it also was a perfect opportunity to learn how to think critically and approach novel problems. Working with my mentor and the other members of the research team, we faced countless challenges in our experiments. I worked most closely with Ana Regina Cabrera, a talented graduate student who also will be graduating this year. Many times, we would work all day to analyze a single target through immunoblotting only for the experiment to fail the next day. But instead of a sense of frustration for lost time, each experiment was a moment to learn and tweak our approach. Since my project was looking to map out a handful of targets that had never been analyzed before, we had to rely on creativity to frame our experimental design. As the three of us would sit in Dr. Greene’s office to plan our next strategy, I constantly appreciated the collaborative atmosphere and exchange of ideas. The wealth of knowledge for the underlying scientific principles between Regina and Dr. Greene is nothing short of impressive and inspiring. I am so glad to have been a part of this lab and genuinely feel as though my time here not only led to significant findings in understanding the mechanisms surrounding cachexia, but alsofurther strengthened my resolve to pursue a career in academic medicine.

During the Spring 2024 term, I was grateful to have been supported by the Honors College Research Grant. The financial contribution of the Honors College was immensely helpful in offsetting travel costs from the previous summer as I continued data collection in Fayetteville alongside living and working in Little Rock.