Griffin
Rangel
Sponsor: Gary Bucciarelli, Ph.D. Natural Reserve System Trail cameras capture images of wildlife by detecting changes in heat or motion. A known issue is that trail cameras generate huge volumes of data and have an abundance of noise or irrelevant data. This causes researchers to use a vast amount of time and resources to sort through the images manually. We hope to reduce this burden by using images collected from the University of California Natural Reserve System (UCNRS) to create a user- friendly pipeline and identify metrics that could eventually be used to detect wildlife all over California. We plan to use deep convolutional neural network models to first determine if animals appear in an image or not, and then we will research more advanced deep learning strategies to classify animals in the given image. This will have a significant impact on protecting wildlife as it optimizes the work flow of researchers, enabling better detection of animals and better population estimates for endangered and at-risk species. We believe this image analysis pipeline will help create better protection and policy measures for wildlife conservation. Exploration of Enzyme Heat Capacity Changes Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations
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Authors:
Griffin Rangel
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Chemical reaction rates, including enzyme catalyzed reactions, increase exponentially with temperature. A plot of ln k vs 1/T gives a straight line for nonenzymatic reactions, but many enzymes show curvature in this plot. We are examining the origin of this curvature, which we believe to be the involvement of enzyme motions in catalytic events. Some have argued that denaturation (enzyme unfolding) is insufficient to account for this curvature. As a result, two primary hypotheses have emerged to explain this phenomenon. The first argues for a large heat capacity difference between the ground state and the transition state. The second argues for the presence of inactive states along the reaction pathway. Molecular dynamics simulations, supported by experimental work, may offer unique insight into the underlying causes of this phenomenon. We are using molecular dynamics simulations to calculate differences in heat capacity between ground and transition state structures and comparing these to experimental values measured in our lab. If agreement is found, then we can interpret the differences in dynamics in terms of how enzyme motions facilitate catalysis. UC Davis 34 th Annual Undergraduate Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Conference 145 Increasing Regeneration Efficiency to Enhance the Production of Transgenic Lettuce Plants by Co-transformation with GRF-GIF Fusions Megan Reeves
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UC Davis / Chemistry / 2023
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Griffin Rangel