Brainbow Connection

Speech changes, impaired balance and loss of automatic movements are symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a complex disease with no current cure. Issues processing and producing dopamine are thought to be the culprit of the disease’s progression. This is the foundation of the Development of a Zebrafish Model of Parkinson’s Disease to Analyze Novel Treatment Methods Creative Inquiry project, led by Dr. Jessica Larsen in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and bioengineering graduate student Emme Bagwell. The ultimate goal is to treat Parkinson’s disease by increasing dopamine production and uptake.   

Larsen credits the innovation and success of the project to her Creative Inquiry students. “You get to the reality of the situation that undergraduate students are just as valuable as graduate students, and I think it’s very unique to this campus and very unique to this program,” Larsen said. Bagwell  joined the project as a junior and is now a graduate student mentor. She joined the project due to a personal connection to the research. “My grandmother passed with Parkinson’s disease, so when this project was getting started and became available, I already knew before I even applied that it was going to be such a great fit,” Bagwell said. Her positive experience in the project motivated her to apply to graduate school at Clemson.   

When the Creative Inquiry project began, the focus was to identify a bioindicator enzyme for Parkinson’s disease. However, during a literature review, Bagwell and Minhyun Shin, a senior bioengineering major, discovered that other Parkinson’s research laboratories used a genetically modified Zebrafish, Danio rerio, called Brainbows as their models. Not only are these fish cheap, fast breeding and their genome mapped, but their brains are similar to humans. These Brainbow Zebrafish have an inflorescence gene in their brain that glows in the presence of compounds, such as dopamine, which allows researchers to easily see the effects of treatments on a living subject.   

They also found that tyrosine hydroxylase, a precursor to dopamine production, was mentioned in many research papers, but there were few studies that addressed its role in the onset of Parkinson’s disease. The students convinced Larsen to change the focus of the Creative Inquiry  project to focus on a new treatment method that kickstarts dopamine production in the brain using tyrosine hydroxylase. Larsen hopes to find a molecule, ideally one that already exists in medication, that can produce more tyrosine hydroxylase or increase dopamine transporters.  

The students presented their works at conferences which helped emphasize the importance of their research.  “Every single time we present, there are people telling us how important this project is to them because someone that they know died of Parkinson’s, and how excited they are for us to make a difference,” Doris Migliaccio, a junior genetics and psychology double-major said.   

The Creative Inquiry students continue to drive this project.  Nicole Henkel, a junior chemistry major, and Migliaccio participated in the Summer Creative Inquiry and Undergraduate Research program, where they encountered issues with the care and experimental protocols of the Zebrafish. The published protocols were for immature fish, but the team needed to use adult fish. So, Henkel and Migliaccio designed new protocols for testing on adult fish. Migliaccio used SolidWorks, a 3D design software, to create a new tool to handle the fish. After many trials, she was able to print a usable tool. Self-driven students teaching themselves a new skill is something that many are able to get out of participating in the project.