Hello! I’m Michelle Spratt, a rising senior studying Mathematical Biology and Neuroscience with minors in Chemistry and Africana Studies. I live in Hershey, Pennsylvania (although I’m not a big fan of chocolate!). I’m always looking for new crochet patterns and dancing in my free time. I am participating in the Health Science Research Fellowship, studying a protein that may influence the risk of developing schizophrenia.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), schizophrenia affects 1 in 300 people. People generally develop schizophrenia during their late teens or early twenties, and there is no particular reason why people develop it. It is believed that complex genetic and environmental interactions cause schizophrenia. However, there is a distinctive physiology in those diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia patients have a reduction in their total grey matter volume. If researchers study how the grey matter becomes reduced, we could identify potential therapeutic targets that could be used to help treat and prevent schizophrenia and its symptoms.
This summer, I will work closely with Melanie Grubisha, MD, PhD in the Department of Psychiatry as I complete my independent project. My project will examine the impacts of Oligodendrocyte Myelin Glycoprotein (OMGp) on neuronal morphology and architecture. OMGp is a protein expressed later in adolescence and is believed to cause dendritic regressions when overexpressed. The growth and regression pathways are counterbalanced in normal human physiology to create a dynamic homeostasis. In schizophrenia, this homeostasis is disrupted. I will look at neurons from mice to see how OMGp and OMGp KO (i.e., mice with no OMGp) affects the neuronal complexity across different stages of adolescence. We hope that understanding the mechanisms by which neurons and their dendrites are stabilized can provide insight into how to treat neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia.
In my final year at Pitt, I plan to use this research to complete either a Bachelor of Philosophy or a senior thesis in Neuroscience. After undergrad, I hope to attend medical school (and will be applying this summer). I want to incorporate research into my job as a future physician, and this fellowship will prepare me to understand lab techniques and research strategies. Without the Health Science Research Fellowship, I would not have been able to work full-time in my lab this summer. I can already tell that I will learn so much about research from the community of HSRF scholars. I am very thankful for this opportunity and excited to see where my research takes me this summer!
