Theses
GDCB theses dating back to 1925 can now be accessed at The ISU Digital Repository
2015
| Student | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mandela Magnidjem | An Empirical Investigation of the Effect of Students’ Preferred Learning Methods on Their Levels of Immersion in Serious Games (non thesis creative component) | HCI | Wurtele |
| Buyun Tang | The molecular mechanisms of brassinosteroid-regulated drought stress response in Arabidopsis thaliana | Plant Biology | Yin |
| Ellen E. Tisdale | Analysis of blood vessel tube formation using RAB and RAC fusion proteins in Zebrafish | Genetics | Essner |
| Student | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wei Fang | The CO2 concentrating mechanism and nitrogen starvation effects under photoautotrophic culture conditions of Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii studied by high throughput DNA sequencing technology | Genetics | Spalding |
| Gokhan Kir | Brassinosteroid regulation of plant height in maize | Genetics | Becraft |
| Jenifer Saldanha | Analysis of diverse stresses, including hypoxia, cyanide, and hypergravity in Caenorhabditis elegans | MCDB | Powell-Coffman |
| Junhui Zhou | Host target genes of the Xanthomonas Oryzae PV. Oryzae Type III effectors for bacterial blight in rice | Plant Biology | Yang |
2014
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caitlin Farris | Starting Small: transcriptomics with single and small populations of cells | Genetics | Kuhlman/Trimarchi |
| Xiao Li | Genetics | Schnable |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew Crispin | Metabolism and localization of polyketides in the genus Hypericum | Genetics | Wurtele |
| Han Gao | Genetics | Spalding | |
| Ting Li | Function and application of TAL effectors | Genetics | Yang |
| Aarthi Putarjunan | Genetic regulation of chloroplast biogenesis in Arabidopsis | Genetics | Rodermel |
| Dafang Wang | Plant Biology | Peterson |
2013
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dingxia Feng | Genome-wide analyses of expression data and HIF-1 binding sites provide insights to the HIF-1 hypoxia inducible factor in Caenorhabditis elegans | Genetics | Powell-Coffman |
| Usha Muppirala | Computational prediction of RNA-protein interaction partners and interfaces | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Dobbs |
| Yves Sucaet | Integration of large datasets for plant model organisms | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, minor in Computer Science | Wurtele |
| Rebecca Weeks | Inflorescence branching in maize: a quantitative genetics approach to identifying key places in the inflorescence development pathway | Genetics, minor in Plant Breeding | Vollbrecht |
| Eun Ah Ye | Investigation of Mesenchymal stem cells and the development of experimental strategies for rescuing glaucomatous eyes using a stem cell-based therapy | Neuroscience | Sakaguchi |
| Tengfei Yin | Visualization of biological data: infrastructure, design and application | MCDB, minor in Statistics | co-major professors: Wurtele and Cooke |
2012
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrew Foudree | A study of chloroplast biogenesis within variegated mutants of Arabidopsis | Plant Biology | Rodermel |
| Mark Stenerson | Academic game development: practices and design strategies for creating stem games | Human Computer Interaction | Wurtele |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hsien-chao Chou | Local assembly and pre-mRNA splicing analyses by high-throughput sequencing data | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Brendel, Honavar |
| Wei Li | Tassels replace upper ears1 encodes a putative transcription factor that regulates maize shoot architecture by multiple pathways | Genetics | Vollbrecht |
| Yimo Liu | Analysis of the function and the regulation of autophagy in Arabidopsis Thaliana | Genetics | Bassham |
| Micheline Ngankwimi Ngaki | FAP genes modulate fatty acid and lipid accumulation in Arabidopsis | Genetics | Wurtele |
| Margaret Pruitt | Structure-function analyses of the Tre1 G protein-coupled receptor | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Coffman |
| Krishnakumar Sridharan | Computational analyses to identify and study cis-regulatory regions in eukaryotes | Genetics | Brendel, Becraft |
| Huaxun Ye | Essays of GMO effects on crop yields, the effects of pricing errors on implied volatilities and smoothing for seasonal time series with a long cycle | Genetics | Yin |
| Gibum Yi | Genetic regulation of Aleurone cell fate in Zea Mays | Plant Biology | Becraft |
| Kai Ying | Structural variation in the maize genome | Genetics | Schnable |
2011
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elizabeth Asque | Investigations of potential roles of hypoxic response genes in Drosophila primordial germ cell development | Genetics | Powell-Coffman |
| Liping Chen | Identification and survey of pre-mRNA splicing-related proteins in 10 plant species | Genetics | Brendel |
| Xiayan Kuang (Dr. Kuang earned his Ph.D. in Genetics at ISU in 2010) | Computational prediction of DS Transposon insertion sites in plants using DNA structural features | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Vollbrecht/Brendel |
| Ho Man Tang | The Brown Midrib 2 (BM2) gene of maize encodes Methylenetetrahydrofoliate reductase | Genetics | Schnable |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xi Chen | The analysis of HCS1 in Arabidopsis | Plant Biology | Wurtele |
| Hsin-Kai Liao | Forward and reverse genetic approaches in Zebrafish | Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology | Essner |
| Hong Lu | Application of comparative genomics for detection of genomic features and transcriptional regulatory elements | Bioinformatics & Computational Biology | Schnable |
| Deepak Reyon | Genome engineering using DNA-binding proteins: Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNS) and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENS) | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Dobbs/Edward Yu (BBMB) |
| Ying Wang | Analysis of endothelial tube formation in vivo | Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology | Essner |
| Yang Xu | The study of the mechanism of Arabidopsis VAR2 variegation | Plant Biology | Rodermel |
| Xiang Yang | Study of ramosa1 function during maize inflorescence development | Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology | Vollbrecht |
2010
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Danielle Elizabeth Reed | Characterization of the Brown Midrib4 gene of maize (Zea Mays L.): A step towards enhancing the carbon sequestration capacity of stover | Genetics | Schnable |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fengli Fu | Computational approaches to understand interactions between zinc finger proteins and DNA | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Voytas |
| Yong Huang | An evolutionary study of human microRNAs | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Gu |
| Yi Jia | Analysis of differences in gene expression and the genetic and epigenetic regulation of transcript accumulation in maize | Plant Biology | Schnable |
| Sang Jin Kim | Vacuolar trafficking and vesicle fusion machineries at the Arabidopsis trans-Golgi network | Genetics | Bassham |
| Xianyan Kuang | Studies of site-specific DNA double-strand break repair in plants | Genetics | Peterson |
| Lei Li | The mechanism and network for BES1-mediated transcriptional regulation in Brassinosteroids (BR) pathway in Arabiodopsis | Genetics | Yin |
| Huiying Liu | The study of the mechanism of Arabidopsis immutans variegation | Plant Biology | Rodermel |
| Sanzhen Liu | Global patterns of mutator transposon and high-throughput strategies of gene mapping, cloining in maize | Genetics | Schnable |
| Xiayan Liu | var2 genetic suppressors | Genetics | Rodermel |
| Jisun Oh | Astrocyte-derived soluble factors promoting neuronal differentiation of adult neural progenitor cells | Neuroscience & Biomedical Sciences | Sakaguchi |
| Yuanbin Ru | The significance of splice site sequences in plant intron evolution and alternative splicing | Genetics | Brendel |
| Zhiyong Shao | Roles of C. elegans EGL-9 in HIF-1 regulation and pathogen resistance | Genetics | Powell-Coffman |
| Brandi Sigmon | Ramosa1 in the development of evolution of inflorescence architecture in grasses | Genetics | Vollbrecht |
| Xiaomin Yu | Proteomic and Transcriptiomic analysis of near-isogenic soybean lines differing in seed protein content | Plant Biology | Wurtele |
| Zhiwei Zhai | The regulation of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF-1) and the role of HIF-1 in C. elegans longevity | Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology | Powell-Coffman |
2009
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Li Li | Unusual patterns of genetic diversity and gene expression in the maize genome | Plant Biology | Schnable |
| Michael E. Miller | Extracting biologically relevant information from microarray data as related to nitrate response in maize roots and node development in rice | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Schnable |
| Lixun Su | The role of the Viviparous1 (VP1) gene in anaerobic inhibition of maize embryo germination | Plant Biology | Becraft |
| Danhua Zhang | A descriptive and functional study of Zebrafish Connexin43 | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Essner |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heather Babka | Acetyl-CoA in Plant Biology | Genetics | Wurtele |
| Antony Chettoor | Regulation of aleurone cell fate determinants in Zea mays | Plant Biology | Becraft |
| Suh-Yeon Choi | Metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) accumulating Arabidopsis and switchgrass: Unveiling metabolic consequences of bioplastic accumulation in plant plastids | Genetics | Wurtele |
| Deqiang Duanmu | Putative inorganic carbon transport and accumulation systems associated with the CO2 concentrating mechanism in Chlamydomonas reinhartii | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Spalding |
| Ramesh Koukuntla | Suppressor TRNA mediated gene therapy | Genetics | Link |
| Haining Lin | Insights into the rice and Arabidopsis genomes: intron fates, paralogs, and lineage-specific genes | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Buell & Gu, Co-major Profs. |
| Ruth Anne Swanson Wagner | Analysis of differences in gene expression and the genetic regulation of transcript accumulation in maize inbred and hybrid lines | Genetics | Schnable |
| Kent Vander Velden | Modeling Biochemical Network for synthetic biology and understanding | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Reilly & Honavar, Co-major Profs. |
| Chuanhe Yu | Genome rearrangement induced by Ac/Ds transposable element in plants | Genetics | Peterson |
| Yi Zhang | Hypoxia-inducible factor regulatory networks and their roles in aging in C. elegans | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Powell-Coffman |
2008
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keri Davis | Identification of genes involved in germ cell programmed cell death in Drosophila melanogaster | Genetics | Coffman |
| Joonbae Seo | Molecular genetics studies of bZIP transcription factor, TRAB1, and MYB transcription factor, ME97, on the Viviparous 1 promoter in Zea mays | Plant Biology | Becraft |
| Xiaofei Yu | Mechanisms of BES1-regulated gene expression downstream of brassinosteroid signaling in Arabidopsis thaliana | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Yin |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| You Hi | LTR retrotransposons in plants: mechanisms of targeted integration and applications in plant genome engineering | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Voytas |
| Matthew Lee Hillwig | Understanding biological activity of Hypericum species through metabolomics studies | Plant Physiology | Wurtele |
| Parijat Juvale | Deciphering Proteolytic Processing of Carbonic Anhydrase1 from Chlamydomonas ReinhardtII | Plant Biology | Spalding |
| Angela Kamps | Studies of cell migration and programmed cell death: characterization and analysis of scattershot, a mutation disrupting germ cell migration and programmed cell death in Drosophila melanogaster | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Coffman |
| Jie Li | Data integration for biological network databases: MetNetDB labeled graph model and graph matching algorithm | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Wurtele |
| Nguyen Phan | Functional characterization of Arabidopsis sorting nexin AtSNX2b | Genetics | Bassham |
| Jeffry Sander | Characterization and design of C2H2 zinc finger proteins as custom DNA binding domains | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Dobbs |
| Michael Terribilini | Computational analysis and prediction of protein-RNA interactions | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Dobbs |
| Lankun Wu | Constituents and receptor-mediated calcium signaling underlying bioactivities of Echinacea | Plant Biology | Wurtele |
2007
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dana Z. Awwad | Interleukin-15 and Alpha(1,3) Galactosyl-expressing vaccine combination therapy for melanoma | Genetics | Link |
| Lisa Borsuk | (non thesis) | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Schnable |
| Robert Alfred Dick | Factors that affect targeting of TY5 retrotransposon in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae | Genetics | Voytas |
| Li Fan | Map based candidate gene cloning and functional analysis of genes involved in VLCFAs synthesis | Genetics | Schnable |
| Justin Schares | Sequencing and distribution analysis of dissociation transposon events throughout the Zea Mays genome | Genetics | Vollbrecht |
| Julie D. Uhl | Characterization of three-spot, a gene involved in germ cell migration of Drosophila melanogaster | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Coffman |
| Ying Zheng | Functional divergence after gene duplication and sequence-structure relationship: A case-study of G-protein alpha subunits | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Gu |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Troy Brady | The role of the integrase c-terminus in replication and targeted integration of the yeast retrotransposon Ty5 | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Voytas |
| Jun Cao | Genetic Dissection of the RF2A-Mediated Fertility Restoration Pathway in Maize | Genetics | Schnable |
| Ling Guo | Bioinformatics in maize genome research | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Schnable |
| Matthew M. Harper | Stem cells as neuroprotective vectors for retinal disease | Neuroscience | Sakaguchi |
| Lakshminarasimhan Krishnaswamy | Genome rearrangement at reversed-ends Ds element in Arabidopsis | Plant Physiology | Peterson |
| Jae-Hyung Lee | Analysis of protein-RNA and protein-peptide interactions in Equine Infectious Anemia Virus (EIAV) infection | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Dobbs |
| Shayani Pieris | A study of the impact of mazie SBE I on the alpha-polyglucan produced in Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803 | Plant Physiology | Spalding |
| Michael Sparks | Computational annotation of eukaryotic gene structures: algorithms development and software systems | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Brendel |
| Matthew D. Wilkerson | Genesis of gene structures and computational analysis of U12-type introns | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Brendel |
| Yukiko Yamada | Deciphering molecular mechanisms that regulate programmed cell death of primorial germ cells in Drosophila melanogaster | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Coffman |
2006
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeffrey James Orasky | Influence of extracellular matrix molecules on the adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation of murine retinal and brain progenitor cells in vitor | Neuroscience | Sakaguchi |
| Yanling Wei | The roles of aldehydedehydrogenases (ALDHS) in acetyl-coa biosynthesis and root elongation in Arabidopsis | Genetics | Schnable |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sara Belliveau McMaken | Genetic analysis of potential regulators of HIF-1 in C. elegans | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Powell-Coffman |
| Junbiao Dai | Controlled integration of the Ty5 retrotransposon in saccharomyces ceverisiae | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Voytas |
| Fang Fang | Bayesian recombination detection modeling and application | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Dorman, Dobbs Co-maj |
| Aigen Fu | The mechanism of Arabidopsis immutans variegation | Genetics | Rodermel |
| Jin Li | Functional characterization of the RAD51 genes in Zea Mays and their roles in MU Transposition | Genetics | Schnable |
| Ling Li | The analysis of global gene expression related to starch, lipid and protein composition | Genetics | Wurtele |
| Wieslawa Izabela Mentzen | From pathway to regulon in Arabidopsis | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Wurtele; Gu Co-major |
| Jelena (Marka) Ostojic | Neuroglobin and cytoblobin distribution patterns in human and canine eye | Neuroscience | Sakaguchi |
| Hongtao Qin | Neuronal functions of AHR1, the caenorhabditis/elgans homolog of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor | Genetics | Powell-Coffman |
| Jessica Ann Schlueter | The paleopolyploid nature of the soybean genome: Duplicate gene identification, regional sequence characterization and expression studies | Genetics | Shoemaker |
| Shannon D. Schlueter | Plant genome informatics: Evaluation and analysis of genomic DNA features involved in the transcriptional processing of protein coding genes | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology | Brendel |
| Chuan Shen | Studies of hypoxia response and regulation of hypoxia-inducible factor HIF-1in Caenorhabditis elegans | Toxicology | Powell-Coffman |
| Yan Xiong | Function of autophagy in development and abiotic stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana | Plant Physiology | Bassham |
2005
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eric Thomas Weatherford (zoology program) | Angiotensin II and its direct effects on rat neutrophils | Other | Enger |
| Student Name | Title | Program | Major Professor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xueyuan Cao | Functional crinkly4 gene family in Arabidopsis thaliana and vivaparous 1 promoter in om Zea Mays | Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology | Becraft |
| James Daniel Cheaney (zoology program) | Problem-based learning in an on-line biotechnology course | Other | Ingebritsen |
| Yan Fu | Analysis of the maize (Zea Mays L) genome using molecular, genetic and computational approaches | Genetics | Schnable |
| Ericka Ruth Havecker | Characterization of the sireviruses: a unique group of TY1/Copia Ltr retrotransposons in plants | Genetics | Voytas |
| Marna Darlene Yandeau Nelson | The effects of transmodifers and tandem duplications of meiotic recombination in maize | Genetics | Schnable |
| Bing-Bing Wang | Genome-wide analysis of splicing related genes and alternative splicing in plants | Genetics | Brendel |
| Yingjun Wang | CO2 concentrating mechanism and signal transduction pathway associated with limiting CO2 acclimation in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii | Plant Physiology | Spalding |
| Fei Yu | The mechanism of Var2 leaf variegation | Plant Physiology | Rodermel |
| Feng Zhang | Organ-specific regulation and molecular evolution of the maize pericarp color1 gene | Genetics | Peterson |