Kilachand UROP Student Feature

Can you provide us with a brief description of your Keystone Project?

My Kilachand Keystone project investigates the rate of maternal autoimmune disease in children diagnosed with Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcal infections (PANDAS) and Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS). To do this, I will be analyzing clinical data collected by Massachusetts General Hospital’s Pediatric Neuropsychiatry and Immunology Program. The goal of this project is to help understand what factors may put children at risk for developing PANDAS/PANS.

What work you are doing this summer on your Keystone project (tied to the UROP funding)?

This summer I have been working towards publishing a paper detailing the clinical profile of this population of children at MGH with PANDAS/PANS. This clinical profile will create the foundation for my Keystone project where I will be doing a more in-depth analysis of the specific family autoimmune variables.

How did you find out about the UROP/Keystone funding opportunity, how has this funding made an impact on your project (or you), and do you have any advice to students hoping to apply for this funding opportunity in the future?

I found out about the UROP Keystone funding through my Keystone proposal workshop professor. I knew that for my Keystone project, I wanted to investigate the specific factors that may put children at risk for PANDAS/PANS. I learned that it was not going to be feasible to both create a comprehensive clinical profile of these patients and analyze specific variables to identify risk factors all over the course of the school year. Receiving UROP funding has allowed me to dedicate my time this summer towards creating the clinical profile so that during the school year I can more thoroughly examine the risk factors for these diagnoses. If future students feel as though their Keystone project goals are too big to accomplish over the school year, I would highly recommend considering UROP.

Can you provide us with a brief description of your Keystone Project? 

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a leading cause of disability that affects 21 million people each year in the US. One domain that contributes to the development of MDD is social stress and isolation. However, it is hard for scientists to study the effects of social stress in humans due to ethical concerns about assigning treatment conditions, forcing someone into depressive circumstances, etc. As a result, it has become common practice for scientists to use animal models of social stress, social isolation, and the resulting social bonds in order to study disorders such as MDD.

My project aims to use monogamous prairie voles as a model of human social isolation to study the effects of pair bonding on microglia, which are a type of brain cell hypothesized to play a role in the pathology of MDD. Pair bonding is the formation of a strong bond between two partners. Most humans embrace a monogamous sexuality in which they form a pair bond with their present romantic partner, which makes prairie voles a good model species for studying human monogamous relationships. Pair bonding may also occur in humans between a parent and infant or between close adult friends. My project will use cellular staining techniques to compare microglia morphology of pair bonded prairie voles vs. non pair bonded prairie voles, in order to learn more about how social isolation and stress may affect microglia cells.  

What work you are doing this summer on your Keystone project (tied to the UROP funding)?

This summer, I am working full time in the lab on the beginning stages of my project. I am working with 8 practice vole brains from Universities across the country, and spending my time slicing them, staining them, and imaging them on the microscope in order to determine the protocol that will work best for the second phase of my project during the academic year. 

How did you find out about the UROP/Keystone funding opportunity, how has this funding made an impact on your project (or you), and do you have any advice to students hoping to apply for this funding opportunity in the future?

I found out about the UROP funding available to Keystone students during Fall 2022 when I took KHC HC 451. My professor told us about the available funding, and I immediately knew I wanted to apply because it would make my project so much more manageable. Being awarded the funding has meant I’m able to live in Boston during the summer, and get paid to conduct a full 2.5 months of protocol optimization in order to make the academic year as successful as possible. Since voles are not a commercially available species for animal research, spending time on protocol optimization is vital to ensure that experiments will work in the vole species. My advice to any students who wish to apply for UROP funding for their Keystone project would be to take KHC HC 451 in the fall of your junior year if possible. Even though it seems early, this will give you far more time to create your project, write a well developed proposal, and think about all of the logistics that are important to planning your project. Additionally, make sure to have someone in your discipline who has previously been awarded UROP funding (or the UROP office) take a look at your UROP version of the proposal. Examples and a second set of eyes are your best resources for getting funded!

Can you provide us with a brief description of your Keystone Project? 

I’m researching attitudes towards mental health in India and how they contribute towards a larger stigma in Indian society. The framework of mental health as a psycho-biological condition is in dispute in India, with some in the younger generation who are eager to adopt this line of thinking and others who perceive it as an excuse for a lack of willpower and discipline. To better understand this gap, I’m looking at the locality of Siruseri, Chennai, an area characterized by families moving here because of a branch of a prestigious school, and the promise of a good education and future leading from that. The pressures of the Indian educational system have had a different effect on this generation of students, however, creating very different opinions of success and peace between generations. I’ll be interviewing old classmates and acquaintances who identify with certain mental health struggles, to compare perspectives between generations and contextualize their experiences and opinions, to examine a larger societal stigma around mental health., in the form of a creative nonfiction ethnographic thesis. 

What work you are doing this summer on your Keystone project (tied to the UROP funding)?

I’m using the UROP funding this summer to visit Siruseri, India and do observational research and interview old classmates and acquaintances and their family members about their experiences with and attitudes towards mental health. This opportunity to visit my old community in person has given me insight as well as a chance to observe the environment that we discuss in interviews. I’ve also been able to do my interviews in person, which has definitely made it much more comfortable. 

How did you find out about the UROP/Keystone funding opportunity, how has this funding made an impact on your project (or you), and do you have any advice to students hoping to apply for this funding opportunity in the future?

I found out about this opportunity through my faculty advisor for this project, who suggested I apply almost immediately after our first meeting and I’m incredibly grateful that I did so. The observations I’ve made on my trip have definitely strengthened my research and have made me recontextualize it quite a bit, changing the direction of my project. If I had any advice, it would definitely be to take a chance and apply. I think the biggest hurdle in applying is writing out the UROP research proposal to begin with, which along with classes and exams, can be overwhelming.