Lea Barros ’22 was recently recognized at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Anaheim, Calif. Barros, a prospective biology major from Boston, gave a poster presentation on the role of Z-DNA Binding Protein 1 (ZBP1) on CASP8-mediated Pyroptosis and was honored with a Presentation Award. ABRCMS describes it as a “competitive award given to the top oral and poster presenters,” and it comes with a monetary prize.
Intended major: Biology
Hometown: Boston, Mass.
High school: Brighton High School
Last summer Barros conducted immunology research at Tufts University. Her project was to further understand a programmed cell-death pathway (CASP8-mediated Pyroptosis) that a type of immune cell undergoes and its relationship to immune response.
“On the (slightly) grander scheme of things, we wanted to expand our understanding of the pathway itself by finding all the pieces of the puzzle and understanding how they work with each other to lead to the death of the cell,” said Barros.
“This type of research isn't the type where we are directly looking at the impacts of our results on human health,” Barros continued. “However, we are furthering the understanding of the different ways the immune system responds to specific pathogens, and this information can then be used toward the benefit of human health.”
