Rokibat Bamidele, COL ’25, Philadelphia, PA
Fruit flies and humans do in fact share many similarities, and one that I recently learned of is how alcohol influences behavior. While alcohol studies in humans have been ongoing for many years with groundbreaking discoveries on the correlations between consumption and behavior, the biological mechanisms are still a puzzle. This mystery is what initially sparked my interest in finding the missing pieces, the genetic component, as to understanding alcohol related behaviors. And that is where the fruit fly comes in.
This summer, I had the privilege to begin an independent research project in the Kayser Lab at the Perelman School of Medicine following my first year as a research assistant. The lab specializes in psychiatry, specifically the use of drosophila to understand sleep, behavior, and brain development. There has been extensive research on these topics, however, the subject of alcohol was still untouched. Under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Kayser, my lab PI, and Ben Mainwaring, my mentor, I was given the opportunity to further delve into the topic and begin some preliminary investigations. Titled “Using Drosophila to study alcohol use disorder (AUD) from human GWAS,” the overall goal was to correlate our fly studies with humans and understand the genetic component of AUD that may put people at risk.
The focus of my project was to gain a better understanding of the effects of alcohol on fruit flies. Through the initial integration of multiple GWAS with 3D genomics based methods, there has been research done that has shed light on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that reside in open chromatin and the fly orthologs to these genes. My role was to then test these candidate genes after they were manipulated through the Gal 4/UAS system and conduct ethanol behavioral assays to see the effect that alcohol would have on the fly. Before I could begin though, I had to learn the basics of fly work such as identifying the genders, different stages in development, and balancers in different RNAi lines. After learning fly husbandry, I was able to begin running experiments on my own using the knowledge I had learned from my mentor and lab peer who did some of the preliminary work for the assays. I tested about 6 RNAi lines a week and analyzed the differences in response to ethanol that were in each line.
As a result of this opportunity I received from Career Services, I have been exposed to an exciting field that has increased my interest in the role flies play in understanding humans. I look forward to diving deeper into the biological aspects to gain a better understanding, and to appreciate the marvelous species that is drosophila.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2023 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
