New BRASC director selected

Drake Rasmussen took the helm of the Bear River Activity and Skill Center in February. He comes to BRASC after a year as an administrator at the Cache Valley Assisted Living Community in Providence.

The BRASC provides day training for individuals with relatively severe disabilities, teaching academic, social and daily living skills. In addition, BRASC offers family support services.

"I like it because I get to be a part of what [individuals with disabilities] do day in and day out," Rasmussen said. "A lot of what we do is help them develop skills that they would use to do daily activities. ... That's what I enjoy, is helping them gain these skills and hopefully become more independent."

His goals are to expand some of the services that are already being provided and increase the satisfaction of both participants and their families.

Rasmussen graduated from Weber State University in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in health care administration.

Victoria Kmetzsch, Eric Monson and Rachel Simmons with the poster that Simmons displayed on Capitol Hill in January.

Students discuss biomed research, on and off Capitol Hill

Research on Capitol Hill contributors Eric Monson, Rachel Simmons and Victoria Kmetzsch are three very busy people in the Reed P. Warren Biomedical Lab at the Center for Persons with Disabilities.

Each of the three students' projects was selected for January's Research on Capitol Hill event, which showcases the work of student researchers statewide. They all produced an abstract on their projects, struggling even at the undergraduate level to put what they do into layman's terms.

The three students have seen a lot of each other in the lab where they have been working for more than a year. They started their lab work early into their university careers, and they agree it's a good thing. It took some time to learn how to do their jobs.

"We like to get them early, maybe their first or second year," said Anthony R. Torres, lab director. "It's partly selfish on my part. I want to get them trained and get some work out of them. ... We have to get research out."

Torres said he has suggested to Monson, now a junior, that he do a master's thesis on his project, which uses technology from the veterinary diagnostic lab to discover not only whether a gene is present in a person's DNA, but how many copies of the gene are there. Previously, the lab had linked autism to deletions in the C4B gene.

Monson's project explored a new way to test not only for the presence of that gene and its compliment, the C4A gene, but also to determine the number of copies of the gene in a DNA sample. One person may have two copies of the C4A gene, another may have two copies of both C4A and C4B, a third may have several copies of C4B. To find out how many copies are present, Monson uses a method called Real Time PCR to reproduce a small segment of DNA that contains the genes. A florescent dye is also used; it brightens according to how many times the gene appears. The faster it brightens, the more copies of the gene are there in the sample.

Simmons, a sophomore, investigated a new method for separating proteins according to size; a process that may be used to help isolate and analyze proteins from people with specific health problems. The standard method of separation involves sending proteins through a handmade gel, but the process takes days and can be costly, she said. She did research on using an agilent protein chip. The chip fits into a machine that forces protein through capillaries into tiny wells embedded in the chip's structure. "It's been used with DNA and RNA processes, but it hasn't been used much with proteins," Simmons said.

Her conclusion: The new method produces faster, cheaper and easier-to-read results. "The technique takes a little getting used to, but other than that it's simpler," she said.

Kmetzsch is researching a genetic marker that may be associated with preterm birth, which in 2002 was responsible for 34 percent of all infant deaths. In addition, her abstract says, preterm birth leads to long-term disabilities including cerebral palsy, seizures, hydrocephalus and neurological problems.

Kmetzsch used the standard PCR method to look for a gene associated with HLA-G, a protein marker that only appears on placental cells during pregnancy. The hypothesis is that the absence of the gene and the HLA-G protein associated with it correlates with a higher risk of pre-term birth.

To see abstracts of their work and the work of other 2008 Research on Capitol Hill participants, visit: http://research.usu.edu/undergrad/files/uploads/booklet%202008%20edits.pdf