Student: Carly Fabian

Date: 11/24/15

I. Research question:
My research question is could an increase in kynurenic acid cause sleep
deprivation which would worsen cognitive impairments in rats with schizophrenia?
These cognitive impairments include intellectual disabilities like a worsening of
memory or learning capability. The kynureic acid being studied in my research
question is an essential acid produced in the KYN pathway which is also being
researched in hope of finding a connection between this pathway and
schizophrenia.
II. Overview of Research
I will be specifically focusing on bio-medical chemistry in my research. The
work I am doing at my internship focuses on the chemical and biological aspect of
psychology, while also tying in pharmaceutical factors. Bio-medical
chemistry/psychology is a specific field within bio-chemistry that I will be focusing
my research on.
I have been using several resources already and will continue to use these
resources to aid me in my research. The MPRC allows me access to their library
which includes several scientific journals that are specific to schizophrenia. These
scholarly journals help me gain insight on other experiments and factors that were
both successful and unsuccessful in the lab. My mentor, Ana Pocivavsek is also a
great resource. She provides me with her previous scientific journals and published
papers to better aid me in my research question. She also helps advise me what I
may want to focus on or spend more time with to better understand my research
question.
The big picture problem that I am hoping to solve is to find a cure for
schizophrenia. This goal will take years to complete. Within this class, I hope to
better connect a relationship between the KYN acid, sleep deprivation, and
schizophrenia. By identifying this connection, the scientific community will be one
step closer to pinpointing the exact cause of schizophrenia. Once we are able to
determine the cause of this mental illness, it can allow a breakthrough for
pinpointing the exact cause of other mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and
psychosis.
IV. Significance of Research (So What?)
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that affects one in every ten people in the
world. Schizophrenia comes with several symptoms that can negatively affect both
the individual suffering from the illness and others. The more we know about the
disease, the more we are able to find better treatments. There are currently not
many successful or safe treatments for schizophrenia. By figuring out what causes
schizophrenia, the scientific community will be able to find more effective
treatments for this disease and could potentially prevent schizophrenia.
The intended audience of the project is pharmaceutical chemists, biomedical chemists, and bio-psychologists who focus specifically on the chemical
factors of the brain and the relationship it has with schizophrenia and different
systems in the body. Even more specific, the project is intended for bio-medical
chemists who study the relationship between schizophrenia and the KYN pathway.

This audience is an appropriate choice because it targets scientists who are

also interested in the research that the MPRC conducted. Also, the targeted
audience will have previous knowledge of the information being presented which
will allow them to better understand the material and even take it into
consideration in their own research and experiments. This will benefit them
because it will allow the targeted audience to use the data presented in their own
research and experiments.
V. Product Overview
My final project will be being included in a published paper and conducting
my own experiment, analysis, and project that will be used by the MPRC to include
in the published paper. This published paper will be distributed out to the scientific
community in hopes of conveying our research to other scientists interested in the
same subject. This scholarly paper will contribute to finding the cure of
schizophrenia and pinpointing what might cause schizophrenia.
There are a few logistical considerations with my product overview. One of
these limitations could be that our results are inconclusive and the entire study
might need to be trashed. By the end of the year, the experiment and hypotheses
we have been working on all year might be wrong. Another limitation is that paper
might take years to be published. Although the MPRC plans to publish the paper by
the end of the year, there is always a possibility that the experiment may take
longer than expected.