Dillon

Dillon

Dillon 
Tyngsborough High School
Tyngsborough, MA

Mentors: 
Harshit Bhasin & Yasmine Guedira
Cardiovascular Disease Initiative | Ellinor Lab
 

Dillon was confident BSSP would change his life when he applied. In his application, he said, “I will be able to satiate my thirst for knowledge, and I am certain this experience will set me up for my future.” At the Broad, he was tasked with understanding the molecular pathways contributing to cardiac fibrosis, a type of tissue scarring commonly observed in end-stage heart failure patients. Cardiac fibroblasts deposit extracellular matrix in the heart, providing structural support to the contracting myocardial tissue. The TGFβ signaling pathway is a known activator of cardiac fibroblasts. By exploring a target identified from prior sequencing projects conducted by the Cardiovascular Disease Initiative, Sharmarke and his partner Dillon tested whether the SEMA3C protein worked alongside the TGFβ pathway to activate cardiac fibroblasts. By measuring the increase in gene expression and protein levels of the extracellular matrix proteins αSMA and COL1A1, Sharmarke determined that SEMA3C does not contribute to cardiac fibrosis in the in vitro environment. Their results did not suggest an interaction between TGFβ1 and SEMA3C since the downstream signaling molecules remained unchanged post SEMA3C treatment. In the end, Dillon could see that performing research at the Broad changed him in more ways than expected. He said, “BSSP taught me how to be confident in myself and communicate with a wide variety of people. The hands-on wet lab and poster experience was just a nice added bonus.” 

September 2023