Sahana Garapati
Grade 10
The purpose of this experiment was to investigate if the combination of the antioxidants ferulic acid, curcumin, and caffeine decreased oxidative stress (OS) in order to ascertain if mixed antioxidants facilitate a greater decrease of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) symptoms due to the correlation between OS and AD symptoms. Determining novel therapeutics for AD is especially important because current treatments are expensive, have low success rates as well as have undesirable side effects. A potential novel pharmacotherapeutic treatment based on this experiment is hoped to be one way to address the current gap in AD treatment. The procedure of the experiment began with incorporating individual antioxidants into agar to form the positive control group, along with a negative control group with no antioxidants. Then, synchronized, genetically modified adult CL2166 C. elegans were placed into the control plates and were observed for a week by taking pictures under fluorescent light. This process was repeated for mixed chemical plates then analyzed at the end of the experiment. Overall, it was determined that the novel mixture of caffeine and FA as well as curcumin and FA decreased OS therefore rejecting the null hypothesis. The one-way ANOVA p value was below 0.0001 and individual t-tests conducted concluded significant values at (p<0.05) for the groups caffeine with FA and curcumin with FA. With future research, it is likely that a novel pharmacotherapeutic treatment may be produced that is comparatively more accessible, effective, and inexpensive.
Mentors:
- Mrs. Allison Hennings – IMSA/RISE Instructor
- Dr. Adriana Feriera (M.D., Ph.D.) – Northwestern University
- Dr. Vidal-Gadea (Ph.D) – Illinois State University
