Sarah Wicher, Ph.D.

Summary: My research focuses on understanding the long-term impact of chronic inflammation on lung function. Our lungs are exposed to the external environment and undergo repeated cycles of injury, inflammation, and repair. I am interested in understanding the role of inflammation on airway smooth muscle cell division, and contraction using live cell calcium imaging, and extracellular matrix deposition to gain a clearer understanding of the processes involved in normal aging and those that become dysregulated in disease. Using an in vitro cell model, students can investigate the impact of cellular stressors, on inflammation, contraction, cell division, and changes in gene expression. Students will investigate the impact of inflammation on proliferation, extracellular matrix deposition, contraction, and changes in both protein and gene expression.

Minimum Courses: Molecules to Cells (Bio 201) and Organismal Biology (Bio 202, or other introductory biology class).

Projects: Students will learn cell culture techniques, biology of the lungs, pharmacology and signaling mechanisms of lung smooth muscle cells. Using an in vitro cell model, students can investigate the impact of cellular stressors, on inflammation, contraction, cell division, and changes in gene expression. Additionally, students will learn how to design experiments to test hypotheses, accurately record data in a lab notebook, and analyze quantitative data using graphical and statistical analysis and present their work at the INBRE conference in July.