Edited by Ann Marie Elpa
Frequently we become oblivious to the people that surround us daily. We forget to acknowledge that every single one of them has a story that is unique in its way. One of the people in my life whose drive I admire is my dear friend Brady Liu. From the very first time we met in the first year as life sciences students at the University of Toronto, I knew that this was a person that knew what and where he wanted to go in the future. Today, Brady is an admirable friend, scholar, leader, captain, and researcher. As the president of the Canadian Asian Student Society (CASS), he has created a vast number of opportunities for different university students in Ontario to network and build a stronger sense of community. Not only is he the president of CASS, but he is also the athletic director of U of T’s chapter of UNICEF. To promote the right to play movement within one of UNICEF’s initiatives, he runs two intramural co-ed teams of both basketball and volleyball. But, most importantly, Brady is a Life Sciences student majoring in neuroscience and physiology with a minor in human biology. Through hard work and resiliency, today, Brady is an admirable student researcher that I have the opportunity to call my friend.
His Research…
As a research student at Sickkids, Brady had the opportunity to partake in possibly life-changing research. On a cold Friday night in Toronto, I had the chance to sit down and speak to my friend about the details of his research and his experience so far. “My work is related to Alzheimer’s disease,” said Liu. Through an abundance of research, Brady found a protein that is associated with actin development. Actin is known to be related to synaptic plasticity, learning, and memory, so Brady stated that he thinks that by altering the expression of this gene it will alter learning and memory. The research consists of utilizing a protein, Cofilin, of testing its effect on the brain’s learning and memory. The Cofilin gene is injected into the mouse’s hippocampal area that is associated with spatial and contextual memory.
“After injecting them, and successfully infecting all the neurons with the protein, I am going to perform some behavioral tests to see if there is any difference in the mouse’s learning and memory.”
Some potential experiments and behavioral tests to see if there is any difference in the mouse’s learning and memory, according to Brady, are the following:
The first possibility is to place the mice in a water bath and place a stick somewhere in the water. Mice generally don’t swim, so they will struggle to find the pole. However, the goal is to see how fast a mouse would be able to learn to swim to the pole by remembering the location where it was placed.
Another possible behavioral experiment is fear conditioning. The test works by playing a type of sound to the mice and shocking them. The next time that the same sound is played to the mice, the goal is to observe whether or not they freeze up and see if they learned to associate the music to the shock.
A third possible experiment is to watch social interactions. Mice, like humans, become friendlier or more interactive with organisms that they already know instead of being isolated. The test consists of placing to chambers side by side, one empty and one with the mouse’s playmate. The researcher observes the interactions between the mouse and its playmate. The test is to see if the mice have potential Alzheimer’s to see if they remember that they’re not their playmates.
Then, the mice are going to be sacrificed, and the brains’ neurons in the hippocampus are going to be analyzed for any long-term potentiation (deficit).
On the Possible Road to Ottawa…
Brady’s journey as a scholar researcher does not end with his current research at Sickkids. Along with other undergraduate students, Liu entered the Scinapse competition in Ottawa. The competition consists of submitting an abstract on a possible experiment that has augmented biology somewhere associated with it. For this challenge specifically, Brady and his group came up with the abstract for an experiment that also works with Alzheimer’s disease. In this case, the mice are genetically modified by using CRISPR – the newest innovative biology science that changes the DNA. The mice’s DNA is modified to have Alzheimer’s disease symptoms that are usually seen in a human patient. The experiment aims to inject a C-terminal domain of a glutamine receptor around the hippocampus synapse. In previous studies, it has been shown that there is a significant deficit of these glu-A-1 receptors on the synapse once you develop Alzheimer’s.
“So now we are using CRISPR to induce more of these receptors to the synapses to see if it will revert Alzheimer’s disease, which in turn will push for a cure for Alzheimer’s or prevention for the future.”
Brady and his group are currently waiting to see if their experiment gets chosen for the next step of the competition. Ten top abstracts get picked from a submission pool and had the opportunity to go to the University of Ottawa to give a formal oral presentation in late March 2020. The winning experiment receives a fund, and the group can actually undertake the research.
The two sides of a research student’s life…
When I asked Brady what the most significant hardship that he encountered so far during this experience was, he responded firmly by stating that it was time management. By waking up every morning at the same time and creating a very systematic schedule, Liu can juggle all the responsibilities that he has as a leader, student, and researcher.
“Research takes a lot of time, and obviously, we are students,” said Brady.
As a student, Brady lives under the stressful thought that someone else could always be getting ahead of him with studies while he is doing his research. However, Brady’s commitment to his research has given him the motivation to devote a large sum of his day to it.
Lastly, I asked him what motivates you to be so passionate about your research, he replied by stating: “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”
In the end, I was able to hear the real insight into his experience during this journey. The most significant impact that the research had on Brady’s life was how it taught him to work hard. Brady confessed that at the beginning of his job at Sickkids, there were numerous times when he felt like he did not deserve the role he obtained. When looking back to months before he got his current job, Brady sent out around 100 e-mails applying for different positions and got only three responses. While the other 97 submissions did not reply to him, he is grateful that the current professor that hired him gave him the chance to learn and grow. Brady admitted that his grades were not the highest; he had no prior experience in the lab. Hence, the professor had no reason to hire him. The pressure to not become a burden on the rest of the team at the beginning of his job motivated Brady to try to learn everything as fast as he could.
“Work hard, because I did not have the talent to become a researcher,” were Brady’s last remarks from his experience as an admirable research student.