The sun beats down outside, but the air-conditioned lab is alight with the fluorescent glow of the microscope’s ring light as UA senior, Aidan Meyers, continues his groundbreaking work with Caenorhabditis elegans, a species of roundworm, and Parkinson’s disease.
This summer, Meyers completed a student-fellowship with the National Parkinson’s Foundation, an award only presented to 12 applicants of undergraduate and graduate institutions worldwide. Following the recent submission of his fellowship results, Meyers was accepted into the University’s Ph.D. program for biology, allowing him to continue his unique work.
“Consider, there’s maybe three papers that ever talk about this gene,” Meyers said. “When I heard that there’s a gene that no one knows much of anything about at all, and that it may have a direct impact in the pathology of Parkinson’s disease, you know, that’s like a goldmine, right?”
When he joined the Caldwell Lab in December 2022, he aided other projects, and it was during a presentation from another graduate student that the BTS4 gene of the C. elegans worms were mentioned. A similar gene exists in humans, SLC42, which may have direct associations to the way Parkinson’s disease functions in both worms and humans.
“I spoke with my mentors, Guy and Kim Caldwell, and wrote the proposal to the Parkinson Foundation, and a few months later they got back to me. They gave me the full award, and I worked full time in the lab this summer,” Meyers said.
The project focused on the impact of mutations and destruction of neurons that is the trademark of how Parkinson’s disease functions. The question of Meyers’ summer research was whether the mutation itself is impactful in causing Parkinson’s disease and how those functions work.
“So what we did was use Parkinson’s disease model, and we just bombed it with radiation and looked for worms that had mutations in them that notably increased their neurodegeneration,” Meyers said.
After hundreds of hours in the lab, Meyers and his colleague put together results concluding that the gene itself is directly protective, or associated with a decreased likelihood, in the Parkinson’s model. Currently, their experiments continue to solidify this conclusion as well as general understanding of the gene’s behavior.
“I think ultimately, in sort of a more abstract sense, the goal is to better understand Parkinson’s disease and perhaps even form a future treatment that maybe targets genes like BTS4,” Meyers said.
Meyers found his research project by chance, but made the choice to pursue the opportunity he found himself with. His advice to aspiring biology, medical and STEM students is to find something fulfilling to get involved with, even if it seems daunting at first.
“You know, I didn’t even do the best in my biology I class. And considering where I am now, you know, I think that goes to show that if I can do it, anyone really can.”
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