Home » Nikole Tamayo

Nikole Tamayo

Personal Information

Name: Nikole Tamayo

Education: Bachelor’s of Science in Chemistry, ACS Certified in Biochemistry

Minor in Biology, Southern Oregon University

From: Las Vegas, NV

Joined the David Lab: January 2020

Enjoys outside of lab: Video games, bullet journaling, and hiking

Research in the David Lab:

In DNA, guanine is the most susceptible to oxidation and its oxidation product is 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-oxoguanine (OG). The Hoogsteen face of OG is similar to thymine (T) so during replication adenine (A) is misincorporated and after another round of replication results in a G:C to T:A transversion mutation. MutY is a DNA base excision repair enzyme that removes A from OG. Part of the enzyme that is theorized to recognize DNA lesions and facilitate repair is the iron-sulfur cluster. Nikole is investigating the role of the iron-sulfur cluster by examining “clusterless” enzymes, enzymes that do not contain the iron-sulfur cluster based on sequence homology. The lack of the iron-sulfur cluster suggests that it may not be necessary for DNA repair and recognition.

Previous Research Experience:

Nikole participated in two summer research internships while attending Southern Oregon University. At the Medical University of South Carolina, Nikole learned about hematopoietic stem cells and their ability to differentiate into many different cell types including blood cells, mast cells, and osteoclasts. Nikole learned how to culture specialized cells and image them, process tissues, section tissues, immunohistochemistry staining for tissues and stem cells, and bone marrow extraction from mice and staining for flow cytometry. At the University of Arizona, Nikole learned about short and long cell signaling in plants how errors in the clavata-wuschel pathway can affect the meristem and the fruit of plants in Arabidopsis or tomatoes. Nikole learned how to extract plant DNA, create polymerase chain reaction methods for specific primers, and interpret and image gels from gel electrophoresis. For Nikole’s undergraduate research at Southern Oregon University, she investigated the stability of epinephrine under various environmental conditions. She adapted a previously published method on quantifying the degradation products of epinephrine using high performance liquid chromatography and how to analyze the results to yield relative concentrations of epinephrine and its degradation products.

RSS Science Daily News

  • Down goes antimatter! Gravity's effect on matter's elusive twin is revealed September 27, 2023
    For the first time, in a unique laboratory experiment at CERN, researchers have observed individual atoms of antihydrogen fall under the effects of gravity. In confirming antimatter and regular matter are gravitationally attracted, the finding rules out gravitational repulsion as the reason why antimatter is largely missing from the observable universe.
  • Decreasing biodiversity may promote spread of viruses September 27, 2023
    How are environmental changes, loss of biodiversity, and the spread of pathogens connected? The answer is a puzzle. Researchers have now described one piece of that puzzle, showing that the destruction of tropical rainforests harms the diversity of mosquito species. At the same time, more resilient species of mosquitoes become more prevalent -- which also […]
  • Study sheds new light on strange lava worlds September 27, 2023
    In a new study, scientists have shown that sweeping molten oceans have a large influence on the observed properties of hot rocky Super-Earths, such as their size and evolutionary path.
  • New insights into the atmosphere and star of an exoplanet September 25, 2023
    A new study of the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 exoplanetary system has demonstrated the complex interaction between the activity of the system's star and its planetary features.
  • Did life exist on Mars? Other planets? With AI's help, we may know soon September 25, 2023
    Scientists have discovered a simple and reliable test for signs of past or present life on other planets -- 'the holy grail of astrobiology.' Researchers report that, with 90% accuracy, their artificial intelligence-based method distinguished modern and ancient biological samples from those of abiotic origin.

Contact:

Dr. Sheila S. David
ssdavid@ucdavis.edu
(530)-752-4280

Department of Chemistry
One Shields Ave.
Davis, CA 95616