Senior Joy Tomko made the following statement about her research:

“In my senior research project, I intended to retrieve the lens from a number of bovine eyes and perform a purification of the lens to retrieve the crystallins.  After purifying the crystallins, the reaction with fructose was set up and allowed to incubate at 37°C for eight weeks.  During the eight weeks, a sample of the crystallins were removed every two weeks and cleaved with both chymotrypsin and papain to determine the amount of conformational change and fructation.  SDS-PAGE gels were run in order to determine the effects of the fructation and the cleavage.  The project started in September 2004 and ended in March 2005.

“As a biochemistry major, the study of proteins such as crystallins provides an application of information gained in the classroom.  This research has allowed me a way to experience various techniques that have been discussed in a number of courses and execute them on my own.  It teaches the variability of experiments and how to solve problems during an experiment.  I hope to attend optometry school after leaving Saint Vincent College and this experience will have helped me understand more of the anatomy of the eye via the dissections performed.  It will also help me understand some of the processes that are involved in the eye because the fructation reaction is similar to what occurs in diabetics when cataracts are formed.  From this information, I gain a better understanding of the eye in general that will help my future career.”