Gabriella Auguste
When Briarcliff High School soccer player Gabriella Auguste had ankle surgery after tearing two ligaments, she could not practice the sport for an extended amount of time.
Itching to get back on the field, she began researching the topic of tissue regeneration to find out if there was a way to heal faster.
As a science research student, Gabriella, a junior, was initially going to base her research on organ transplant rejection, but what she discovered about nerve tissue regeneration inspired her to change course.
“I found out that when you have a nerve injury, there are certain cells that migrate across the gap to repair the nerve, and those cells act differently in males and in females, but no one knows why,” she said.
In the natural recovery process, Gabriella says, regaining nerve function can take time, and the nerve might not go back to what it was before.
Briarcliff High School soccer player Gabriella Auguste had ankle surgery after tearing two ligaments
“Researchers are trying to speed up the rate of the cells moving across the gap so that recovery can be better and faster,” she said. “These nerve cells, called Schwann cells, migrate to the place of injury to remove debris, secrete growth factors and promote regeneration. While male cells tend to move straight, but slowly, to the place of injury, female cells tend to move faster, but they spread off to the sides, instead of going straight.”
After learning about nerve cell regeneration, Gabriella decided to focus her Science Research on this subject.
Luckily, her mother has been a big help.
“My mother, Dr. Debra Auguste, is a chemical engineering professor at Northeastern University, and she helped me get in touch with the department chair, Professor Rebecca Willits. Professor Willits is now my mentor,” she said.
Gabriella plans to work at a lab at the university this summer to conduct research.
Gabriella began researching the topic of tissue regeneration to find out if there was a way to heal faster.
“I will work with one of Dr. Willits’s grad students and use rat cell cultures,” she said. “So far, I have only met my mentor in person once, when she helped me with a presentation back in November,” she said.
Until her summer research, Gabriella is preparing for the upcoming Science Research Symposium, to be held at the high school, at the end of April. She is working on creating a trifold poster and on her presentation.
Gabriella said that she is very appreciative of her mother’s help with the research and is also grateful for her teachers: Kim Dyer, during her first year, and Annmarie O’Brien, in her second year of the Science Research program.
“They have both helped me a lot,” she said. “For example, they helped me interpret things like medical lingo in research articles or in emails from my mentor.”
Gabriella hopes her research will ultimately help people recover faster from injuries.
“I hope our findings will help people regenerate nerves faster,” she said. “It could especially help athletes who need to be back playing their sport.”