Ashlyn Sloane is a rising senior at UCLA majoring in Neuroscience. She joined the Wells Lab in the summer of 2023, where she studies mTOR signaling defects and the potential rescue of cellular phenotypes by rapamycin of Jordan’s syndrome patient cell lines. Jordan’s syndrome (JS) is caused by a mutation in the gene PPP2R5D, which potentially causes an upregulation of the mTOR pathway that is responsible for cell proliferation and growth. JS is characterized by Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), macrocephaly, and hypotonia. Rapamycin is an antibiotic that is a known modulator of the mTOR pathway. During the school year, Ashlyn studied the gene expression changes with rapamycin treatment in control neural progenitor cells (NPCs). As an Amgen Scholar, Ashlyn will continue her work to identify a dose-dependent effect on the protein expression and phosphorylation of rapamycin on two proteins downstream of the mTOR Complex. Her goal is to determine the ideal duration and concentration of rapamycin treatment for future use in JS NPCs. She will then identify any quantifiable differences between control and JS NPC cell lines in baseline protein expression and phosphorylation of her two proteins of interest. Through this summer research, Ashlyn will apply rapamycin to JS NPCs in the fall to potentially rescue the cellular phenotypes of JS patient lines. Ashlyn would like to thank her graduate student mentor, Laila Sathe, and her PI, Dr. Michael Wells, for their invaluable mentorship, kindness, and support, as well as the Amgen Foundation for this incredible opportunity!