Shereen is a rising senior at Dickinson College where she works under Dr. Anthony Rauhut to examine the influence of various environmental and social factors on drug sensitization using mice models. At UCLA, She’s working in the Novitch Lab to study the effects of mutations in ADAR1, a RNA-editing enzyme, on cortical neurogenesis with the use of 2D human stem cell cultures. In the body, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) serves as a regulatory tool for activation of the immune system. Upon infection, dsRNA produced by viruses triggers an increase in inflammation that drives an antiviral response. The human genome also encodes endogenous, or self, RNA that can adopt a double stranded structure. To prevent activation of the immune system through self RNA, ADAR1 introduces mismatches through A-to-I editing which prevents recognition by the immune system. Increased levels of neuroinflammation and a failure to regulate endogenous RNAs is associated with both the neurodevelopmental disability Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and the neurodegenerative disease Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This raises the question of whether a loss of ADAR1 function that prevents self-dsRNA regulation drives inflammation and pathology of various neurological conditions. It’s currently unclear how, and to what extent, loss of ADAR1 function alters the process of neural development to produce these outcomes. She would like to thank the Novitch Lab and the UCLA Amgen Program for their mentorship and support throughout this valuable experience.