Sara Rutz
Senior in Natural Sciences, UAA
I am an incoming senior at UAA, pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences with a concentration in Pre-Professional Health. I was born and raised in Alaska, and graduated from Chugiak High School in 2015. I am on the Pre-Medical track, with a goal of attending the WWAMI program to achieve my medical degree. Alaska will always be home, and I plan on practicing rural medicine in various locations around the state. I have grown to love the recreational activities that the 49th state has to offer, and you can often find me tumbling down the slopes at Alyeska or praying that I can stop while roller blading the coastal trail.
Prior to taking Physics 124, my only knowledge of plasma was that it was the "white stuff" that appeared after centrifuging blood cultures. Thankfully, Dr. Hicks explained that there is more than one kind of plasma. He explained his research to our class and his excitement toward the subject intrigued my colleague and I. We inquired if there was any room for Biology in the Plasma Physics world, and he enabled us to combine our area of knowledge with his to begin our research into BioMedical plasma.
My colleague and I are researching medical applications of plasma by studying the effects of RONS on plated colonies of both bacteria and cancer cells. We hypothesize that by exposing our bacteria, D. radiodurans, to the reactive species, we can cause instant cell death. Because this species is known as the most resistant bacteria in the world, we could assume that our technique would work on all other bacteria as well. We expect to see similar results when RONS are applied to our cancer cells, however, it will induce apoptosis rather than necrosis. This would make our technique a much safer treatment option than existing treatments.