Mariana Vaughan

• Conducted molecular biology experiments using plants and mutating genes to study the role of ATAD3 protein in mitochondrial function and its impact when heat stress treatments is exposed to the plants. Preformed sequence alignments, Uniprot and iCN3D familiarity, plating, sterilizing, visualizing protein structures/ amino acid sequences, CRISPR: Plasmid DNA molecule re-design for CAS-9, HDR Design, non- homologous end joining, homology directed repairs, and genotyping.

Research heavily-fed microbial communities that kill corals through different mechanisms and initiate an ecosystem phase shift from corals to algae. Demonstrate how removing other components of the food webs influences the other parts of a coral reef ecosystem. This included preparing water test samples and slides of bacteria and viruses from heavy microbial coral reefs, operating and taking pictures on Olympus and compound scopes, keeping lab records, documenting test findings, preparation, and aquarium and tank maintenance.