Shenelle Shaw (CLAS \u201923) has always had a knack for taking care of people, whether that be her own family members, or the patients she hopes to help as a future doctor.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a caretaker was always something that called out to me and I knew I would be in the medical field for that reason,\u201d Shaw says.<\/p>\n
Originally from Jamaica, Shaw came to the U.S. when she was 15 years old. As she adjusted to high school in the U.S., UConn became Shaw\u2019s dream school.<\/p>\n
Now a molecular and cell biology major on the pre-med track, Shaw had found an additional outlet for her desire to better people\u2019s lives \u2013 research.<\/p>\n
Shaw was accepted into the McNair Scholars Program<\/a> for the Spring 2021 semester. Shaw began working in Professor Anastasios Tzingounis\u2019 lab<\/a> in the Department of Physiology and Neurobiology.<\/p>\n The research Shaw is performing is aimed at better understanding how seizures happen. Scientists know that an enzyme known as DYRK1A plays an important role in activating KCNQ2 channels in the brain. When these channels are over-expressed, people experience seizures and or have epilepsy.<\/p>\n The brain is very complex, it\u2019s never a one-to-one relationship with these things. — Shenelle Shaw<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n While DYRK1A is just an enzyme, it leads to excitability changes. Shaw suspects this means it may play a more important role in seizure activity than scientists currently think.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what I want to investigate, if it\u2019s doing more than just being an enzyme,” Shaw says. “I believe DYRK1A may be targeting ion channels. The brain is very complex, it\u2019s never a one-to-one relationship with these things.\u201d<\/p>\n This particular issue is close to home for Shaw, whose sister suffered from a severe bout of seizures when Shaw was in high school. Looking at the jumbled medical charts in her sister\u2019s hospital room, Shaw felt a sense of helplessness at how little she could do to assist.<\/p>\n \u201cI realized I couldn\u2019t do anything, because I didn\u2019t know anything,\u201d Shaw says.<\/p>\n Shaw has turned this feeling of confusion into a passion for finding answers her sister didn\u2019t have at the time.<\/p>\n Shaw says her experience in Tzingounis\u2019 lab has been a supportive journey.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt super nervous and scared it was going to be an environment where I had to do everything perfect the first time, but it\u2019s not like that at all,\u201d Shaw says. \u201cIf you are failing in one aspect, someone will help you out until you master it.\u201d<\/p>\n Shaw\u2019s experience performing research has differed significantly from the kinds of labs she had done for classes.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the lab I\u2019m in, I have more control over what I\u2019m looking at and I became more passionate about it because I have more say over what I’m doing,\u201d Shaw says.<\/p>\n Shaw was also part of the Women in Math, Science, and Engineering (WiMSE) Learning Community. Through this experience she met other women who served as mentors for Shaw as she started her UConn career.<\/p>\n \u201cI met other women in STEM who were really smart and independent,\u201d Shaw says.<\/p>\n Shaw says her experience performing research as an undergraduate has shown her that there is room in her future career for both medicine and research.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore doing research I had a very strict view that you could either do medicine or you could do research,\u201d Shaw says. \u201cBut there are so many careers that are a mix of both.\u201d<\/p>\n Students interested in learning more about research opportunities at UConn can check out the series of events offered as part of the <\/em>Month of Discovery<\/em><\/a>. Come to Research Connections<\/a> on Oct. 15, 2021, to talk with dozens of participating researchers and learn about the incredible range of research and creative projects being pursued at UConn.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Follow UConn Research on<\/em> Twitter<\/em><\/a> &<\/em> LinkedIn<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Undergraduate researcher Shenelle Shaw is investigating how an enzyme may have a bigger role in seizure activity than scientists had assumed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":177837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2390,2076],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2277],"class_list":["post-177676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-physiology-neurobiology","category-research","series-meet-the-researcher"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 01:19:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177676"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177883,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177676\/revisions\/177883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/177837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177676"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=177676"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=177676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n