UT Tyler Graduate Student Finding Causes and Cures for Parkinson’s Disease

By BARBARA MARTIN MORO/Staff Writer

Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a series about interesting research being done at UT Tyler.

A frown, a glaring, deep voice, a fast but stable pace in his speech, and not a single filler word in his sentences. Nothing that comes out of the mouth of Adrian Romero is in vain. There is neither excess nor deficiency of words; and most importantly, almost anyone can understand him. According to Albert Einstein, being a genius means “taking the complex and making it simple.” Romero fits the prototype.  

A UT Tyler biology masters student and graduate research assistant appointed through the College of Pharmacy, Romero has recently completed a research project for his master’s thesis. His project will potentially help advance studies to find the cause and cure of an illness affecting over 8 million people worldwide: Parkinson’s Disease.  

Background  

For Romero, the journey started in his senior year of high school, when he was considering what career path to follow.  

“The retail version of pharmacy was kind of attractive to me, just because I had pretty high financial outlooks,” Romero said.  

Majoring in biology meant a step toward his objective. Nonetheless, close to the end of his undergraduate degree, Romero’s career prospective had changed. His natural talent to do academic research paved the way his life has followed during the last two years.  

“Undergraduate research, and research in general, is a great opportunity to join and explore your own interests,” he said.  

The Master’s Thesis  

When he began the process of choosing his research topic, Romero was looking for areas of science with gaps in which his research could have an impact. Parkinson’s Disease, a common disorder that can have unknown origins and is currently without a cure, seemed the perfect scenario for Romero. Nonetheless, the direction of his investigation was about to take an unexpected shift.  

His first project design consisted of testing pharmacological compounds and observing whether they could stop or reverse Parkinson’s. The obstacle came into play when Romero and his team tried to create a Parkinson’s disease-like state in the zebrafish larvae serving as a sample for their experiment. They tried the methods of previous researchers, but these were found not to be replicable.

Suddenly, Romero had to change his approach. Instead of taking this as a stumbling block, Romero and his team transformed the problem into a new research project that could greatly impact the costs and efficiency of future studies.  Now Romero’s goals were to find the minimum dosage of 6-OHDA (the neurotoxin needed to induce Parkinson’s disease in the zebrafish larvae) and to construct “a molecular response curve” of zebrafish larvae exposed to 6-OHDA. According to Romero, creating a “molecular response curve” would allow them to observe “how these neurons go from healthy to sick.”   

Romero’s project, a partnership between the departments of Biology and Pharmacy at UT Tyler, was financed by the National Institute of Health. Through the NIH, it was awarded a partnership study award of $588,000. Additionally, Romero received $2,000 through the Texas Academy of Science to finance his independent study of the “Parkinson’s Disease-like state.”  

Methods

From the time when they are first fertilized until 7 days after fertilization, zebrafish do not have a blood band barrier. This means that researchers can provoke Parkinson’s disease in the zebrafish without surgery, but instead by using a neurotoxin. Because of the lack of blood band barrier, the development of the disease can be observed directly in the brain.  

“We have a window where we can see what the transition from healthy dopaminergic neurons to Parkinson’s disease-like neurons is,” Romero said.  

The fish were cultivated in the “fish room” at the Hudnall-Pirtle-Roosth Building at the UT Tyler campus.  

The Results

The study has been able to identify a Parkinson’s disease-like state that is statistically replicable, meaning that other researchers may be able to use Romero’s protocols to advance the research to understand and find a cure for Parkinson’s in humans.  Also, being able to see how the disease develops in the dopaminergic neurons — which are the neurons that get damaged when something has Parkinson’s disease — allows researchers to test pharmacological compounds and see if, where, and how they attack or reverse it.  

The team has also been able to identify how Parkinson’s disease behaves in fish. In the case of human beings, the most common symptoms of Parkinson’s are tremors, muscle stiffness, slowness, and impaired balance and coordination. In zebrafish, too, the main symptom of Parkinson’s disease is a lack of movement.  

Romero Today

Even though the part of the study that was necessary for his master’s degree is finished, Romero wants to extend his research in this area. His plan is to continue testing pharmacological compounds, observing the development of the disease in zebrafish, and answering questions that came out as the study was being developed.  

Now Romero prepares to defend his master’s thesis, graduate, and keep doing what he knows how to do best: research.  

The UT Tyler graduate is also seeking to start a PhD program in Pharmacology and Toxicology by August of 2024.