Reagan Bushok ‘24, works in the Brubaker Lab under Dr. Douglas Brubaker within the Purdue Biomedical Engineering Department. The Lab develops systems biology approaches to model host-microbiome interactions and identify therapeutic solutions for complex inflammatory diseases. The team that Reagan works with specifically focuses on understanding the vaginal microbiome. Her work centers on bacterial vaginosis, in which vaginal inflammation is caused by the overgrowth of bacteria naturally found in the vagina, and endometriosis, in which tissue that normally grows inside the uterus grows outside the uterus, causing pelvic pain, lesions, and cysts.

Currently, Reagan and her team are working to develop a computational model to predict vaginal epithelial cell responses to metabolites, molecules having to do with a cell’s metabolism, and establish an experimental system to test hypotheses extracted from the model. Their recent observations have led them to focus on microbiome regulation of progesterone, which is a hormone that prepares the body for pregnancy and regulates the monthly menstrual cycles’ related pathways.

Along with Reagan’s work with the Brubaker Lab team, she is also involved in training within Dr. Leopold Green’s lab with their eventual goal of engineering a solution. One avenue in discussion is the creation of living engineered bacterial therapeutics in which bacteria are engineered to process signals within the body and produce an output in response. She states that “this is done by creating a ‘gene circuit’, which is an assembly of biological parts that code for RNA, proteins, etc. that allows bacteria to respond to specific signals and interact with their environment to produce that output – in this case, sensing bacterial vaginosis or endometriosis and outputting therapeutics.” Though she admits they are far from completing this task, many members of the lab, herself included, are training for this step down the road.

“Research has taught me to work in an academic team of people with similar passions and to see a project from all aspects, from data analysis to experimentation.”

Reagan Bushok ’24

Reagan describes her role and the contribution of the research team as “twofold.” On the analytical side of things, she states that she is analyzing experimental data from cultured sets cells to identify:

• the most prevalent metabolites produced by four bacterial strains related to bacterial vaginosis and endometriosis,
  
• the strongest correlations in relationships between microbial metabolites and human proteins to understand their cell signaling pathways, and
  
• which bacterial strains are secreting these metabolites.

Her work has been completed through the use of R code for statistical analysis to help the team choose metabolites to purchase to continue experimental studies over the summer with the goal of better understanding the role of these metabolites within the vaginal microbiome.

“As a woman in engineering and research, I am interested in helping improve womens’ health by gaining a better understanding of these disease mechanisms and new treatment options,” Reagan shared.

Reagan’s goal has also been to gain hands-on experience in areas of her interests within the bioengineering field, specifically cell signaling pathways, microbiomes, and synthetic biology. After her freshman year, when she committed to majoring in Biological engineering, she took the summer to research her new major including things such as job and research opportunities. When she looked into professors and their work, labs she was interested in, and research papers, she ultimately ended up sending emails to many labs.

“Though I faced multiple rejections, I continued reaching out until three labs agreed to interview me, and in the end I was lucky to receive an offer from the Brubaker Lab,” Reagan said.

The research Reagan has participated in has taught her about the balance between data analysis and wet lab experimental work, as she had only previously had experience partaking in one or the other but not both at the same time. This opportunity has also helped her gain a lot of confidence in her coding and statistical skills, but also in the wet lab setting as she is more comfortable asking questions, collaborating with the team, analyzing results, and seeing the research process the whole way through.

Reagan shared that “research has taught me to work in an academic team of people with similar passions and to see a project from all aspects, from data analysis to experimentation.”