Sonola Burrja, FCRH ’23, has been participating in a hands-on lab studying certain gene expressions in mice related to different metabolic pathways in the brain. 

Burrja is majoring in biology at Fordham on the pre-health track and is studying to hopefully become a doctor in the future. She said that while she initially joined this lab her freshman year, due to complications with the COVID-19 pandemic, she was unfortunately not able to start hands-on lab research until this previous summer. 

In the lab, Burrja, along with the other members of the lab, has been studying three different groups of mice that have various levels of estrogen corresponding to their place in their version of a menstrual cycle. One group had relatively high levels of estrogen, one had low amounts of estrogen circulating and the last group had their ovaries removed so no estrogen was present in their bodies. “I was looking at different gene expressions…and linking them to two brain regions: one of them was in the hypothalamus and the other one in the ventral hippocampus,” said Burrja. 

Burrja explained that in the brain, the ventral hippocampus is related to emotional behaviors like anxiety and depression while the hypothalamus is concerned with metabolic pathways. Other members of the lab found that the mice with no estrogen moved around less and were heavier, suggesting a relationship between the levels of estrogen and these metabolic pathways. “The purpose of the research was to check whether the gene expression of different genes was changed because of the differences in estrogen,” said Burrja.

As a part of the lab, Burrja also participates in weekly meetings where  members discuss recent developments in their field of study and their own research. These discussions were actually what sparked Burrja’s interest in her own current research. “We got interested in the metabolic part of estrogen regulation because of some previous result that the lab got,” said Burrja. “They were working in RNA sequencing, and they saw that there was a significant difference in that sequencing.” 

Overall, this  epigenetic lab looks at behaviors and traits like obesity, depression, anxiety and addiction, which can all be related to some extent to estrogen, explained Burrja. It also seeks to understand the differences between females and males. “All of the other studies only take into consideration male mice because they don’t want to deal with estrogen circulation, so [females] are often excluded,” she said.

 In the medical field, drugs are often only tested on males, leaving assumptions to be made about the drug’s effect on females, said Burrja. Therefore, the lab aims to explore some of these differences that are not often examined. 

While mice are a completely different species from humans, Burrja explained  that one of the reasons they use mice in their experiments is because mice have a very similar estrogen cycle to humans. “The cycle is really short and easy to monitor, and it works well with the human menstrual cycle,” she said. 

The mice make for a more convenient medium to study the effects of estrogen, and a lot of the genes that are present in humans are present in mice as well, so understanding the role of estrogen in mice can lead to more understanding in humans, Burrja explained.

Burrja  thinks that participating in this research will be beneficial for her future goals. “I really like this experience,” she said. “I’m originally from Albania, and we moved here three years ago. I never thought that as an undergraduate I would be able to do research.” 

While she said she doesn’t know if this is the specific area she wants to focus on in the future, Burrja still thinks her time in the lab has been a valuable experience. “Just having this opportunity, it’s a great area to explore because you can learn a lot,” she said. “It’s kind of thrilling. You don’t know what the results are going to be unless you go there and do the experiments.”