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Class of 2023
Major:
Computer Science
Minor:
Music
Grace Cicchinelli, Class of 2023 at St. Lawrence University, is a Computer Science Major and Music Minor. Grace is a mentor at the Peterson Quantitative Resource Center, as well as a student technician at the IT Helpdesk in ODY Library. She plays the flute and piccolo in the St. Lawrence...
Description

Ferritin is a kind of protein that exists in the human body with a mix of two different types of molecules called H and L. Diseases such as anemia, cancer, and Alzheimers have been linked to the malfunction of Ferritin in the body. Therefore, research is being conducted to further understand how Ferritin works. We have 2D images of Ferritin, which thanks to a software called Cryo-EM, can be combined to form 3D models of the protein. Unfortunately, the pictures that we have are blurry. This means that running them through the software creates 3D models that are not detailed enough for researchers to distinguish between the H and L molecules. The goal of this project was to denoise the images (essentially make them less blurry) so that researchers can generate more detailed 3D models of the protein Ferritin. To accomplish this, we used deep learning to model what noise looks like in the 2D images, and then removed it, resulting in a clearer image.
 

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