https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/prisha-gupta/index.htmlAbout me Hi! I’m Prisha! I’m a high school student in New Jersey, USA, and I am interested in biotechnology research, particularly computational molecular modeling and its applications in developing and improving pharmaceutical therapies. I’m especially interested in exploring how computational approaches can contribute to cancer research and drug development.Hugoenhttps://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/prisha-gupta/week-01-hw-project-ideas/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/prisha-gupta/week-01-hw-project-ideas/index.htmlProduct Target and Motivation Target Product: Thermally stable recombinant “mini-collagen”. Motivation: Chronic non-healing wounds, such as severe burns and ulcers, present major burdens in the global clinical world. Problem: While animal-extracted collagen provides the structural scaffold necessary for tissue repair, there are risks of batch-to-batch inconsistency, immune rejection, and pathogen transmission. While recombinant human collagen resolves the safety concerns, it denatures at body temperatures(98.6°F- 104°F) and is degraded by elevated protease levels in the chronic wound beds, rendering the scaffold useless. Additionally, natural collagen relies on a host prolyl 4-hydroxylase (P4H) enzyme to modify prolines and stabilize the triple helix. Because standard industrial host cells like E. coli lack P4H, scientists are required to co-express this mutli-subunit human enzyme, which severely reduces production yields and increases manufacturing complexity.https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/prisha-gupta/final-project/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://pages.htgaa.org/2026b/prisha-gupta/final-project/index.html