Profile by ryan rosh

Prepping Samples, a profile of a mad scientist.

by Ryan Rosh

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hen my Freestyle teachers came up to me and said that I need to do a project like the Documentary only it has to be on a single person, a Profile, I immediately knew who I would choose. I had an exclusive mental list of four interesting people who help the community and would be captivating not only to interview but to also write about. After they all said no, I thought to myself “Hey! What

about my cousin Jimmy!”. Though I would never say this to his face because his ego needs no help, he has accomplished quite a lot for his age and he helps his community “by volunteering and being San Diego’s favourite ‘cool guy’”. This will be a biased profile on both sides. First of all he is my family so I cannot ditch him, but he is also my social rival and I must always one up him. So buckle up, you’re in for a wild ride.

“My craziest hospital story, um okay? There was one young

lady who was staying in the elderly care unit, because she was basically crazy and needed to be watched all the time, so at one point she got up claiming she did not receive her medication, which she had earlier in the morning, and she stormed out of bed when she could have fallen over (because she was drugged up). And erased everything on the whiteboard (which all of her current medications etc.) and got physical with the nurse until I stepped in and became the bouncer

for the situation”.

James Brophy is 19 and is in his fifth year of college. He lives at home with his parents and his sisters Natalie and Nikki. He has completed one year at Arizona State University another at San Diego State and now he studies Molecular Biology at the University of California at San Diego. James currently

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esearches Hypoxia (or Oxygen starvation) in a UCSD research facility/lab. He uses the blended pulp of fruit flies to discover the genes the control the intensity of Hypoxia.

The process of searching for genes genes that can either control, trigger or light the fuse that causes hypoxia is not as complicated as you may imagine. In the lab James explained and showed me the process, “The process behind searching for genes, there is a machine called an array. I’m pretty sure they get all the genes from. And they can scan thousands of genes at once, but I have a predetermined set of genes that I actually study and actively search for a certain pathway within the DNA of the strain of flies. It’s that pathway when activated, it increases hypoxia tolerance. But we are trying to discover what gene is responsible for activation of the pathway. So we use something called PCR, which is Poly-

merase Chain Reaction. Which isolates a section of the DNA and when you add a primer to it it will isolate a certain section of DNA and it will tell you how much is within the fly, how much of the gene is located inside the fly. Then you take the fly and put it in a 2% chamber [2% of oxygen and 98% nitrogen, because nitrogen is a neutral gas] and see how long it takes until it dies. And then you can match the results from the gene expression to the time of survival, and make a link between the two and how much a certain gene affects tolerance to hypoxia”. Brophy works very diligently while in the lab. Watching him in the process of changing a blended fruit fly smoothie (really a pulp), RNA into cDNA, using enzymes as catalysts.

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measures microlitres like second nature, painstaking recipe is persistently followed to cook up a perfect Hypoxic batch of cDNA. With many machines running and a small fire on the other side of the lab he tells me possible future benefits of his research “Potentially we could create superhumans using the genes, that when you express a gene in a human it will give them a far greater chance in survival time in less brain damage if they ever have a stroke and lose oxygen to parts of the brain. Or maybe even a pill that they can create in the future, to prevent strokes by providing extra oxygen to areas of the brain”.

James has a second love, the beach.

When his parents told him that they would all be moving to San Diego, the first thing he asked was “When can I go surfing?”. He doesn’t just love surfing he loves most things beach related; boogie boarding, skim boarding, body boarding (which is just swimming), and women. He tries to master each activity one at a time. I have tried to get him to go scuba diving but he says that sharks enjoy it when dinner swims with them.

James Brophy, the man, the scientist, is like the beach. Most people like the beach, not everybody, but most people. People get excited to go to visit the beach, but after a while you

get sand in your ass and you can’t get the taste of saltwater out of your mouth. You need a break, but the next day you go straight back to the beach. His attitude toward research and hospital volunteer work is the same way, Yin and Yang. If he doesn’t do his research today he can’t do his research tomorrow.

Jimmy also volunteers at Pomerado Hospital near his school.

It is preparing him for medical school at New York University after the science degree from UCSD. “Another crazy story, one man got discharged from the hospital one week and on my next shift (the next week), he was back with an altered mental state, he went from being conversational to basically a vegetable. Then there was one point where we had delayed his vitals to check them, they ended up

having plummiting oxygen levels and he almost died. He was a Do Not Resuscitate, so they almost did not shock him. But luckily he came back when we added extra oxygen through a rebreather device, which delivers concentrated oxygen to oxygenated parts of the body” James used his research in the hospital and helped save this man’s life.

Definitely Profile worthy.

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ames lived in Scottsdale, Arizona most of his life where he was homeschooled for high school. He got his high school diploma at the age of 15, then he took his general requirements at Arizona State University. His family then moved to San Diego, California. He finished

his general ed at San Diego State.

To now he studies at UCSD. “In the future since this is all hypoxic research, it relates to strokes, cardiac arrests, and anything that involves loss of oxygen, including drownings and all that stuff. Potentially we could create superhumans using the genes, that when you express a gene in a human it will give them a far greater chance in survival time in less brain damage if they ever have a stroke and lose oxygen to parts of the brain. Or maybe even a pill that they can create in the future, to prevent strokes by providing extra oxygen to areas of the brain.” After his earns his degree in Molecular Biology, he plans on going to medical school at New York University.

“He enjoys working and helping out at the hospital because he helps as an extension to patient care, he likes to see the patients get better and see how happy they become afterwords. It inspires him to be the kindest caretaker possible.”

-Natalie Brophy

“The most dangerous chemical I work with is Chloroform. It really tested my abilities as a human being not to abuse such chemicals”.

-James Brophy