May Goals

Monthly Goals
Published

May 2, 2026

Goals for May 2026

  1. Biomarkers: polished manuscript out to WDFW
  2. Methylation: complete, semi-polished draft of the methylation work
  3. PhD Proposal: frame Chapters 3 & 4 with Steven, building on the first two while (1) creating new knowledge with what we already have, and (2) validating that new knowledge

Goal 1 Plan: Biomarker Manuscript

Status: Complete first draft undergoing revision before submission to my committee

Target Delivery Date: May 10th

Steps:

  1. Clarify the central takeaway via re-outlining the main sections.
  2. Rebuild the results around the figures.
  3. Focus the discussion to the main 3 take homes (A. Biomarkers reveal spatially variable organismal response across Puget Sound, B. Contaminant burden and biological response are related, but not always linearly, and C. This supports biomarkers as monitoring tools, but molecular validation is needed)
  4. Align the introduction to the take home messages in the discussion by removing the extraneous context and focusing on what we tried to do (use an existing monitoring program’s samples to assess contaminant burden)

Goal 2 Plan: Methylation Manuscript

Status: Drafting results and discussion

Target Delivery Date: May 31st

Steps:

  1. Re- work the results to 2-3 short paragraphs that (1) outline the sequence/ process stats, (2) report what we found, and (3) indicate the impacted biological functions.
  2. Frame the introduction around problem/ knowledge gap we are answering with the research question, Does DNA methylation differ between exposure to the low and high concentrations of PAHs? Ultimately, mussels are sentinels for contaminant monitoring, PAHs are the target contaminant, traditional biomarkers don’t help us identify the mechanisms used to mitigate contaminant exposure, DNA methylation can provide that identification and insight, and we are testing whether the methylation patterns differ across exposure levels?
  3. Clean up methods to be more concise and support the order of the results section.
  4. Turn the discussion outline into fully supported (via citations) 3 paragraphs that center around the lack of traditional xenobiotic genes in the identified list, noting that these three processes (membrane processes, intracellular signaling, and intracellular trafficking) are also impacted by xenobiotics, and establishing that the identified genes can be complementary processes to the traditional ones.
  5. Outline the limitations of the study and the next steps by identifying the mosaic pattern of the invertebrate methylome, the inevitable confounding that comes from contaminant classes in the waterways, and lack of temporal resolution prevents us from a clear understanding of whether the impacted genes are in response to the exposure, other stressors, or just the normal state of the organism.

Goal 3 Plan: PhD Proposal

Status: Brainstorming

Target Delivery Date: June 15th

Steps:

  1. Chapter 3 potential question - Can integrated biomarker, contaminant, spatial, and methylation data identify candidate molecular and organismal indicators of contaminant-associated stress in Mytilus trossulus?
  2. Identify how the data collected from Chapters 1 & 2 can inform a series of small pilot experiments or be integrated into other existing open- source date.
  3. Determine the scope and scale of a lab- based experiment to move forward by identifying and ranking a list of candidate biomarkers based on existing work.
  4. Chapter 4 potential question- Do candidate biomarkers and methylation-associated targets identified from field data respond predictably under controlled contaminant and temperature exposure?
  5. Outline what a field- based test can or cannot validate, and the minimum acceptable outcome for validation (i.e., if one gene is validated out of 8, is that enough?).
  6. Potential field- test to validate candidate biomarkers from Chapter 3 while also collecting data to compare to the results fo Chapters 1 & 2.

There is still more refinement to come for Chapters 3 & 4, but most of that will come during my weekly working sessions with Steven as we move forward with closing out the previous chapter’s manuscripts.