Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello.

I am a grade 10 student curious about a science fair project I am interested in. I have suffered from eczema pretty much my whole life and I am very interested in the science behind it so I would love to conduct a science fair project based on it. I have access to a biology lab at my high school. It has an incubator and other basic scientific equipment but not too much.

I'm not quite sure about my topic yet, as I'm unsure what I can do with the topic of eczema. I have a bit of knowledge on it and I had a few different ideas for a project, but I'm not sure if they could be implemented. I was thinking that I could relate it to the immunological response, specifically its relation to T or B cells. I'm not sure how I would create a project on this though. I was also thinking that I could relate it to melanocytes, which are cells responsible for producing melanin. Eczema can cause pityriasis alba which are light patches on the skin. Is there a way I could do an experiment based on this? Please let me know if there is a way that I could make an experiment on either of these ideas or if you have any other ideas that would work related to eczema.

I'm working on researching more ideas but I cannot find too much online.

Here are some sources I have looked at, but many are more complicated trials/experiments.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 131956.htm
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases ... 030618.php
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamade ... cle/480910

Thank you so much,

Maya

Hi Maya!

At the lab where I work, we do research on the immune response to a bunch of different skin diseases. It’s a really interesting topic! As you said, a lot of these experiments involve complex techniques and equipment that you probably don’t have access to in a high school biology lab. To study the immune response in eczema, you would have to work with mammalian cells or tissues. Does your lab have a laminar flow cabinet that you could use to culture cells? If you don’t have someone who could help you with proper cell culture technique, that might make your experiment more complicated than you want it to be.

I would suggest basing your project around bacteria. Scientists have found that eczema flareups may be related to an overgrowth of “bad” bacteria on the skin. Your skin is covered by bacteria, and a lot of them are “good” bacteria that protect your skin by helping boost your immune system, but if bad bacteria start to outcompete the good bacteria, it can cause an inflammatory skin disease like eczema. Here’s a link to an article that explains more about this.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-05- ... reups.html

I think doing a project that focuses on bacteria could work for you since bacteria are easily accessible and fairly simple to work with if you have access to a lab with an incubator. You can look up which strains of bacteria might play a role in eczema and come up with an experiment that tests different methods for controlling the growth of that bacteria. To help get you started, I’m linking a Science Buddies message thread where another student was looking for help with a project relating to eczema. In their experiment, they wanted to test if different topical skin treatments could kill Staphylococcus aureus, a type of bacteria that’s often found on the skin of patients with eczema. This might help you come up with some ideas for your own project.

viewtopic.php?t=20485

I hope this helps. Don’t hesitate to ask any more questions that you have!
Katelyn

Hi Katelyn,

Thank you so much for your response! Your answers are so helpful.

My lab has a fume hood but I'm not sure if you are able to culture cells in a fume hood. I can ask my science teacher about that tomorrow and let you know right away!

I think working with bacteria would be very interesting, but the only problem is that it is quite similar to my grade 8 science fair project. In grade 8, I cultured K. Rosea bacteria and measured the effectiveness of acne medications on inhibiting bacterial growth. I used this procedure from science buddies: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... medication.

I think that these two procedures may be a bit too similar as they both work with bacteria and measuring how effective medications are, just for two different skin disorders. I think I would like to do something a bit different this year.

Do you have any other suggestions for a type of science fair project I could do, relating to eczema and along the same lines, but with a different experiment/procedure? I would love to hear any ideas! I will also get back to you on whether my school's fume hood can culture bacteria, as I think the immune response is so interesting. I think the fume hood is more for chemistry but I can definitely check.

Thank you so much again,

Maya

Hi Maya,

I'm happy to hear you've worked with bacteria before! Since you have eczema yourself, you might be able to take your bacteria experiment to the next level by culturing bacteria from your own skin. You can swab an area of your skin where you're having an eczema flare up and another skin area where there's no eczema and streak the swabs onto agar plates to see if the inflamed skin has more Staphylococcus aureus on it than normal skin. To culture Staphylococcus aureus, you can buy Mannitol-Salt agar plates. The Staph aureus turns the media in the plates yellow so it's easy to distinguish the Staph aureus from other bacterial strains.

https://www.carolina.com/prepared-biolo ... +salt+agar

You could try applying one of the medicines that you normally use to manage your eczema to the eczema patches and then swab your skin again after applying the treatment to see if it affected Staph aureus levels. You could also have family members swab their skin and see how their Staph aureus levels compare to yours.

I hope this helps!
Katelyn

Hi Katelyn,

Thank you so much! This idea sounds great, as it's a different procedure than what I did in grade 8 but along the same lines as what you originally suggested. I'm going to run this idea by my science teacher and see what she says. I'll let you know if I have any other questions!

Have a great night,

Maya

Hi Katelyn,

I talked to my science teacher today and she said I would be unable to swab my own skin and culture bacteria. This is because she said the IB (International Baccalaureate) Program does not allow any testing/swabbing of yourself, so I wouldn't be able to do this experiment.

I wish I could but my teacher says that it may be considered unsafe.

Going back to your original idea of the immune response in eczema, my teacher said I may be able to consider this. Is there some sort of sample procedure you could provide me with, or just let me know what materials would be needed and how the experiment would be conducted? Also, is it possible to order mammalian cells or do you need to culture them yourself? Please let me know about this, as it would be a very interesting project!

I also looked into another cause of eczema, which is a filaggrin (protein) deficiency, so I may be able to do an experiment based on that, but I'm not really sure what kind of procedure could be based on that.

Thanks again,

Maya

Hi Maya,

You can order mammalian cells online. A lot of skin immunology experiments usually use keratinocytes or fibroblasts since those are the main cell types that make up the skin. To culture cells, you would need the appropriate cell culture media, pipettes, cell culture flasks, and a centrifuge. Unfortunately, these materials cost hundreds of dollars so I don't think it would be feasible to culture cells in a high school lab that doesn't already have these materials. You would also need someone experienced in cell culture to teach you how to do the technique. Besides the cell culture materials, you would also have to buy materials to analyze the immune response, such as kits to detect inflammatory cytokine levels, and those are really expensive too. I think this project would only be possible if you were working with a researcher in a lab at a university or company.

I do have one experiment idea relating to filaggrin. Filaggrin is an important protein for maintaining a tight skin barrier. When you have a filaggrin deficiency, this makes your skin "leaky" and moisture can escape, causing dry skin. Science Buddies has an experiment that uses a gelatin model of human skin to test out the effectiveness of different moisturizers. Gelatin and human skin are similar in that they both contain collagen. You could modify the experiment to test out the effectiveness of different lotions that are marketed as treatments for eczema.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... st#summary

You could also potentially do a bioinformatics project. This would be entirely computer based so you wouldn't need to work in a lab. This experiment involves using an online data base to predict whether or not a drug will have off target effects. You could choose an eczema drug to research, maybe one that targets the immune system, and see how it might unintentionally affect other pathways in the body.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... t-accuracy

I hope this helps!
Katelyn

Hi Katelyn,

Thank you so much! Yes, I don't think it would be feasible or possible to do an immune response project then. Thanks for informing me about it though!

I will look into and consider both of those topics you suggested, thank you! You have been so helpful and I really appreciate all the resources and ideas you have sent me!

Have a great evening,

Maya