Congratulations are in order to Natasha Kulviwat, who has won the 2023 Gordon E. Moore Award at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair! Natasha is a student at Jericho High School in Jericho, New York and conducted part of her research at Columbia University.
Natasha’s research was on “The Neurobiology of Suicide” and identified the claudin-5 protein as a potential novel biomarker of suicide pathogenesis. Regeneron’s press release explained that “By analyzing de-identified brain tissue from 20 people, Natasha measured levels of two proteins, cytokine(s) and claudin-5, and found that neuroinflammation and claudin-5 were increased in the brains of suicide cases. Her work suggests that high levels of the protein claudin-5 could serve as pre-markers for suicide and that certain anti-inflammatory drugs might decrease claudin-5 levels.”
In plainer English, claudin-5 is a protein that serves as part of the blood-brain barrier, which blocks unwanted items in the bloodstream from seeping into the brain. When that protein breaks down it can then be detected in various locations deep within the brain, suggesting that the blood-brain barrier was compromised. This in turn allows cytokines (proteins that drive inflammation) to enter the brain, possibly affecting both neurological and psychological states as illustrated below by a figure from Natasha's Regeneron presentation.
In a 2019 paper cited by Natasha, Greene et al. highlighted the importance of claudin-5 in the central nervous system’s blood-brain barrier and noted in BMC Fluids and Barriers of the CNS that “Downregulation of claudin-5 is an early and prominent feature of MS and epilepsy, suggesting that early loss of claudin-5 and breakdown of paracellular BBB integrity is an important feature of the pathogenesis of these disorders.” Natasha’s research suggests a similar potential link between downregulation of claudin-5 and brain inflammation and suicidality.
Additionally, there has been for quite some time a temptation to view suicide as primarily a psychological issue subject to behavioral-based predictors, but current approaches and treatment attempts have not seen great success. By highlighting the potential neurodegenerative role of the degradation of the blood-brain barrier (associated with the breakdown of claudin-5 proteins in the brain) in suicide, Natasha’s research opens a potential new avenue for research and possible eventual treatments.