From Brussels Sprouts to Biotech: Mahi's Honors Thesis Success Story
By Samuel Cavalheiro
Content
Mahidhar (Mahi) Sai Lakkavaram was a senior chemical engineering honors student who finished his Honors Thesis. He studied decellularized plant-based biomaterials with Shelly Peyton, provost professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. It is a new field that is attempting to turn plant material into new biomaterials that are applicable for humans and animals. Mahi aimed to add to this developing field, which he hopes will be able to fulfill global needs for necessary medical procedures.
Read this interview from his final days on campus and follow Mahi’s journey from his first steps to his last!
Q: How did you start your proposal?
I was actually working in a research lab my junior year. I was really interested in biomaterials and tissue engineering in general. It’s a really new field and there’s a lot that’s coming out. I was working in this lab called the Peyton Lab—they’re a biomaterials lab in the Department of Chemical Engineering. By the time my thesis came around, I really wanted to focus on that research and thinking about what I could do with biomaterials and engineering.
Q: How did you join the lab? How did you find a professor that was willing to sponsor you?
In general, through my classes, I would find out about a lot of different research areas. There was energy, oil and gas, food science, all of that. When I heard about tissue engineering, I thought it was really cool.
Eventually, I was reaching out to professors, reading about their labs, reading about what kind of work they’re hoping to do next.
That’s how I came across the Peyton Lab. I reached out to Dr. Peyton, we had a really good discussion, and then she told me about this plant-based biomaterials project she was trying to start. Another undergraduate student and I were the ones that started it, and we have been working on it since my junior year.
Q: How did you plan your proposal?
When I had to plan my proposal, I was looking at a lot of literature and trying to see what is something that people have not done yet. My professor initiated the idea that a plant like corn, for example, is widely available. It generates a ton of crop waste, but it's not used at all as efficiently as it can be. So, we first thought maybe we can potentially use corn or other plants as biomaterials. And so, that's where I started planning out my thesis and looking at the properties of corn and these other plants. Looking at how it can potentially be decellularized effectively, and then what kind of cell lens I can put onto it.
I talked to my professor a lot, talked to her about what she was looking for and what kind of work she wanted done. That helped me decide what I wanted my project to be.
Q: What was the research process for your thesis?
A lot of it was literature review, I was trying to find any and all papers I could about developing decellularized plant-based biomaterials. I would look at what different techniques people use; look at what they're trying to do next; what were some challenges they faced—making this giant research bank for myself. That was the first part of it. Through my research, I found that a lot of other plants, like Brussels sprouts (that have preventative properties for cancer when used as a biomaterial) were not looked at previously.
Then, we came to the experiments. I would replicate what a lot of previous papers did, and fit it to the plant I'm using.
There's a soap. It's called Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate, or SDS. It's a really effective way to decellularize a plant or essentially clear it out of those cells, and a lot of papers used that. So I started with the concentrations of SDS and the time that these previous papers used, and then I would go up or go down if it wasn't working for my corn, or for my Brussels sprouts.
I kept tweaking it. I kept trying to replicate this research and then trying to fit it to my model.
Q: You say your research was mostly literature review, where did you start finding the literature?
I actually used the libraries a lot because once you start doing your thesis, if you want it to have some sort of substance, you're going to want to use the articles they offer.
Then, through that process, I started finding common journals that looked at biomaterials or nature-inspired biomaterials. I started looking at very specific journals that publish work like this.
How did Professor Peyton assist you in your thesis journey?
Dr. Peyton was always ready to come talk to me. She would send me different research that she would see, because she would get emails and journals from different collaborators. I would always ask her for more information or to guide me in the research process as well.
I've never done a literature review before, especially that extensive of a literature review. So, Dr. Peyton was the one who taught me exactly how I would go about looking for my research, what kind of papers I was looking for, or what kind of buzzwords I'm looking for. She was really instrumental in teaching me how to research.
Then, when it comes to the actual experiment and the planning process, we don't meet as much, but I'm always messaging her, updating her on what happened or what I'm trying to do next.
Communicating with Dr. Peyton was key to making my project work.
Q: How did you put together your conclusions?
This is the part where I actually am having a little bit of difficulty because I was looking at so many different plants. I was trying so many different things.
When it came to drawing conclusions, I would say the science spoke for itself. I could see from my results that one decellularization technique did work, one decellularization technique didn't work. And then the one that worked weakened the sample, the one that didn't work still had a strong sample. Processing that data and analyzing it helped me draw those conclusions.
Q: What have you learned not only about yourself but also about chemical engineering, and how do you think that's going to help your career?
My Honors Thesis taught me that research is not easy at all. You can quite literally never expect anything.
I looked through so many papers, I can exactly time how much this is going to take or what solution would work. I didn't think that it would take as long as it did to decellularize these plants, to have to keep going in and repeating experiments and then experiments failing. I didn't expect it to be at the level that it was at.
It taught me to be very persistent and to persevere. Sometimes, it was the last thing I wanted to do, but I needed to finish it. I needed to persevere and get the work done.
I think it taught me to be a lot more creative because, again, this is something where I had to think a lot about what I can do next, since there wasn't that much coming out from other well-established professors. So, I had to really be creative and really critically think about what I can do next.
I will be working in biotech and I got to learn really great lab techniques doing this thesis. Before, I used to just do lab work, I would pipette or do whatever it was that needed to be done, but I never actually thought about it or why I was doing what I did.
This thesis really helped me think about what techniques to use, how to go about planning an experiment and the methodologies needed to complete it, so I developed a lot more critical thinking skills and using intention behind the work that I do.
And now that I'm going to go work in biotech, I'm hoping that those skills will transfer there.
Q: Do you have any advice for people who will be starting their Honors Thesis?
I guess my advice really is just stay on top of it. It came up so much faster than I expected…
It is monumental to consult with your chair or professor as much as you can, because their support, their advice, really helps you develop a really good thesis.
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Samuel Cavalheiro
