CHS student earns first place in preliminary 3MT competition for inflammation research

Aaliyah Carter, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and doctorate in Biomedical Sciences dual degree student at the OSU Center for Health Sciences.

CHS student earns first place in preliminary 3MT competition for inflammation research

Monday, December 8, 2025

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Aaliyah Carter's passion for research began as an undergraduate student.

Carter is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and doctorate in Biomedical Sciences dual degree student at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences. She was first introduced to research through a summer experience at the University of Oklahoma.

That summer in a diabetes lab introduced her to basic research techniques like Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR. Enjoying the experience, she decided to pursue her own undergraduate research project on spinal cord activity in turtles.

"If I'm willing to be in the lab until after midnight, doing all these different surgeries and stuff, I'm pretty sure I like research," Carter joked.

Her interest in medicine began back in high school after falling in love with chemistry and developing an interest in neurology.

After obtaining her Bachelor of Science, she worked as a medical assistant in a family clinic. The primary physician was a DO and pointed her in the direction of OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Carter, who is currently in her second year, said she enjoys the environment at OSU-CHS.

"I love the collaborative atmosphere of this program. I've heard of other programs where people are more competitive researchers, trying to get results first or faster. It's not like that here; we do a lot of collaborative experiments," she said.

Carter has continued to pursue research projects centered around pain and inflammation. Currently, she is part of a lab at OSU-CHS researching microglia, which she described as cells that act as the bodyguards of the central nervous system.

According to Carter, microglia have a resting and an attack mode, which is what starts inflammatory responses.

"The inflammatory response is good for initial cuts or initial infections. However, when the response keeps going on for weeks on end, that's when it leads to disorders like fibromyalgia, arthritis, neuropathy and more," Carter said.

Prior research has indicated that microglia are linked to the development of those conditions because they initiate the inflammatory response. Her lab is examining the transition from acute to long-term inflammation in addition to testing how opioids affect microglia.

"Opioids like oxycodone are prescribed for pain in disorders like neuropathy and fibromyalgia, but not much is known about how oxycodone and OxyContin affect the microglia. Prior research has solely focused on how it affects the nerves and pain signals," Carter said.

Preliminary results have shown a link between opioids and the proteins that trigger inflammation in microglia. Currently, she and her research partners are testing whether opioid blockers like naloxone influence the response.

Recently, Carter presented her research at the OSU Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.

The 3MT competitions challenge students to present their research in three minutes using one static slide.

She was inspired to enter the competition after attending the preliminaries last year and felt it would be good practice for her.

"You can easily talk about your research with your fellow neuroscientists and use all the technical terms, but how do you explain it to the general public or people not in your field? It was a chance for me to practice presenting my research to people who don't know what microglia are," Carter said.

In October, she participated in the preliminaries at the College of Veterinary Medicine in Stillwater, where she took first place.

"It was completely unexpected," Carter said. "I was just doing it for fun; I didn't expect to win. When they announced the first-place winner was me, my mom and I went crazy."

She went on to compete in the universitywide finals in November, and although she did not place, she said she still had a great time participating and sharing her research.

Her advice for anyone interested in research is to remember that failure is expected and okay.

"There are days when I do an experiment and it doesn't work out because of an expired reagent or contamination, so all my work for the day is out. You have to get used to that kind of rejection. It's not always going to work and be prepared for it. That's just a part of science," Carter said.