To highlight the work of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s undergraduate students, the department held its first annual undergraduate poster session where the students presented the work they’ve accomplished in their area of research. 20 students representing seven labs within the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department participated in this poster event. All 20 posters were judged by faculty, postdocs and senior graduate students, and five were chosen as the top 5 posters. In the adjacent picture, from left to right, the poster award winners are Tanqi (Jimmy) Wei, William Chmely, Alyssa Wolff and Maja Haerle. Ryan Day not pictured.
Winners
William Chmely Graduate Student Mentor: Justin Kurian
Lab PI: Dr. Mavis Agbandje-McKenna
Title: Characterization of AAV2 Capsid Stability and Protease Activity
Ryan Day Graduate Student Mentor: Melissa Hale
Lab PI: Dr. Andy Berglund
Title: Exploring the role of the inter-domain linker region in the context of synthetic Muscleblind-like 1 Proteins
Maja Haerle Postdoc Mentor: Dr. Kaalak Reddy
Lab PI: Dr. Andy Berglund
Title: Engineering Zinc Finger Proteins to Block Transcription of Disease-causing DNA Repeat Expansions
Tianqi (Jimmy) Wei Graduate Student Mentor: Christopher Fields
Lab PI: Dr. Mingyi Xie
Title: Dicer Cleavage of Various 5′ Extension of Precursor MicroRNAs
Alyssa Wolff Graduate Student Mentor: Mam Mboge
Lab PI: Dr. Susan Frost
Title: The Effect of SLC-149 on Breast Cancer Cell Growth and Viability
Participants
Dominique Barral Postdoc Mentor: Drs. Lauren Douma and Ryan Crislip
Lab PI: Dr. Michelle Gumz
Title: Assessing the Recombination Efficiency of Kidney-Specific Bmal1 Knockout Mice Using Triplex Polymeric Chain Reaction
Maclean Bassett Graduate Student Mentor: Yong Shen
Lab PI: Dr. Jörg Bungert
Title: Identification of a novel enhancer/chromatin opening element associated with high-level gamma-globin gene expression
Julie Davila Graduate Student Mentor: Mam Mboge
Lab PI: Dr. Susan Frost
Title: Effect of Beta-Caryophyllen on Lipid Biosynthesis in Breast Cancer Cells
Meaghan Holzworth Graduate Student/Postdoc Mentors: Drs. Kristen Solocinski, Lauren Douma and Ryan Crislip
Lab PI: Dr. Michelle Gumz
Title: Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock: Clock Gene Expression is Altered in Sleep Apnea
Taha Huda Graduate Student Mentor: Christopher Fields
Lab PI: Dr. Mingyi Xie
Title: Identification of miR-320 targets via CrossLinking And Sequencing of Hybrids (CLASH)
Precious Ichite Postdoc Mentors: Drs. Lauren Douma and Ryan Crislip
Lab PI: Dr. Michelle Gumz
Title: Physiology Understanding (PhUn Week) at Norton Elementary
Keyura Katam Graduate Student Mentor: Ryan Day (undergrad) and Melissa Hale
Lab PI: Dr. Andy Berglund
Title: Investigating the use of a Drosophila Muscleblind as a synthetic protein therapeutic in myotonic dystrophy
Daniel Khokhar Graduate Student Mentor: Mam Mboge
Lab PI: Dr. Susan Frost
Title: Comparing Protein Expression in Breast Cancer Cell Lines
Sarah Masten Graduate Student/Postdoc Mentors: Drs. Kristen Solocinski, Lauren Douma and Ryan Crislip
Lab PI: Dr. Michelle Gumz
Title: Inducible Skeletal Muscle-Specific Knockout of Bmal1 Leads to Altered Expression of Critical Kidney Function Genes
Bret Miller Postdoc Mentor: Dr. Peike Sheng
Lab PI: Dr. Mingyi Xie
Title: Infrared Dye Based Method for Northern Blot Analysis
Jennifer Moscovitch Graduate Student Mentor: Dr. Kaalak Reddy
Lab PI: Dr. Andy Berglund
Title: Applying Small Molecules to Selectively Reduce Expanded CUG Repeats in Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1
Julia Paoli Graduate Student Mentor: Nikea Pittman
Lab PI: Dr. Mavis Agbandje-McKenna
Title: Purification of Adeno-Associated Virus Serotype 3B for Antigenic Footprint Mapping
Read Quarles Graduate Student Mentor: Ryan Day (undergrad) and Melissa Hale
Lab PI: Dr. Andy Berglund
Title: Synthetic proteins in the treatment of myotonic dystrophy
Paul Wassel Graduate Student Mentor: Aishwarya Gurumurthy
Lab PI: Dr. Jörg Bungert
Title: Functional analysis of beta-globin locus control region hypersensitive site 2 (LCR HS2) associated non-coding RNA
Alan Carter Graduate Student Mentor: Mukundan Ragavan
Lab PI: Dr. Matt Merritt
Title: Analysis of Relative 13C Istopomer Amounts using J-Resolved HSQC