Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
McKinly Laboratory
University of Delaware
Undergraduate Student Oral Presentations
Moderator- Dr. Bill Cain

061 McKinly Laboratory
(Titles linked to abstracts)
Photos of the Sigma Xi Awards for Best Talks

1:00 PM    Steve Zucker, Senior Chemistry Major
                 "Characterization of Carbonaceous Airborne Particulate Matter in Wilmington, Delaware"
                 (Supervised by Professor Murray Johnston, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
1:15 PM    Tyler Bazzoli, Junior Biochemistry Major
                 "Identifying Biomarkers of the MHC Gene to Investigate Chemosensory Discrimination"
                 (Supervised by Professor Steven Brown, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry)

1:30 PM    Mike Pirnot, Junior Chemistry Major
                     "Towards the Synthesis of Lycopladine A"
                 (Supervised by Professor Douglass Tabor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
                   Sigma Xi Second Place Awardee
1:45 PM    Ann Benavidez, Senior Chemistry Major
                 "Investigating the Spontaneous Resolution of Abiotic Metallofoldamers using Solid-State Circular
                 Dichroism Spectroscopy"                 
                 (Supervised by Professor Joseph Fox, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
2:00 PM    Lauren Isaacs, Senior Biological Sciences Major
                 "Role of Protein-Protein Interactions in Controlling Prox1 Function"
                 (Supervised by Professor  Melinda Duncan, Department of Biological Sciences)

2:15 PM    Laura Sloofman, Senior Quantitative Biology Major
                 "Effects of Diminished Protein Synthesis on Bone Anabolic Response to Load in RPL29-deficient Mice"
                 (Supervised by Professor Catherine Kirn-Safran, Department of Biological Sciences)
                  Sigma Xi First Place Awardee
   
2:30 PM    Allison Kasmari, Senior Biological Sciences Major
                 "Identifying the potential gene targets of microRNAs involved in the bone metastasis
                 of prostate cancer to bone"
                 (Supervised by Professor Mary C. Farach-Carson, Department of Biological Sciences)
                  Sigma Xi Third Place Awardee

2:45 PM    Stephanie Myrick, Senior Biochemistry Major
                     "Design of a Cell-Responsive De-PEGylation DNA Delivery System"
                 (Supervised by Professor Millicent Sulivan, Department of Chemical Engineering )
Judges for Sigma Xi Awards arranged by Andrew Cottone, Vice President for Chemistry, Adesis, Inc and Delaware BioScience Association:
   
    Kenneth Leavitt, Synthetic Organic Chemist from Adesis
    Masaaki Fujiki, Molecular Biologist at the Fraunhofer Center for Molecular Biotechnology
    Helen Baker, Material Scientist,  AstraZeneca
    Jessica Chichester, Immunologist, Fraunhofer Center for Molecular Biotechnology


Undergraduates who presented talks at the Sigma Xi competition.
Front Row (left to right) Stephanie Myrick, Laura Sloofman, and Lauren Isaacs
Back Row (left to right) Ann Benavidez, Allison Kasmari, Mike Pirnot, Tyler Bazzoli, and Steve Zucker.

Waiting for the Winners to be announced.


Winners of the Sigma Xi Competition with Dr. Carl Schmidt, president of the local chapter of Sigma Xi.
Left to right- Allison Kasmari (third place), Mike Pirnot (second place), and Laura Sloofman (first place).

Judges from local industry who served as judges for the Sigma Xi competition.
Left to right Helen Baker, Jessica Chichester, Ken Leavitt, and
Maasaki Fujiki; Bill Cain (session moderator)
Links: Summer 2008 Undergraduate Research Symposium, 2008 Undergraduate Research Summer Enrichment Program,
Unversity of Delaware Undergraduate Research Program, University of Delaware Howard Hughes Undergraduate Program.
Created 2 August 2008. Last up dated 15 August 2008 by Hal White [halwhite at udel.edu]
Copyright 2008, University of Delaware