Science majors participate in BioNES regional meeting

Three students competed for the Undergraduate Student Award and 14 gave poster presentations during the seventh annual Biology New England South (BioNES) regional meeting, held at Roger Williams University Dec. 6.

In addition, Dr. JD Swanson, assistant professor of biology and biomedical sciences, gave a presentation titled “Exploring Environmental Triggers for Cell Profilerations.”

Over the past seven years, BioNES has reached 1,475 participants, featured 63 faculty presentations of research programs, 50 graduate and undergraduate students in the oral competitions and 264 posters, and granted 15 BioNES awards.

The students who competed for the Undergraduate Student Award were:

• Kaitlin Chambers ’14: “Synthesis of Substituted Pyrimidinones for Use as Potential Quorum Sensing Inhibitors”
• Craig Irving ’14: “Reconstitution of Rat Brain Voltage and Ligand Gated Ion Channels into Xenopus leavis Oocytes”
• Kelsey Stafstrom ’14: “Gallic Acid Shuts Down Cell Cycle Proliferation in Stomach Cancer”

The students who gave poster presentations were:

• Monaf Awwa ’15: “Antioxidant Activity of Aquidneck Honey Extracts”
• Alexandria Bierce ’14 and Kaitlin Morton ’14: “Investigating Real Time qPCR Products After Gallic Acid Exposure to Rubus Callus”
• Kaitlin Chambers ’14: “Synthesis of Substituted Pyrimidinones For Use as Potential Quorum Sensing Inhibitors”
• Lindsey Coates ’14: “Synthesis and Evaluation of Phevalin as a Potential Quorum Sensing Inhibitor”
• Heather Conboy ’16: “Characterization of Voltage Dependent L Type Calcium Channel Currents in Xenopus Oocytes”
• Tia Crowther ’15: “Characterization of Lipase Activity using an HA Epitope Tagged LdLip3 Expressed Protein”
• Karly Douglas ’14: “Using Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism to Determine the Categorization of Leishmania”
• Craig Irving ’14 and Abigail Toltin: “Determination of Voltage-Sensitive Sodium Channel Expression in Rat Brain Tissue Using Automated Western Blotting”
• Stephanie Marvel “15: “Using the AFLP Technique to Detect Differences in Gene Expression of Leishmania”
• Noe Mercado ’14: “An Analysis of Macroalgal Bloom Formation Patterns in Correlation with LhcSR Gene Expression”
• Samantha Neff ’15: “Neurolemma-Injected Xenopus oocytes as a tool to study Cav2.2”
• Christine Ortiz ’15: “Differentiation of Pathogenic Leishmania Species through Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) Analysis”