Twenty-five undergraduate researchers, many of whom were in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) summer program, presented their work at a two-day Rensselaer symposium on July 29 and August 3, 2005.

L-R: Lauren Regula, William Huser, Julianne Backiel, Sam DeLuca, Namdi MacFoy, Nicole Shapiro, Sam Christy

These students spent their summer conducting experiments in biochemistry, bioinformatics and molecular biology, biophysics, cell biology, developmental biology, and microbiology in 9 laboratories at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Five students visited from Hampton College and Virginia Union University as part of a special HHMI summer research program offering research opportunities to minority students.  HHMI is a non-profit medical research organization dedicated to basic biomedical research and education. It also has a grant program dedicated to strengthening education in the biological and related sciences. HHMI awarded Rensselaer a $1.2 million, four-year grant in the Undergraduate Biological Sciences Education Program.

Rensselaer's Biology Department is responsible for this grant, and offers research opportunities to undergraduates during the academic year, as well as in the summer, with stipends provided. The student researchers and their projects are listed below.

Projects and Labs

L-R:  LaChelle Blunt, Megan Redmond, Abder Benghanem, Stephanie Kozachek, Stuart Linke, Anna Bonnett, Jon Ellement, Sara Kastrup

Elaine Lunsford: Encapsulation of Adult Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells Within Collagen-Agarose Microenvironments (Lab: George Plopper)

Sam Christy: Early Phosporylation Events Of Focal Adhesion Kinase in Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (Lab: George Plopper)

Nicole Schapiro: Screening human mesenchymal stem cells for expression of exogenous focal adhesion kinase (FAK) (Lab: George Plopper)

Lauren Regula: Predicting protein unfolding pathways using topology (Lab: Chris Bystroff)

Sam DeLuca: Ecome: real time ecosystem modeling (Lab: Chris Bystroff)

Namdi MacFoy: Projecting protein inter-residue contact maps into three dimensions (Lab: Chris Bystroff)

William Huser: Topology of the Na+-NQR subunits in Vibrio cholerae bacteria (Lab: Blanca Barquera)

Julianne Backiel: Adaption of Vibrio cholerae to changing aqueous environments in its cycle of infection (Lab: Blanca Barquera)

Portia Gillespie: An investigation of Na+-NQR using site directed mutagenesis (Lab: Blanca Barquera)

Jessica McGovern: Determining the function of the PEX domain of MMPs in drosophila (Lab: Andrea Page-McCaw )

Teresa Burton: Cloning of pen-2 for over-expression: an essential component of B3;-secretase (Lab: Chunyu Wang)

L-R:  Interim Chair Robert Parsons, HHMI Program Director Robert Palazzo, Jessica McGovern, Kwadwo Amoakohene, Teresa Burton, Portia Gillespie, Katie Mahoney, Nikkia Sawyer

Katie Mahoney: A comparison of the structure and function of native and renatured alpha A- and alpha B-crystallins (Lab: Jane Koretz)

Alice Hsu: Purification of ATTP, a vitamin E transfer protein (Lab: Chunyu Wang)

Abder Benghanem: Studying the complex between AB2; and ABAD-DP (Lab: Chunyu Wang)

Nikkia Sawyer: Heparan sulfate extraction from the malarial vector: Anopheles Stephensi: A target glycosaminoglycan in mosquito transmitted disease (Lab: Robert Linhardt)

Kwadwo Amoakakohene: The effect of small heat shock protein 16.5 loop on alpha-A crystalline (Lab: Jane Koretz)

Sara Kastrup: Septin function in development of C. elegans embryos through 4-D imaging (Lab: Fern Finger)

Jon Ellement: Analysis of the Na+-NQR gene through comparison of  V. cholerae,  N. gonorrhoeae, Y. pestis,and C. trachomatis (Lab: Blanca Barquera)

Anna Bonnet: An investigation into bioenergetics and enzymatic structure (Lab: Blanca Barquera)

Caitlin Piette: Mmp1 and Mmp2 in drosophila melanogaster: Exploring expression patterns and antibody specificity (Lab: Andrea Page-McCaw )

Megan Redmond: Identification of novel C. elegans septin interacting proteins using a yeast three-hybrid screen (Lab: Fern Finger)

LaChelle Blunt: Regulation of heart rate in zebrafish (Danio rerio) (Lab: Patrick Page-McCaw)

Stephanie Kozachek: Effects of stress on corticotropin-releasing factors in zebrafish (Lab: Patrick Page-McCaw)

Stuart Linke: Tyrosinase and light adaptation in zebrafish (Lab: Patrick Page-McCaw)

Published August 30, 2005