Merck/AAAS Summer Research 2008
Simmons Students in Merck/AAAS Summer Research 2008
Four Simmons students were funded in 2008 by a Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program Grant to work in the research laboratories of faculty in the biology and chemistry departments at Simmons. Faculty members worked with these students for ten weeks in the summer of 2008 as they pursued projects in developmental biology, neurophysiology, molecular biology and biochemistry. Rachel Franchi worked in the lab of Dr. Jennifer Roecklein-Canfield on “The Epstein-Barr Virus-Human Interactome: Understanding viral-host relationships using virus-human protein-protein interactions”, Wendy Leung worked with Dr. Mary Owen studying “Hox expression along the anterior-posterior axis and in the limb bud of the Dominant hemimelia mouse mutant,” Susan Mazalan worked with Dr. Bruce Gray on “Roscovitine reverses the disruption in transmitter release caused by beta amyloid peptide in both ciliary ganglion cultures and intact terminals,” and Laura Moody worked with Dr. Jane Lopilato on “Characterizing the effect of an altered SlyD on bgl silencing." Drs. Jennifer Roecklein-Canfield and Jane Lopilato are co-investigators on the grant.
These students have or will be presenting their work at national and regional scientific association meetings including the Annual Boston Bacterial Meeting (Moody and Lopilato, June 2008), Northeast Regional Meetings of the Society for Developmental Biology (Leung, Roecklein-Canfield and Owen, April 2009) and Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Mazalan and Gray, November 2008). It is expected that these students will also be presenting at either the Annual Eastern New England Biological Conference or Simmons Biological Symposium. This experience provides students with a wonderful opportunity for intensive, mentored research training that is important preparation for careers in basic science or biomedical research.
Left to Right: Bruce Gray, Laura Moody, Wendy Leung, Jane Lopilato, Rachel Franchi, Susan Mazalan, Joanna Hawryluk, Mary Owen, Jennifer Roecklein-Canfield