Conferences

 

The fourth annual K-INBRE Student Research Symposium was held at the Alumni Center at Kansas State University, Manhattan, January 14-15, 2005. Attendees included Drs. Rider, Chung, and Visiting Scholar, Dr. Laura Li. Five undergraduate students; Brent Cameron, Stacy Jones, Ryan LaSota, Meryl Twarog and John Yost presented their research at the meeting. Sara Gorjestani, a new graduate student in the Department of Biology also attended. Dr. Rider was invited to give a plenary presentation that summed up the research efforts of undergraduate students in her laboratory over the last four years. Dr. Leanne Wiedeman gave an outstanding talk titled “Tracking Genomic Footprint through Evolution”. Dr. Wiedeman’s research shows that the regulatory elements that control Hox gene expression are conserved across species. It was a great weekend for science and fellowship. On Saturday night everyone had the opportunity to be entertained by a Women’s Basketball Game (K-State vs Colorado). K-State won which put all of the fans in a good mood for the Sunday meeting. PSU students continue to impress faculty and students from other universities throughout Kansas by the quality of their research presentations. The next student Research Symposium will be held in Kansas City in January, 2007.

The third annual K-INBRE Student Research Symposium was held at the Kansas Student Union at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, January 15-16, 2005. Attendees included Drs. Brooker, Chung, and Rider and five undergraduate students. Stacy Jones gave an oral and poster presentation titled "Beta-Catenin: A key Modulator of Synchronized proliferation in progesterone pretreated rat uterine stromal cells." Meryl Twarog gave an oral and poster presentation titled "Changes in the Cell Specific Regulation ofGlycogen Synthase Kinase 3-beta: A potential regulator of the endocrine-dependent proliferative switch from epithelium to stroma in the rat uterus." James Vallandingham gave a poster presentation titled "Using scanning electron microscopy to observe the primary infection stages of the fungal pathogen M. Phaseolina in soybean plants." Brent Cameron and Andrea Wassum attended the conference. The plenary presentation by Dr. David Albertini, Hall Professor of Molecular Medicine, was of real interest because it gave an historical perspective about reproductive technology and the social implications. The next student symposium will be held at K-STATE in January.

The first annual K-BRIN Student Research Symposium was held at the University of Kansas Medical Center January 11-12, 2003. Attendees included Dr. Brooker, Rider and Zurek and three undergraduate students. The students were Brett Dunbar (Zurek), Janae Jarred (Rider) and Clint Seifert (Rider). The students submitted abstracts and Seifert’s abstract titled “Cyclin D3 Expression Correlates with G1 Transit in Synchronously Proliferating Rat Uterine Stromal Cells” was selected for oral presentation. Dunbar presented a poster titled “Isolation of a Naturally Occurring Antibiotic from Soybean.” Janae Jarred presented a poster titled “Cloning of the Human Calcineurin Gene Promoter and Identification of Consensus DNA Regulatory Regions” while Joey Symes submitted an abstract titled “Temporal changes in Pathogen Population Diversity.” The conference was a great success and will be held at Kansas State University in Manhattan next January.