Student Scientists Showcase Buffalo Summer Research Projects

The interdisciplinary research forum marked the culmination of diverse summer research projects that the undergraduate and graduate students conducted in Buffalo.

They worked with mentors to explore cancer, infectious disease, neuroscience, pharmacology, protein structure and other topics.

The event took place Aug. 2 at the UB Clinical and Translational Science Institute in downtown Buffalo.

During the forum, students from six summer research programs participated in a poster expo. One student from each program was selected to deliver an oral presentation.

Keynote speaker Charles Zukoski, PhD, UB provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, shared his experiences as a leading chemical engineering researcher.

The summer programs—which this year drew participants from as near as Western New York and as far away as Puerto Rico and Hawaii—offer students meaningful research experiences on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, explains Terry D. Connell, PhD,  professor of microbiology and immunology and coordinator of Research Day.

“These students are getting a real taste for the state-of-the-art research being performed in Buffalo,” says Connell, who also directs the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE).

“Their level of excitement is one demonstration of how research is growing rapidly here on a national and international scale.”

The research projects for the four summer programs involving the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences were as follows:

• "G-Protein Coupled Receptor Regulation of Human Myelination”
  Student: Jessie Polanco Garcia
  Mentor: Fraser J. Sim, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology
  
• “Transcriptional Effectors of Ras/MAPK Signaling during Drosophila Visceral Muscle Development”
  Student: Edwin Alvarado
  Mentor: Marc S. Halfon, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry
  
• “Single Molecule Force Analysis of RecBCD”
  Student: Aashutosh Vihani
  Mentor: Piero Bianco, PhD, associate professor of microbiology and immunology
• “Histone Modifications and Their Role in Mismatch Repair”
  Student: Robert Battaglia
  Mentor: Jennifer Surtees, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry
• “Bacterial Toxin LT-IIc Induces Autophagy and Cell Death in Breast Cancer Cells”
  Student: Sofia Girald
  Mentor: Patricia Masso-Welch, PhD, assistant professor of biotechnical and clinical laboratory sciences
  
• “Characterization of the Fibrogenic Role of Secreted Frizzled-Related Protein 2 (sFRP2)”
  Student: Bailey Wooldridge
  Mentor: Te-Chung Lee, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry
• “Zinc Reverses the Hypermutability that Accompanies the SOS Response to DNA Damage in Escherichia coli”
  Student: Jillian Escobar
  Mentor: John K. Crane, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine
  
• “MAM33-Like Family of Proteins in Trypanosoma brucei May Impact Mitochondrial Gene Regulation at Different Points”
  Student: Luke Marr
  Mentor: Laurie K. Read, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology
• “Regulation of Glutamate Receptors by Methylphenidate in Cultured Neurons”
  Student: Maidelisse Olivieri-Betancourt
  Mentor: Zhen Yan, PhD, professor of physiology and biophysics
  
• “The Effect of Noise Blast Trauma on Neurogenesis in the Adult Rat Hippocampus Using BrdU Labeling”
  Student: Ashlyn Norris
  Mentors: Jerome A. Roth, PhD, professor of pharmacology and toxicology, and Richard Salvi, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of communicative disorders and sciences
  

• “Role of ABC Transporters in the Pathogenesis of Moraxella catarrhalis Infections”
  Student: Madison Galasso
  Mentor: Timothy Murphy, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and senior associate dean for clinical and translational research
• “Distinguishing Infecting (New) from Colonizing (Pre-existing) Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis Strains at Exacerbation of COPD by Molecular Assays”
  Student: Janice Kim
  Mentor: Sanjay Sethi, MD, professor of medicine and chief of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine
• “The Role of Pim 2 in CD28 Cascade to Enhance Multiple Myeloma Survival”
  Student: Nancy (Kuanglien) Lin
  Mentor: Kelvin Lee, MD, research professor of medicine
  
• “Co-Pathogenesis of HIV and Cryptococcus neoformans”
  Student: Everett Sinibaldi
  Mentor: Amy Jacobs, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology
• “Contribution of CXCR3 Chemokine Receptor to T Cell-Mediated Immunity in Melanoma”
  Student: Nicole Gaulin
  Mentor: Sharon S. Evans, PhD, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
  
• “The Effect of Photodynamic Therapy on NF-kB Regulatory miRNA Expression”
  Student: Theresa Neiderer
  Mentor: Sandra Gollnick, PhD, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
  

• “Analysis and Comparison of the Ribosomal Protein S18p Family (RPS18p)”
  Student: Angela Lee
  Mentor: William L. Duax, PhD, professor of structural biology
• “The Purification and Crystallization of Chorismate Synthase”
  Student: Nathan Roach
  Mentors: Jessica Kocsis and Timothy C. Umland, PhD, research assistant professor of structural biology
  
• “Looking for the Last Universal Common Ancestor: a Bioinformatic Analysis of Ribosomal Protein S21”
  Student: Jocelyn Redlinski
  Mentor: William L. Duax, PhD, professor of structural biology
  
• “Evolution of Ribosomal Protein S10 by Conserved Residues”
  Student: John D. Huck
  Mentor: William L. Duax, PhD, professor of structural biology
  
• “Study of Evolutionary Relationships through Analysis of Ribosomal Protein S12/23 in All Organisms”
  Student: Jiaqi Liu
  Mentor: William L. Duax, PhD, professor of structural biology
  
• “Analysis of the Linker Spanning the Adenylation and Carrier Protein Domains of the NRPS Protein EntF”
  Student: Thomas Makin
  Mentors: Brad Miller, Jesse Sundlov and Andrew Gulick, PhD, assistant professor of structural biology
  
• “Preparation of Shikimate Kinase for X-ray Structure Determination”
  Student: Sean Mendez
  Mentors: Kristin Sutton, Jennifer Griswold and L. Wayne Schultz, PhD, research assistant professor of structural biology
  
• “Study of Lamprey TTR as a Model for Binding Site Function of Transthyretin-Like Proteins”
   Student: Alexander W. Breeser
  Mentors: Jim Pace and Vivian Cody, PhD, professor of structural biology
  

The following projects were funded by the Zannoni Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow Award (American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics):

• “Voltage-Operated Calcium Channels in Astrocyte Activation”
  Student: Precious de Verteuil
  Mentor: Pablo Paez, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology
• “Melatonin Modulation of Novel Object Recognition”
  Student: Danielle Precourt
  Mentor: Margarita L. Dubocovich, PhD, professor and chair of pharmacology and toxicology
• “Cocaine-Induced Behavioral Plasticity in Glial Specific PDHA1 KO Mice”
  Student: Jacob Pugliese
  Mentor: David Dietz, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology
• “Differential Desensitization of the Urotensin II Receptor by Urotensin II and Urotensin II-Related Peptide”
  Student: Grace S. Yoo
  Mentor: Stewart Clark, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology

The following projects were funded by the Institute for the Strategic Enhancement of Educational Diversity:

• “Cytochrome P-450 (CYP) Variants as Potential Biomarkers of Sensitivity to Chlorpyrifos”
  Student: Carmen Marable
  Mentor: James Olson, PhD, professor of pharmacology and toxicology
• “A Role of Puf4 in the Unconventional Splicing of HXL1 mRNA in Cryptococcus neoformans”
  Student: Ashley A. Rivera Rodríguez
  Mentor: John Panepinto, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology
• “Depletion of D2 Receptors via Intracerebroventricular Injection to Determine Impulsiveness in Rats”
  Student: Courtney Turner
  Mentor: Jun-Xu Li, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology

The following projects involved students in CLIMB-PRO, a division of CLIMB-UP for undergraduates interested in pursuing a medical degree or MD/PhD:

• “Ascitocin: A Newly Discovered Antimicrobial Found in Human Ascites and Serum”
  Student: Brandon Anhalt
  Mentor: Thomas Russo, MD, professor of medicine and chief of infectious disease
• “Working Memory Deficiencies in Neuropsychiatric Systemic Lupus Erythematosus”
  Student: Rushell Dixon
  Mentor: David Shucard, PhD, professor of neurology and director of cognitive and behavioral neurosciences
• “Immune Dysregulation in Pemphigus Vulgaris: What is a Flare?”
  Student: Shukri Dualeh
  Mentors: Animesh Sinha, MD, PhD, Rita M. and Ralph T. Behling Professor and chair of dermatology, and Kristina Seiffert, MD, research assistant professor of dermatology
• “Sympathetic Remodeling Following Coronary Revascularization in a Porcine Model of Hibernating Myocardium”
  Student: Jesus Enriquez
  Mentor: Stanley Fernandez, MD, PhD, research assistant professor of medicine
• “Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: Insights from Functional Genomics”
  Student: Kaila Epps
  Mentor: James Jarvis, MD, clinical professor of pediatrics and chief of allergy, clinical immunology and rheumatology
• “Characterization of Prostate Specific Antigen in the Serum of Prostate Cancer Patients”
  Student: Tekeydra Lee
  Mentor: Rajendram Rajnarayanan, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology
• “The Effect of Sphingosine-1-Phosphate on the Translocation of Hormone-Sensitive Lipase and Perilipin in 3T3-L1 Mouse Adipocytes”
  Student: Kathleen Sellick
  Mentor: Lucy Mastrandrea, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics

UB Biomedical Research Day also included students from UB School of Dental Medicine’s Student Research Program and Roswell Park’s Summer Research Experience Program in Cancer Science.

Faculty members and professionals from other UB schools and affiliated institutes also mentored students through the various programs.