Pharmacology and Toxicology Team Attend Prestigious Conference

Graduate students, postdocs and faculty members from the department have been invited to present at the conference, which is taking place June 26–July 1 in Snowmass Village, CO.

The UB team and their topics include:

• Margarita L. Dubocovich, PhD, professor and chair, is presenting on Modulation of Circadian Rhythms by Endogenous Melatonin.
• Ji Li, PhD, assistant professor, is talking on Melatonin-Mediated Cardioprotective Signaling in Ischemic Heart.
• Anthony Hutchinson, PhD, postdoctoral associate, and Ekue Adamah-Biassi and Shannon Clough, both PhD graduate students in Dubocovich’s lab, have received travel awards to attend the conference and are giving oral presentations.
• Liwei Wang, a master’s student, and Jiabei Liu, a BS/MS graduate who is entering the department’s doctoral program this fall, are presenting their research on melatonin receptors as posters.

Jiabei Liu will receive the “Lerner’s Permit” Award for Outstanding Poster Presentation on the History of Melatonin Receptor Research.

His winning poster details the last 20 years of melatonin research, from 1990-present, the period when melatonin cloning studies began.

Award criteria stipulate that the posters in the competition depict “a whole or a particular phase of the history of melatonin receptor research and its therapeutic applications, between melatonin’s discovery by Dr. Aaron B. Lerner in 1958 to the present day.”

As announced recently, the conference leadership has selected Dubocovich as the 2011 recipient of the Aaron B. Lerner Pioneer Award in recognition of her outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the field of melatonin research.

She was presented the award at a ceremony held on the first evening of the conference.