2019 Biochemistry Research Day

Twenty-seven students participated by delivering an oral presentation, presenting a research poster, or both.

Four students and one postdoctoral associate received awards for their presentations:

• Danielle Bailey received the Elizabeth Olmsted Ross Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Oral Presentation for her presentation, “Investigating the Role and Regulation of Neuroprotective sAPPα in Blood-Brain Barrier Iron Transport Using an Endothelial-Astrocyte Transwell Coculture System.”
  
• Natalie Jay received the Elizabeth Olmsted Ross Award for Outstanding Graduate Poster for her poster, “Characterization of Human CYP24A1-Adrenodoxin Fusion in the Deactivation of Vitamin-D.”
• Amit Kumar, PhD, received the Elizabeth Olmsted Ross Award for Outstanding Postdoctoral Associate Poster for his poster, “Insight of Substrate Driven Allostery in CYP24A1 Modulates Redox Partner Interaction.”
• The Elizabeth Olmsted Ross Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Poster was awarded to two students:
  • Gabriella Sadek, for her poster, “ΔNp63 Establishes and Maintains the Myoepithelial Cell Lineage in the Mouse Salivary Gland.”
  • Shana Scrivano, for her poster, “mTORC1 in Schwann Cell Development and Myelination.”

The following lists include the oral presentation or poster title, author and faculty mentor.

• “Investigating the Role and Regulation of Neuroprotective sAPPα in Blood-Brain Barrier Iron Transport Using an Endothelial-Astrocyte Transwell Coculture System.”
  Danielle K. Bailey, Daniel J. Kosman, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of biochemistry.
  
• “Studying the Effects of NRMT1 Loss on Brain Function.”
  James Catlin, Christine E. Schaner Tooley, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry.
• “Multiple Enhancers Comprise a B Cell-Specific Cis-Regulatory Network That Guides the Expression of the Key B cell Transcription Factor Ets1.”
  Alyssa Kearly, Lee Ann Garrett-Sinha, PhD, professor of biochemistry.
• “Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing Reveals Distinct Mutation Signatures in the Presence of Altered dntp Pools.”
  Natalie A. Lamb, Jennifer A. Surtees, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry.
• “Prohibitin 1 Preserves Axon and Myelin Integrity in the Peripheral Nervous System.”
  Gustavo Della-Flora Nunes, M. Laura Feltri, MD, professor of biochemistry and neurology.
• “Characterization of a Novel Iron Uptake Factor in Bradyrhizobium japonicum.”
  Alasteir Ong, Mark R. O’Brian, PhD, chair and professor of biochemistry.
• “Evolution of a Conserved Gene Regulatory Network Mediating Aedes aegypti Nervous System Development.”
  Isabella Schember, Marc S. Halfon, PhD, professor of biochemistry.
• “Selective COPII Vesicles Mediates Glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-Dependent Trafficking in the Early Secretory Pathway of Trypanosoma brucei.”
  Mohamed Sharif, James D. Bangs, PhD, Grant T. Fisher Professor and chair of microbiology and immunology, professor of biochemistry.
• “Iron Export in Bradyrhizobium japonicum.”
  Fengyue Zhang, Mark R. O’Brian, PhD, chair and professor of biochemistry.
  

• “Vitamin D 1α-Hydroxylase Purified Recombinantly As CYP27B1-Adrenodoxin Fusion.”
  Christopher Campomizzi, D. Fernando Estrada, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry.
• “New Players in the p63 Controlled Tumorigenic Network in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma.”
  Alexandra Glathar, Satrajit Sinha, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry.
• “An Investigation of N-Terminal Modifications on the Transcription Factor ZHX2.”
  Megan Gibson Heaney, Christine E. Schaner Tooley, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry.
• “Characterization of Human CYP24A1-Adrenodoxin Fusion in the Deactivation of Vitamin-D.”
  Natalie Jay, D. Fernando Estrada, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry.
• “Comparing Function of Two NFIX Isoforms in Mouse Neural Stem Cells.”
  Tae Wan Kim, Richard M. Gronostajski, PhD, professor of biochemistry.
• “Investigation of the Interaction Between Human CYP27B1 and its Redox Partner, Human Adrenodoxin.”
  Chih-Han Tu, D. Fernando Estrada, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry.
  

• “Insight of Substrate Driven Allostery in CYP24A1 Modulates Redox Partner Interaction.”
  Amit Kumar, PhD, D. Fernando Estrada, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry.
• “Considerations in Monitoring Autophagy in the Neural Retina: Utility of CAG-RFP-GFP-LC3 Transgenic Mice.”
  Sriganesh Ramachandra Rao, PhD, and Steven J. Fliesler, PhD, Meyer H. Riwchun Endowed Chair Professor of ophthalmology, professor of biochemistry.
• “NRMT1 is Regulated By a Dual Ets/CREB Binding Motif and Cell Cycle Status.”
  John G. Tooley, PhD, Christine E. Schaner Tooley, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry.

• “Investigating the Functionality of Mutant NFIX.”
  Ronan Bracken, Richard M. Gronostajski, PhD, professor of biochemistry.
• “The Role of TbZFP3 in Trypanosoma brucei Post-Transcriptional Gene Regulation.”
  Stephen D. Carro, Laurie K. Read, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, professor of biochemistry.
• “Mechanisms of Ets1 Downregulation in B-Cell Activation.”
  David Goich, Lee Ann Garrett-Sinha, PhD, professor of biochemistry.
• “QPCR Analysis of Proteins Involved in Iron Metabolism Across the Blood Brain Barrier”
  Amity Law, Daniel J. Kosman, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of biochemistry.
• “Bacteriophage Abundance in the Healthy Human Mouth.”
  Matthew Nazzaro, Michael Buck, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry.
• “ΔNp63 Establishes and Maintains the Myoepithelial Cell Lineage in the Mouse Salivary Gland.”
  Gabriella Sadek, Rose-Anne Romano, PhD, assistant professor of oral biology, assistant professor biochemistry.
• “mTORC1 in Schwann Cell Development and Myelination.”
  Shana Scrivano, Bogdan K. Beirowski MD, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry.
• “Defining a Knowledgebase of Interactions for the Oral Microbiome with Natural Language Understanding.”
  Madhuri Vihani (biomedical engineering), Daniel Ian McSkimming, PhD, research scientist in bioinformatics and biochemistry, and Michael Buck, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry.
• “Cadmium-Induced Short Term Radical Oxygen Species Generation in Chara australis C. B Rob.”
  Harrison Q Watkins, Mary A. Bisson, PhD, professor of biological sciences.
• “The Role of the Subdomains in E. coli SSB.”
  Jia Xiang Zhang, Piero Bianco, PhD, associate professor of microbiology and immunology.
  

Martha L. Bulyk, PhD, professor in the departments of medicine and pathology at Harvard Medical School, was the keynote speaker.

Bulyk has developed new techniques to further identify sequences that transcription factors recognize and bind. Although numerous eukaryotic genomes have been sequenced, much remains to be understood about how the genes in those genomes are regulated. Bulyk”s research focuses on trying to understand more about these genes. Interactions between transcription factors (TFs) and their DNA binding sites are an integral part of the regulatory networks within cells. Her lab employs numerous combined experimental and computational strategies in studying these regulatory interactions, to discover cis-regulatory codes in the genome.

Her presentation topic was “Transcription Factor-DNA Interactions: Unraveling New Twists in Molecular Recognition, Genetic Variation, Gene Regulation.”

Bulyk is also a professor in the division of genetics, department of medicine and associate professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Biochemistry Research Day was held May 14 at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ building. Approximately 85 students, faculty and other researchers attended.

The event is supported by the Dr. Elizabeth P. Olmsted Fund in Biochemistry.