At the 2014 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) in Chicago, IL, four UCI undergraduates, three of whom are Biological Sciences majors, received awards for their research presentations during the poster competition.

The competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students from domestic and international institutions. Winners will be recognized in a spring issue of Science. The AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society.

The award-winning UCI students (first authors), advisors, research titles and poster categories are:

Kirollos Bechay (School of Biological Sciences), Kasia Bieszczad and Marcelo A. Wood (PI). Research Title: Histonedeactylation is a critical mechanism of auditory learning and cortical plasticity. Poster category: Brain and Behavior.

Rebeca Flores (School of Biological Sciences), Andrei Tatarenkov and Luis Mota-Bravo (PI). Research Title: Pattern of resistance and variability of tetracycline resistance genes in Staphylococcus. Poster category: Environment and Ecology.

Stephan Kudlacek (School of Biological Sciences), Felix Mesak and Luis Mota-Bravo (PI). Research Title:  Asenapine reverses efflux mediated ciprofloxacin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus. Poster category: Medicine and Public Health.

Ernesto Sosa (School of Engineering), Yon Kim and Wendy F. Liu (PI). Research Title:  Production of immunomodulatory protein cd200 from E. coli for coating biomedical implants. Poster category: Developmental Biology, Physiology, and Immunology.

If you’d like to learn more about you can support undergraduate and graduate students at the Biological Sciences School, please contact Andrew DiNuzzo at 949.824.2734 or adinuzzo@uci.edu.