Six undergraduate students participating in the School of Biological Sciences Minority Science Programs received awards for their research presentations at the poster competition of the 2015 American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) annual meeting. The world’s largest general scientific society, AAAS’s poster competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students from domestic and international institutions. The Biological Sciences School undergraduates won six of the ten categories in the competition, competing against 170 other undergraduate and graduate students. Their awards will be recognized in an upcoming issue of Science.

Congratulations to the award-winning undergraduate students, listed below under the winning category with their research titles and advisors:

BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR
Winner: Eden Barragan and Diane O’Dowd (PI)
Research Title: Effects of Anticonvulsants and Monoamines on Seizures in Mutant Drosophila
Honorable Mention: Walter Guerrero and Oswald Steward (PI)
Research Title: PTEN/SOCS3 Co-Deletion Accelerates Functional Recovery Following Peripheral Nerve Damage

DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND IMMUNOLOGY
Winner: Michael Emami and Baljinder S. Mankoo (PI)
Research Title: Investigating the Role of Meox2 in Myogenic and Tendon Differentiation

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY
Honorable Mention: Hector F. Sanchez, Andrei Tatarenkov and Luis Mota-Bravo (PI)
Research Title: Novel ampC Beta-Lactamase Genes from Morganella morganii

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Honorable Mention: David Saldana and Harley I. Kornblun (PI)
Research Title: Inhibition of Polo-like Kinase 4 as Therapy for Glioblastoma Primary Brain Tumors

TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS
Winner: Horacio Estabridis and Elliot L. Botvinick (PI)
Research Title: Elucidating the Stiffness of Extra-Cellular Matrix Fibers with High Speed Microscopy

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