The Huck Graduate Student Advisory Committee held their 6th Annual Life Sciences Symposium on Thursday, May 12, 2022. This event included multiple keynote speakers and student presenters. Student presentations included categories in computational biology and statistics; human health, nutrition, and physiology; microbiology, pharmacology, and immunology; molecular biology, genetics, and chemistry; and plant and agricultural sciences, zoology, and ecology. The symposium allows students to present their research in poster and oral presentations as well as two unconventional ways of presenting science: a “My Research” video contest and an elevator pitch competition.
Two students in the lab submitted abstracts to present at the Life Sciences Symposium, Sophia Kenney and Emily Van Syoc. Emily presented an oral presentation on a project she has been working on in collaboration with the Ramachandran lab, including members Ramesh Ramachandran and Evelyn Weaver, and Justin Silverman, assistant professor in the College of Information Science and Technology. This project consisted of feeding metformin at different doses to broiler breeder hens (the parents of broiler chickens raised for meat production) to determine if metformin helped to reduce the ovarian disfunction that we see in these birds. Emily’s role in the project was to longitudinally profile the gut microbiome to determine if metformin had an effect on the gut microbiome and if there were significant interactions with hen age.
Emily presents her data on Metformin in broiler breeder hens. She won 1st place in the oral presentation.
Sophia presented a poster on an ongoing project in collaboration with Nkuchia M’ikanatha from the Pennsylvania Department of Health looking at the antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic potential of non-typhoidal Salmonella isolated from dogs and humans and sequenced via NARMS (National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System). The goal of the project was to take a One Health approach to investigating antimicrobial resistant Salmonella by looking at companion animals as potential reservoirs. This was done by characterizing the antimicrobial resistance associated genes foundsin these strains in addition to their relatedness. Sophia will also be presenting at the CDC’s International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases (ICEID) conference in August.
Both students received awards for their presentations in their respective categories. Emily received 1st place in the oral presentation category and Sophia received 2nd place poster presentation in the Molecular Biology, Genetics, and Chemistry category. The entire lab is very proud of both students for presenting their research and doing it so well. Presentation of science findings and research to the public is a very important aspect of doing research and both are demonstrating that they have the skills necessary to present data. Congratulations Emily and Sophia!