John Jay Students Shine at Annual Biomedical Research Conference in Seattle

Fifteen John Jay College science students attended and presented their research at the 15th Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) held in Seattle, Washington in November. Students William Aguilar, Ronald Rodriguez and Jiwon Seo won awards for their oral and poster presentations on the research they are conducting, under the mentorship of John Jay faculty and as part of Program for Research Initiatives in Science and Math (PRISM)

During the four-day conference, over 1,700 undergraduate and graduate students participated in presentations in twelve disciplines in the biomedical and behavioral sciences, including mathematics. ABRCMS, one of the largest, professional conferences in United States, is designed to encourage underrepresented minority students to pursue advanced training science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and provide faculty mentors and advisors with resources to facilitate students’ success.

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Dr. Edgardo Sanabria-Valentin, PRISM’s Program and Research Coordinator, accompanied John Jay undergraduate students to Seattle, along with Professors Nathan Lents and Jason Rauceo.  Nine of the 15 students received travel awards from the conference organizers and three of them secured a coveted spot among the 96 oral presentations in the conference.

The 2015 ABRCMS attendees, their faculty mentors and their research projects are:

  • William Aguilar (Professor Elise Champeil) – Correlation of Mc and Dmc-Adducts Structures with the Role of P21 in the Toxicity of the α-icl and β-ic
    *Winner of a Chemistry Oral Presentation Award
     
  • Ronald Rodriguez (Professor Jason Rauceo) – Localization Analysis of a Major Osmotic Stress Response Gene in the Fungus Candida albicans
    *Winner of a Microbiology Oral Presentation Award
     
  • Jiwon Seo (Professor Shu-Yuan Cheng) – The Effects of Upstream Nucleotides on the Readthrough Rate of VEGF-Ax   
    *Winner of a Biochemistry Poster Presentation Award
     
  • Daysi Proano (Professor Jason Rauceo) – Characterizing MHCI cytoplasmic domain phosphorylation in vitro and its role in binding interactions
     
  • Shanelle Shillingford (Professor Gloria Proni) – The Oxidation of Allylic Alcohols to Ketones with the use of Electrochemistry
     
  • David Rodriguez (Professor Artem Domashevskiy) – Synthesis of Fluorescently-Labeled Tobacco Etch Virus (TEV) RNA and its Interactions with Pokeweed Antiviral Protein (PAP)
  • Donovan Trinidad (Professor Nathan Lents) – Analysis of the Human Microbiome on Living and Decomposing Bodies  
     
  • Imani Hargett (Professor Lissette Delgado-Cruzata) – Understanding the Role of TET Proteins in 5-Hydroxymethylation in Hepatocellular Carcinoma        
     
  • Erica Klafehn (Professor Angelique Corthals) – 2D to 3D Rending of Bones Samples from Sus scrofa
     
  • Danielle Rouse (Professor Anthony Carpi) – The Reduction Mechanism of Mercuric Oxide in the Environment    
     
  • Sabrina De Los Santos (Professor Artem Domashevskiy) – Analysis of the Effects of Turnip Mosaic Virus Protein-Linked Genome on Ricin a Chain Depurination of Eukaryotic Ribosomal RNA   
  • Yuanzhuo “Jove” Zhang (Professor Guoqi Zhang) –  Diverse Copper(ii) Complexes with Simple Nitrogen Ligands: Structural Characterization and Applications in Aerobic Alcohol Oxidations in Water          
     
  • Ronal Peralta (Professor Anthony Carpi) – Using Moss as a Biomonitor to Detect Atmospheric Sources of Mercury
     
  • Lisset Duran (Professor Lissette Delgado-Cruzata) – Studying the Loss of DNA Methyltransferase DNMT1 in BRCA1 Expression in Breast Cancer
     
  • Porfirio Fernandez (Professor Jason Rauceo) – Behavior Expression Profile of alpha-Conotoxin PeI A in Chronic Constriction Injury Model in Rats