Congratulations to Binyam Balachew on winning first place in the Graduate Student Association Research Symposium Poster presentation!

Dr. Wayne Wahls’ study on disparities in NIH funding is featured in the Nature Daily Briefing today.

Andrea Edwards recently present her work at a conference on Molecular Biology & Nucleic Acids in Toronto Canada.  Andrea presented a poster entitled “G-Quadruplex in PARP1-Mediated DNA Damage Response”.  Her work is aimed at addressing the role of PARP-1 in DNA damage repair, in particular with regards to G-quadruplex DNA.  Andrea earned first prize in the poster competition and was chosen to present her work to the conference attendees as a short talk.  Her talk was well-received by the audience.  Congratulations Andrea!!

Two graduate students in the Raney lab, Andrea Edwards and Binyam Belachew, attended a Molecular Biology & Nucleic Acids meeting in Toronto, Canada. Andrea presented a poster entitled “G-Quadruplex in PARP1-Mediated DNA Damage Response.”  Binyam presented a poster entitled “Function and Mechanism of Hepatitis C Virus Non-structural Protein 3 (HCV NS3) Unfolding of Viral  G-quadruplex RNA Structures.”

Congratulations to the Chambers lab for their recent publication of two manuscripts.

Synthesis, antiproliferative activity and molecular docking of thiocolchicine urethanes
U Majcher, A Urbaniak, E May, M Moshari, M Delgado, J Wietrzyk, F Barti, T Chambers, J Tuszynski, A Huczynski

Microtubules play an essential role in the survival of primary acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells advancing through G1 phase
Magdalena Delgado & Timothy C. Chambers

Congratulations to the Miller lab  on their recent publication.

Lamisil (terbinafine) toxicity: Determining pathways to bioactivation through computational and experimental approaches.  

Dustyn A. Barnette, Mary A. Davis, Na L. Dang, Anirudh S. Pidugu, Tyler Hughes, S. Joshua Swamidass, Gunnar Boysen, and Grover P. Miller

Congratulations to the Raney lab on their recent manuscript.

Pif1 helicase unfolding of G-quadruplex DNA is highly dependent on sequence and reaction conditions.

Alicia K. Byrd, Matthew R. Bell, and Kevin D. Raney

Karen Abbott has been awarded a new NIH grant totaling over 3 million dollars to translate new glycan biomarkers to the clinic for ovarian cancer.

Isabelle Racine Miousse, Ph.D., has joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Miousse received her doctorate from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer epigenetics in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at UAMS. Dr. Miousse’s research focuses on methyl donors during cancer progression and treatment.

Science can lead you to some unexpected places.

Just ask Aime Franco, Ph.D., an associate professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Physiology and Biophysics, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 22 but never expected to make a career out of researching it.

Franco gave the keynote talk July 25 to the students, mentors, administrators and guests gathered for the seventh annual Central Arkansas Undergraduate Summer Research Symposium. She initially wanted to be a physician, but then her training led down a different path. She started in sports medicine, then nutrition science and H. pylori research before circling around to thyroid cancer. In 2018, her research efforts paid off through a four-year $791,000 grant award from the National Cancer Institute to support her work.

“I never wanted to investigate the disease that I had,” Franco said. “There’s an element of ignorance is bliss and there are probably some things you just don’t want to know. But I think it has totally and completely enriched my experience in my research because I have a different perspective — that of a patient.”

Franco capped off the all-day symposium showcasing undergraduate research across the state of Arkansas where research careers like hers tend to take off. Students present their work with posters and oral presentations. About 120 students attended the event, with about 100 of them presenting their work. Their faculty research mentors as well as summer program administrators, poster judges and members of the public joined them for the event, for a total of about 250.

The focus on Franco’s story was intentional, said Grover P. Miller, Ph.D., a professor in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department in the College of Medicine. He has been co-directing the symposium with his department chair, Kevin D. Raney, Ph.D., for the past seven years.

“We like to pick someone who has gone through a journey to get where they are,” Miller said. “Linear careers are a thing of the past. Today’s science field is dynamic, ever changing, and people take different paths. We want the students to think about how their research experience might be a step along their path, even if bench research isn’t where their career ultimately takes them.”

A deeper understanding of science – and a strengthening of science communication skills, specifically – benefits both the students and society, Miller said.

“Science inundates a lot of our decision-making process as a society, but the people making those decisions don’t always have a background in scientific thinking,” Miller said. “It’s on us as scientists or science-backed thinkers to become better at communicating with leadership and the public at large.”

Lessons like that weren’t lost on Alexis Baker, a student from Hendrix College who attended with Sydnee Curry, who was presenting a poster on their biochemistry research on pain-sensing neurons.

“A big part of the experience of coming to events like these is the experience of being in a scientific setting and practicing communication,” Baker said. “We’re building up, going to bigger and bigger conferences. I want someday to apply for med school, so to practice being comfortable talking about science with scientists is even important for something like my med school entrance interviews.”

Kamille Willis from the University of Miami was another poster presenter, who spent the summer doing research at the National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Arkansas. She helped develop a flow cytometry assay to analyze antibodies against polyethylene glycol. She said that the symposium and events like it teach students to not only communicate, but to listen to questions and feedback.

“The first time it happens, it is a little difficult, but you have to get used to it. They’re not saying it to knock you down,” Willis said. “You have to learn to come from the perspective, ‘well, maybe I really didn’t consider that’ or ‘maybe that would be a good idea.’ Everyone here is looking to help you and better your research, and being part of that dialog is part of learning to be a scientist.”

In addition, Miller said another important benefit of the event is that it showcases just how much excellent work is being done in Arkansas and the support that makes it possible.

“We are a small state, but we have some great science here,” Miller said.

Franco agreed, and referenced the quality of the work in her closing remarks to the students.

“Although I’m fine with the path I took – I think each of our journeys lead us to where we need to be — I will say that I think you guys are so lucky to have an opportunity to do research of this quality at the undergraduate level and I really am in awe of what you have been able to accomplish and the work I’ve seen from you here today.”

The event was held in the I. Dodd Wilson Education Building and hosted by the Graduate School and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UAMS as well as the National Institutes of Health-supported INBRE program and the UAMS Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) to Increase Diversity in Research.

By Amy Widner| August 3rd, 2018|

Dr. Karaduta was awarded with the Travel Award from American Heart Association to visit the BCVS 2018 Scientific Sessions in San Antonio, TX, where he presented a poster “Possible Influence of Resistant Starch diet on atherosclerosis in the presence of chronic kidney disease”