NEWS: October 10, 2009 - KU Students Win First Place Award at UMBC’s Undergraduate Research Symposium

Eight students from the Departments of Biological Science, Psychology and the New Jersey Center for Science Technology and Mathematics Education participated in the 12th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Chemical and Biological Sciences hosted by the University of Maryland Baltimore County on Saturday, October 10.

The students were greeted by UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski and were treated to a special guest speaker, Nobel Laureate Dr. Peter Agre, pictured below with students.

Left to right: Wei Dong, Robin Bagley, Dr. Peter Agre, Samantha Mahmoud and Joanna John

Robin Bagley (NJCSTME), and Wei Dong (Biological Sciences), presented their work entitled, “Bimetallic Ruthenium-based compounds as photo-dynamic chemotherapeutic agents“ and won a first place award for outstanding research.

Gisele Andrade (Psychology) and Stephanie Brennan (Biology) presented their work entitled “Preliminary Report on the Spectral Sensitivities of the Retinal Visual Pigments from the North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis)

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Joanna John (Biology) presented her work entitled, “New Uses for Old Drugs: Screening of an FDA Approved Drug Library to Identify New Treatments For Pancreatic Cancer“

Samantha Mahmoud (NJCSTME) presented her work entitled, “Mass Spectrometry Analysis of Ruthenium Based Compound Used in Chemotherapy“
and

Kathryn Bednarz (NJCSTME) and Steve Romanides (Biology) presented their work entitled, “Optimization of experiments for identification of proteins in reproductive tissues for Primula acaulis

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Faculty advisers for these projects included Drs. Jeffry Fasick and Farshad Tamari (Biology), Dr. Matthew Mongeli (Chemistry), Dr. Dil Ramanathan (NJCSTME) and Dr. Jeffrey Toney (Dean CNAHS). These research projects were supported by Kean University’s Students Partnering with Faculty, Kean University’s New Research Initiative for Interdisciplinary Projects and the Merck/AAAS Undergraduate Science Research Program.

On behalf of the faculty of the College of Natural and Applied Health Sciences we congratulate all of these students for their hard work and accomplishments!

Left to right: Gisele Andrade, Joanna John, Robin Bagley, Samantha Mahmoud, Stephanie Brennan and Wei Dong

Wei Dong (left) and Robin Bagley (right)

Submitted by Jeffry I. Fasick, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences
Photography provided by Jeffry Fasick