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Lake Forest students presented five research posters of their collaborative undergraduate research at the meeting’s main poster session. The posters represent faculty/student research in the biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB) labs of Professor Karen Kirk, Professor Shubhik DebBurman, and Assistant Professor Will Conrad:

• “Determining the End Nucleotide of Telomeres in  Aspergillus nidulans”—Jessica Day ’22, Meklit Yimenu ’23, Graeme Witte ’23, Allison Akins ’22, and Karen Kirk
• “Extending the Applications of Telomere-Anchored PCR for Telomere Length Measurements”—Graeme Witte’23, Natalie Kamau ’24, Jessica Day ’22, Meklit Yimenu ’23, and Karen Kirk
• “Insight into Parkinson’s Disease From a Yeast Model: How Three Alpha-Synuclein Mutants (A18T, A29S, & A53V) Generate Toxicity”—Amanda Grassel ’23, Carris Borland ’21, Federica Bertolotti ’24, Ryan Osselborn ’23, Tracey Nassuna ’23, Bryce Zabat ’24, and Shubhik DebBurman
• “The Role of Lymphocyte Cytosolic Protein 1 in in a Mycobacterium Marinum Infection”—Emma Remish ’22, Ceylin Sahin ’24, Beau Grimes ’24, and Will Conrad
• “Engineering Prophylactic Biosynthesis of an Antituberculosis Antibiotic”—Laurel Robbins ’23, Zarina Najibi ’22, and William Conrad

In addition to the general poster session, Day, Grassel, and Robbins were invited to participate in the 26th annual Undergraduate Poster Competition. Over 275 undergraduates representing institutions from all over the United States presented at this session.

“Getting to present at the ASBMB Undergraduate Poster Competition was a really great experience,” Robbins said. Because she started research as a rising sophomore through the College’s Richter Scholar Program, Robbins “could easily answer questions about the specific methods and techniques used,” she said.

Jessica Day rates the poster competition a highpoint of the weekend. “I was talking for like an hour and a half straight about my research and answering some really interesting questions from the judges that just made me think a little bit deeper about the work I’ve done,” she said. Day will take what she learned at the conference with her as she begins her PhD studies at Vanderbilt University in the fall. 

Interest shown by multiple judges at a competition is a good indication of the quality of the students’ work, according to the Departments of Biology Chair and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Co-Chair Karen Kirk.

“Our students were presenting their work alongside grad students, post docs, and even principal investigators—PIs—and the people that came up to their poster had no idea they were undergraduates,” Kirk said. “Our students are conducting research and presenting it at the level of a graduate student, which helps them enormously. They can include that experience on their resume, which helps them get into top grad programs and top medical schools.”

ASBMB is an international nonprofit scientific and educational organization with over 11,000 members, made up of students, researchers, educators and industry professionals. It is one of the largest molecular life science societies in the world.