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Students show off research at MU
Marshall microbiology student Mallory Douthitt discusses her biomedical research findings with Chuck Somerville, Marshall's Dean of Science, during the 8th annual Summer Research Symposium of a statewide research network known as the West Virginia IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence event on Thursday, July 30, 2009, in the Memorial Student Center at Marshall University.
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HUNTINGTON -- Though only 21 or 22 years old, more than two dozen undergraduate students from various West Virginia colleges and universities worked on in-depth biomedical research projects this summer at Marshall and West Virginia universities.
On Thursday, their nine-week excursion ended with the summer research symposium, held in the Memorial Student Center at Marshall.
This was the eighth year for the West Virginia IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (WV-INBRE) program, which provided 29 students with stipends and an opportunity to work on ongoing research projects at the two universities.
Brittany Greene, a senior at the University of Charleston, worked with Marshall professor Gary Rankin on a project that includes renal cortical cells. She said the experience was much more involved than anything she had done before.
"It's all working in a lab and doing research all day," Greene said.
Nine of the students worked with mentors at Marshall, including Donald Wheeler. He and pharmacology professor Piyali Dasgupta worked on "Nicotonic Receptor Signaling in Retinal Angiogenesis" at the Robert C. Byrd Biotech Center.
Wheeler also was selected to present his research findings to the group of more about 100 students and professors during the morning session.
"It's always great to vocalize what you are working on," the University of Charleston student said. "How many times do you get to explain what you did?"
Rankin, the principal investigator for WV-INBRE, said the state has some very bright students ready to hit the professional realm.
"This has really been high-quality work," Rankin said. "I'm impressed every year, but each year gets a bit better."
Much the research being done, he said, relates to the medical field, including cancer and other concerns that West Virginians face. He hopes the relevance to the state's health issues will keep the students here doing biomedical research in the future.
"The important thing is that West Virginia has lots of research opportunities for students," he said.
Thursday's symposium also included keynote speaker Darryle Schoepp, Ph.D., a former Marshall faculty member who now leads research at pharmaceutical giant Merck and Company as senior vice president and neuroscience franchise head. Schoepp spoke on new drug therapies on the horizon for treating diseases of the central nervous system.
Marshall students in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience also presented their research posters Thursday afternoon as part of the symposium.
WV-INBRE, which is designed to support biomedical research in the state, is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Marshall University, in cooperation with West Virginia University and several of the state's colleges and smaller universities.
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