FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 15, 2005
Contact: Edmond McDavis III
(662) 241-7851

Balachandran awarded prize for presentation; students discuss research projects

COLUMBUS, Miss.—Mississippi University for Women senior Amrita Balachandran was awarded the prize for best undergraduate presentation within the Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology division of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences annual meeting in Oxford.

MUW sent 20 students and five faculty members to the MAS annual meeting in February.

Balachandran was one of seven students who gave presentations. Her discussion was titled “Characterization of the structural and functional identity of the GroEL1 chaperone.”

Stefanie Cummings, Jillian Danner, Tonya Dement, Amy Newton, Joy Wall and Tamara Williams also made presentations.

Dr. Dionne Fortenberry, assistant professor of chemistry, served as vice-chair for the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division of the MAS annual meeting.

Dr. Jiben Roy, assistant professor of chemistry, gave a talk on “chemical profiling and antimicrobial analysis of a traditional herbal medicine containing garlic and black cumin” as part of the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering division and presented a poster on “the effect of natural sunlight on ciprofloxacin eye drops.”

The science and mathematics students also made a name for themselves in laboratories across the nation by completing research projects this past summer at different universities.

Balachandran completed a research project at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at University of Pittsburg on microbacteria and presented her project, titled “A Study of the amino acid residues that distinguish the GroEL1 and GroEL2 chaperones in Mycobacterium smegmatis.”

A graduating senior from India, Balachandran was one of 15 undergraduate college students selected to participate in the 10-week summer program.

The microbiology major with a minor in chemistry said, “It was the first time I actually got to be in a real research lab. Now I’m confident because of the basic things I learned there. It helped me decide what I want to do after MUW.”

She plans to complete doctoral studies in immunology and infectious diseases and later conduct research or teach in a research institute.

Cummings, a graduating senior from Columbus, also started a research project at Mississippi State University last summer on crystallizing layered compounds.

She completed a summer research project at Louisiana State University during the summer of 2003.A chemistry and math major, Cummings said, “It is still ongoing at MSU by other students. It’s made a huge difference. My first experience was an eye opener. Lab for class is a huge difference than a research lab. When you are doing research in a lab it is a more involved learning experience.”

Cummings has been pre-accepted into the University of Mississippi’s medicinal chemistry department, where she will start this summer with classes and research.

“I definitely recommend others to search out summer internships whenever possible…you can’t beat the experience and you get paid to do it too.”

She would like to work at a research institute after graduate school and maybe one day teach at a small liberal arts college.

Kristie Blair, a sophomore biology major from Hamilton, worked on a project with Dr. Jimena Aracena, associate professor of biological sciences, and other students during last summer and the fall semester with regards to the feeding behaviors of fruit flies.

Blair, along with Aracena and other students, traveled to San Diego to the national meeting of the Society of Integrative Comparative Biology to present a poster detailing their research in January.

“Most of the presenters were graduate students and post doctorates so for us to be undergraduates I think most everyone enjoyed it,” she said.

Blair would like to do future projects on marine biology and field research.

She would like to have a career in wildlife conservation, hopefully in Mississippi. .