UND announces Frank Low Research Day award winners

GRAND FORKS, N.D.—The 39th annual Frank Low Research Day was held at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) on Thursday, April 25. Following the event, several of the more than 150 participants were given awards for their presentations.

Congratulations to the winners of the best poster awards, who earned $100 each from the SMHS Office of the Dean. The winners, by category, are the following:

Biomedical Sciences Graduate Students

Moriah Hovde – “Impact of Insulin Signaling on the Dopamine Transporter” (coauthor James Foster)
Taylor Schmit – “IL-6 deficiency exacerbates allergic asthma and promotes S. pneumoniae pathogenesis” (coauthors Ganesh Ambigapathy, Nadeem Khan)

Medical Students - Biomedical Sciences

Brett MacLeod – “Fine-tuning nuclear processes: hit and run vs long-term activation of PARP-1 by its different domains” (coauthors Colin Thomas, Yingbiao Ji, Chao Wu, Haily Datz, Cody Boyle, Michelle Ampofo, Shri Patel, Michelle Currie, Jonathan Harbin, Kate Pechenkina, Niraj Lodhi, Sarah Johnson, Alexei Tulin)
Riley Moore – “A novel trivalent vaccine against Streptococcus pneumoniae infections” (coauthors Taylor Schmit and Nadeem Khan)

Medical Students - Clinical Sciences

Jacob Greenmyer – “Responsiveness of newly-diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis to low-dose prednisone (coauthors James Beal, Abe Sahmoun, and Erdal Diri)
Christopher Walden – “Comparing gene expression profiles between a head and neck cancer mouse model and human tumor samples” (coauthors Daniel Vermeer, Paul Colbert, Caitlin Williamson, William Spanos, Paola Vermeer, and Steven Powell)

Health Sciences Graduate Student

Ian Watson – “Does Health Plan Type Influence Receipt of an Annual Flu Vaccination?” (coauthor Cristina Oancea)

Occupational Therapy

Miranda Hosking – “Occupational Therapy Community Reintegration for Inmates with Co-occurring Disorders” (coauthors Kara Moore and Sarah Nielsen)
Madelin Buscho – “The Level of Knowledge of Evidence-Based Practice by OT Managers” (coauthors Samantha Scheel and LaVonne Fox)

Biomedical Sciences Post-Doc

Rachana Trivedi – “Multi-factorial attenuation of the murine heat shock response with age (coauthors Donald Jurivich, Gunjan Manocha, Mary Lizakowski, Rakoczy Sharlene, and Holly Brown-Borg)

Medical Resident

Rohan Oberoi – “Eplerenone for Central Serous Chorioretinopathy: How a Potassium-Sparing Diuretic is Saving Vision” (coauthor David Jacobs)

Undergraduate

Zachary Krill – “Determining Specific Isoforms of Palmitoylating Enzymes that Regulate Sodium Hydrogen Exchanger Isoform 1 Palmitoylation” (coauthors Moriah Hovde and James Foster)

The event’s keynote speaker was Tak Mak, PhD, director of the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at the University of Toronto’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Dr. Mak gave a talk entitled “Fire and Water are Good Servants but Bad Masters,” which examined the role of physiological “balance” in the prevention and treatment of cancer from the perspective of immunology.

“We want to thank everyone who participated in making Frank Low Research Day a success,” said Marc Basson, MD, PhD, MBA, the School’s senior associate dean for Medicine and Research. “This year was our largest turnout ever, and we appreciate the high level of participation by students, faculty, and staff at the School of Medicine & Health Sciences. Special thanks to Dean of the School, Dr. Wynne, for his ongoing support of this important annual event, and to Dr. Mak for his time.”

Named in honor of the former SMHS anatomy professor who came to UND in the 1960s and pioneered a series of new techniques for the electron microscope, Frank Low Research Day is the culminating event of the academic year for many area researchers working in the biomedical and health sciences. At this year’s Frank Low Day event, more than 150 faculty members, post-doctoral fellows, and students presented oral and poster presentations on a wide range of basic biomedical, health sciences, translational, and clinical topics.

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Brian James Schill
Assistant Director, Office of Alumni & Community Relations
University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences
701.777.2733 direct | 701.777.4305 office
brian.schill@med.und.edu | med.und.edu