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Happy Holidays!
In this Issue
- Nominations Needed for 2014 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher
- Dates to Know
- Looking Ahead to Next Semester - Spring Research Proposals
- PRISM Students Attend ABCRMS and SETAC Conferences
- January Research Training (RTW) Scheduled
- Students Interested in Externships Should Apply Now
- NYU Grad Chemistry Visits PRISM
- Community College Students Tour John Jay Science Labs
- Jason Quinones (PRISM '10) Wins NIH Grant!
Nominations Needed for 2014 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher
With the holidays about to hijack our schedules, we ask that you set some time aside to consider students whom you would like to nominate for the Outstanding Student Researcher Award. This award is a wonderful way to honor the diligence and determination of our students.
In your nomination, please address the items below:
- Level of time commitment over the last twelve months
- Level of progress in his/her research
- Degree of skills advancement
- Individual initiative and responsibility
- Additional comments (if you wish)
With a large pool of seniors, we expect to receive more nominations this year than in previous years. Therefore, please be as detailed as possible. This will help us as we evaluate the nominees. The nominations for the 2012-2013 Award are due to Ron Pilette by Tuesday, February 11. |
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Dates to Know
Early January:
- RTW invitations issued
January 21, 22 & 23:
- RTW
January 27:
- Spring classes start
February 5:
- Deadline for students to submit research
proposals
February 11:
- O.U.R. nominations due to Ron
PRISM Students Attend ABRCMS and SETAC Conferences
Each November PRISM students trek to the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS). This year was no exception as Jason Rauceo led a delegation of student researchers to Nashville, TN. The students represented Jason's lab and those of Katarina Korobkova and Anthony Carpi. The PRISM undergraduates were among 1500 students from across the country who gave poster and oral presentations in 12 disciplines in the biomedical and behavioral sciences.
Keisha Alexander and Vida Ho presented their posters in the category of Microbiology; Mrleny Cabral in Social and Behavioral Sciences; Jenny Fong and Tasheda Kelly in Biochemistry, and Chantal Adlam presented in the category of Environmental Chemistry. Students discussed their research with colleagues in their discipline as well as several judges who determined poster winners for each category.
Eugenia Salcedo’s research won the 2013 ABRCMS poster presentation award in the highly competitive Cancer Biology category. Eugenia’s research was entitled, Construction of BirA-p110α, and BirA-p110γ Expression Vector. It was based on the work she accomplished during her summer externship as part of the AMGEN Scholars Program - UCSD at The Scripps Research Institute, where she worked under the mentorship of Dr. Peter K. Vogt. At John Jay, Eugenia works under the mentorship of Jason Rauceo.
No sooner had the ABRCMS delegation returned, when fellow PRISM student Matthew Scarcella headed to Nashville for the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Conference. Each year more than 2,300 professionals attend SETAC to learn the latest in cutting-edge environmental research and science. Matthew presented a poster on the mechanisms of reduction of mercuric oxide, the work he conducts under the mentorship of Anthony Carpi. During the conference, Matthew had the opportunity to meet with several prominent individuals: a consultant for the EPA, an environmental toxicologist for the 3M Corporation, and the head of the North America Student Advisory Council (NASAC).
We’re proud of all of the presenters for their wonderful efforts. We congratulate Eugenia on her special award, and we thank all of our mentors for their great work mentoring our student researchers. To see more pictures from the ABRCMS trip, please view the ABRCMS album on the PRISM Facebook page.
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Community College Students Tour John Jay Science Labs
Students from our partner community colleges visited the PRISM labs on November 7. They toured three labs getting a glimpse of the research projects that await them when they transition to John Jay through the CUNY Justice Academy.
First stop was Demi Cheng's lab, where PRISM student Christine Ta and alumna Anna Stoll spoke about senescent cell deaths caused by manganese containing pesticides. Students also had the opportunity to view PC12 rat cells beneath a microscope and to learn about the use of MTT Assay in observing cell viability.
Next stop was Katarina Korobkova's lab where PRISM student Jenny Fong discussed techniques used to study how flavonoids interact with the cytochrome c and cardiolipin complex using fluorescence. The last stop on the lab tours was Peter Diaczuk's lab, where the guests learned the theory and challenges of high speed photography. PRISM student Kitty Law and Peter also showed frame-by-frame images of the impact of air pellets on glass plates using the Phantom Miro 310 high-speed camera.
The day was capped off with a seminar being given by visiting forensic scientist, Dr. David Stoney. Guests were excited about their visit and anxious to talk about their potential future both here at John Jay and for their eventual careers. Thanks to all the PRISM mentors and students who helped to make our guests feel welcome. |
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Looking Ahead to Next Semester – Spring Research Proposals
Wednesday, February 5 is the deadline for PRISM students to apply for research funding for the spring semester. We are announcing the deadline and posting the guidelines well in advance so that students can use their winter break to work on proposals or to get a jump on a new project with you in the lab.
IMPORTANT...The guidelines contain specific directions regarding the content required in the abstracts. This is because the abstracts are published in The Chronicle, and, therefore, must follow a standard format. For the past few years, some students have chosen to ignore these guidelines. When working with your mentees on their proposals, please be sure that they follow ALL the guidelines especially as they pertain to the abstracts. Here's a link to the guidelines for your easy referral. We greatly appreciate your assistance with matter.
January Research Training Workshop (RTW) Scheduled
The January Research Training Workshop (RTW) will take place January 21, 22 and 23. Ron will send email invitations to qualified students in early January. (Students are recruited based on their Fall Chem 201 grades). If you know a student who should be considered, please contact Ron directly as soon as possible and encourage the student to do the same.
Even if a student is not recruited by Ron out of Chem 201, he/she may still be eligible to participate in the January RTW. Any current John Jay student who has completed Chem 201 and meets the other PRISM requirements is invited to fill out an application and arrange to be interviewed by Ron. Some students who are transitioning in from the CUNY Justice Academy may also be eligible to participate in the January RTW. Should you know any of these students, please contact Fran Jimenez, the PRISM Outreach Coordinator, at fjimenez@jjay.cuny.edu.
Students who complete all three days of the workshop are eligible to participate in funded research with a mentor and begin conducting research in the spring semester. Therefore, there will be a new crop of students looking for mentors come the end of January!
Students Interested in Summer Externships Should Apply Now
We encourage students to continue their PRISM research this summer with you, especially if you think that’s best for their project progress. Some students, however, may wish to pursue a summer research placement at another institution to broaden their experiences or to diversify their resume for graduate school applications. Please consider and discuss all of the possible summer options with your current PRISM mentee(s). Most summer externships have a January, February or March deadline. Thus, the time for students to apply is now!
For the students’ convenience, we keep a spreadsheet of summer research externships with program information, deadlines, and application links. The spreadsheet is on Dropbox, linked here. We keep the document as up to date as possible. Rather than send students a lot of emails about new opportunities, we often just add them to the spreadsheet and post them to the PRISM Facebook page. We have also collected brochures on several of the summer research programs. Visit the PRISM office to view these brochures, located near the student work stations. |
NYU Grad Chemistry Visits PRISM
“Optical Properties of Achiral Molecules” was the topic of this month’s PRISM student meeting held on December 4. Dr. Bart Kahr, a chemistry professor at NYU, traveled uptown to share his research on this topic with us. Dr. Kahr is part of NYU’s Molecular Design Institute where he conducts research on the growth, structure and optical properties of single crystals and polycrystalline patterns. Dr. Kahr also shared some of the NYU Chemistry Department’s rich history and gave an overview of the research being conducted in their new state of the art labs.
Dr. Kahr was accompanied by Veronica Murphy, one of his graduate students. Veronica spoke to PRISM students about her role in the research project, her experiences applying to graduate schools for chemistry and also about what it is like to be at NYU pursuing her PhD in chemistry.
Our evening kicked off at 5:30 pm with a presentation by PRISM student Mei Lan Chen who discussed her research on the separation and spectroscopical characterization of organophsophates. Thank you, Mei Lan, for sharing your work on our chemistry-themed evening!
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Jason Quinones (PRISM '10) Wins NIH Grant!
The National Institute of Health (NIH) recently named PRISM alumnus, Jason Quinones, the recipient of one of its Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards (NRSA) for Individual Predoctoral Fellowships to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research. Jason's funded project aims to understand how oxidative lesions give rise to the formation and fate of proteins that become covalently attached to the DNA backbone in cells. Using mammalian cell models, his work seeks to provide new insight into how this class of DNA damage impacts cellular metabolism and key genomic transactions required for survival of the host cell. A fourth year PhD student in the molecular and cellular pharmacology program at Stony Brook University, Jason works with Dr. Bruce Demple (PI).
Each year the NIH receives over 32,000 grant applications for pre and post doctoral research and is highly selective when it comes to research funding. While it tends to award projects that are tied to a health or disease related aspect, the Institute funded Jason's work because has clear implications for understanding genetic disease.
We congratulate Jason on his this amazing accomplishment as well as another of his recent "projects." Son Noah Jason Quinones, Jr. arrived six months ago. (Click here to see a photo of Noah.) We wish Jason continued success in all his future endeavors. |
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