The Fourth Annual Celebration of Biomedical Research at Dartmouth (CBR@D), held 17 October, highlighted the diversity of research here at Dartmouth. CBR@D was sponsored by many departments, programs and student groups that were also represented in the posters including the Graduate Student Council, Geisel School of Medicine, Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Cellular Biology, Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems and Society, Microbiology and Immunology, Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB), Molecular and Systems Biology, Program in Experimental and Molecular Medicine (PEMM), Department of Psychiatry, Psychological and Brain Sciences, Quantitative Biomedical Science, and Thayer School of Engineering.
Topics ranged from cancer therapeutics targeting the cell cycle to using smart phone sensing to test depression in college students. This year’s poster competition winner was Chaya Patel from MCB. Patel’s poster featured her recent work vaccinating mothers for herpes simplex virus-2 to prevent transfer of the disease to the child. Runner-up in the competition was Laurie Delatour from PEMM with her work on changes in where neurons of the cortex travel during development when the fetus is exposed to alcohol. In third place was Ben Goldberg from the Thayer School of Engineering with his development of an antibody toolkit to determine antibodies that infer protection against HIV with the eventual possibility of designing therapeutics based on the identified antibodies.
This year there was also an award sponsored by Graduate Women in Science and Engineering (GWISE). GWISE presented a $100 Visa gift card to the woman with the highest score outside the top three poster presenters. This year that award went to Stephanie Lee from PEMM for her poster about neuron development after ethanol exposure. If you are interested in participating in GWISE events or planning an event with GWISE, please email here.
Each year there is also an option to be placed into a raffle drawing as an attendee and as a poster presenter. Poster presenter raffle winners this year were Iara Backes from MCB, Dong Woo Shin from Chemistry and attendee raffle winners were Paige Canova, Elisa Vesely, and Fred Sebastian.
In addition to show-casing biomedical research, CBR@D also celebrates the innovative and supportive mentors running the labs. The coordinators received 7 nominations for the Mentoring Award, which aims to recognize a Principle Investigator whose dedication to their students stands out. The nominees this year were Brock Christensen, Alan Eastman, Ryan Halter, Todd Miller, Patricia Pioli, Megan Romano, and Hermes Yeh. The winner of the mentoring award this year was Dr. Ryan Halter from the Thayer School of Engineering.
Coordinators of the event, PEMM coordinator Gail Egner and PEMM representatives David Mallick, Eileen Martinez, and Faith Anderson, believe that “this event provided an opportunity for attendees to witness the high-caliber of biomedical research that is undertaken at Dartmouth”. The caliber of research was also diversified by the experience level of the presenters, which included graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors.
The coordinators would like to thank everyone who attended, presented, helped, or supported CBR@D this year. Particularly they’d like to thank the judges for the posters Stephanie Bouley, Shan Chen, Kate Crawford, Surajit Dhara, Brett Doherty, Arti Gaur, Jackie Griffin, Matt Havrda, Robert Hill, Arminja Kettenbach, Kate Nautiyal, Kevin Shee, Patrick Skelton, Xiaofeng Wang, Jason Wells, and Natasha Zlatanou and a big thank you to all the volunteers that help setup and cleanup all the poster boards and stands.
CBR@D continues to be the science event to attend each year at Dartmouth. Every year more students present, and more topics are added to the diverse research presented. Hopes are high for next year and PEMM hopes to continue expanding the diversity of the research as well as of the attendees.