UF College of Medicine faculty shine in Research Day poster competition
University of Florida College of Medicine scientists studying tumor identification, antibiotic interaction, virus structure and diabetes development won top honors at the college’s annual Research Day poster competition April 11.
In the clinical science category, Henry Baker, Ph.D, a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology, received a best poster award for his team, which found that the marker protein CD44 may help distinguish fast-spreading glioblastoma multiforme brain tumors from slower growing tumors.
Also in the clinical category, Kenneth Rand, M.D., a professor of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine, accepted a best poster award for his team. They demonstrated that the newly developed antibiotic daptomycin was highly synergistic when combined with either rifampin or ampicillin, offering potentially therapeutic combinations for treatment of vancomycin resistant enterococci bacteria.
In the basic science category, Mavis Agbandje-McKenna, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and graduate student Nathan Bryant, B.S., accepted a best poster award for a team of UF biochemists and structural biologists who examined the capsid, or protein shell, in two closely related mouse viruses, one lethal to mice and the other harmless. The capsid structures were almost identical except in one region, which could help explain the viruses’ different phenotypes.
Another best basic science poster award went to S. A. Litherland, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine, representing a team of researchers from UF and other institutions who investigated defects in a regulatory protein called STAT5 and found the defects may contribute to the development of type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases.
Winners were announced at the College of Medicine Research Day faculty dinner at the Sheraton Gainesville Hotel. In total, 111 research posters were entered in the competition.