MU Students take part in the 58th annual Metropolitan Association of College and University Biologists conference. @MANHATTANUNIVERSITY/LINKEDIN
Joshua Reichard, Staff Writer
Eleven Manhattan University students traveled to Molloy University to attend the 58th annual Metropolitan Association of College and University Biologists (MACUB) conference on Oct. 25. A handful of biology students were recognized and awarded at the event, including two MU students who placed highly in the developmental biology and genetics poster contest. Nicholas Melendez tied for first place and Eloiza Sanchez earned third place.
MACUB is a nonprofit organization of college and university biologists in the tri-state area. The organization’s purpose is, “to stimulate dialogue among college and university biologists, provide members with a forum to present the results of their scientific and educational research, and to resolve transfer, and articulation problems between two and four year colleges,” according to the website for this year’s conference.
Along with various panels and presentations from scientists, students who attend have the opportunity to submit posters of their scientific findings to be judged.
Nicholas Melendez, a junior biology major, spoke with The Quadrangle about the conference and his winning project which focused on the genetic research he did as a biology summer research scholar.
“We utilized RNAi knockdown to underexpress specific genes that were a part of the ABCA transporter family, that work to moderate the efflux of cholesterol out of the cell,” Melendez said. “When knocking those [RNAi] down, we hypothesized that we would see an increase in brain size and neuron density as well as overall concentration of cholesterol.”
Melendez was nervous about the conference and his presentation at first, as this was his first time attending, but soon realized that since the judges have scientific backgrounds, he could speak with them scientifically and they would understand.
“I was a little bit stressed at first, but with repeating the presentation over and over again, you really get to know it at some point,” Melendez said. “Presenting it to judges with a scientific background, it was definitely a lot easier… They usually say you have to limit your use of scientific vocabulary, but with [the judges] it was very easy to just say to them what I was actually doing.”
Caitlin O’Brien, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology at MU who worked with Melendez on the project, further explained the research he was focused on during the summer research program.
“We’ve been screening through genes that regulate cholesterol levels,” O’Brien said. “We’ve been turning down their expression in the brains of flies and seeing how that affects brain development. Normally those genes help remove cholesterol from a cell, so when we turn down their expression, they can’t perform that same function. We were expecting to see a buildup of cholesterol in the brain, which is what [Melendez] was able to show.”
O’Brien was also given the opportunity to speak on a panel which focused on career paths in the biology field.
“There were five of us up on stage and we all gave a little window into how we started off in science and how we got to where we are now,” O’Brien said. “Then we had an opportunity for students to ask questions. It was a slightly larger audience, but it’s a story that I share with students in our science seminar course, like ‘how did I get started? How did I end up here?’”
Eloiza Sanchez, another junior biology major, also spoke about her project and the opportunity she had to participate in a collection study in Peru. This informed her poster design focusing on the effect of hybridization on the evolutionary characteristics of ribosomal DNA using a specific plant genus.
“I did [research] with Dr. Antoine Nicholas,” Sanchez said. “He’s the head of the biology department and he studies phylogenetics and genetics… luckily, I was given the opportunity to do a collection study in Peru, so that was part of my research. I had no idea I was doing this, when I asked him to be my mentor I was just like ‘hey, do you have any research studies open?’ and then he gave it to me and I was very interested in it.”
Sanchez was also a little nervous about the conference, but felt prepared to present her poster to the judges at MACUB largely because of her preparation on campus. She was even able to present her findings on campus before attending the event.
“I felt pretty prepared, just because we talked about [our research] so much on campus,” Sanchez said. “I was a little nervous, but it went really well… [the judges] were all so nice.”