by Jared Rutecki
On Friday, Sept. 29, OU-COM holds
its fifth annual Research Day, which will take place on the Bricks
in Irvine Hall from 11 a.m. to 1
p.m. Research Day is sponsored by the college’s Research
and Scholarly Affairs Committee (RSAC) and showcases the past
year’s research activities of the school’s faculty,
graduate students, medical students, and undergraduates. The
event, says Jack Blazyk, Ph.D., associate dean for
research and grants, gives the rest of the university and the
Athens community an opportunity to see what is happening at the
college.
“Research Day,” says Blazyk, “is one of the many things that we
do to promote research at OU-COM. It has proven to be successful
and is growing in popularity.”
Research Day recognizes participants for their achievements and
the importance of medical research. Another benefit, says
Blazyk, is that members of the college and university get to
interact, which can spur discussions and collaborations that can
led to new research projects.
“We are probably one of the few
colleges that has its own Research Day,” says Gillian Ice,
Ph.D., M.P.H., RSAC chairwoman. “We’ve sent invitations to
the president, the Office of Research and to associate deans for
research across the university.”
This year 45 research projects (posters) will be featured.
Twenty of those posters represent the work of OU-COM’s medical
students. More than half of the student posters at Research Day
will feature students' research resultant from participation in
the summer’s
Research and Scholarly Advancement Fellowship program.
“Each year more and more students get
involved in Research Day,” says Ice.
In addition to showcasing their research, students are given
awards for the best basic science poster and best clinical
poster.
“A panel of judges will make those two selections,” says Blazyk.
“There are two groups of judges for the categories — five judges
in each group. One group will rate the clinical posters, and one
will rate the basic science posters. The winner of each category
will receive a $200 award.”
Awards are made based the following criteria: adherence to
poster guidelines, clarity of objectives, creativity,
importance, innovativeness, organization, overall impact,
presentation, technical soundness and understanding of the
subject.
Last year, only one award was given for the best overall student
poster. Saima Karim
received that honor for her poster, “PORF-2, cyclophilin, and 18
S expression in varying insulin concentrations with and without
blockage of insulin receptors with HNMPA-(AM)3.”
Research by OU-COM faculty includes a poster by nationally
known Lawrence Witmer, Ph.D., associate professor of
anatomy, exploring homology of the ear cavities of theropod
dinosaurs and their progeny, including birds. He also worked on
a number of other projects to be presented Research Day.
With 45 posters exploring a variety of areas, there will be
something of interest for anyone attending Research Day. Poster
titles and abstracts are available
here.
- 30 -
News for
the week of
Sept 25 – Sept 30
