VUSRP Presentations
I’ve blogged a lot in the past about the undergraduate research I do at Vanderbilt. More recently, how I am currently participating in VUSRP and what day-to-day life is like in the lab. My research this summer is culminating in a 10 minutes PowerPoint presentation and a Poster Session Day during the fall semester. Here’s a brief summary of some of the presentations I went to see. If you’re interested, you can check out the Poster Session of all the VUSRP students on September 4th from 4-5:30pm. Una Nattermann — Expression and Purification of Recombinant Beta amyloid 1-40
- Hey, that’s me! — Producing a recombinant (cell-expressed) misfolded protein (amyloid) for structural studies.
Michael Geoghgan — Cognitive basis of creativity in the schizophrenia spectrum
- Is there a happy medium between being “normal” (not creative) and schizophrenic (creative beyond reason)? Yes — with our varied amounts of schizotypy lies an area of appropriate creativity.
Hannah Packman — Understanding Food Transactions of People
- A study of how often and where people go to buy food. Fun fact: Vanderbilt University is actually in a food desert because there aren’t grocery stores nearby (there are only convenience stores, (fast food) restaurants, and gas stations.
Michael Pritchett — Structural Biology of Annealing Helicases
- Working to determine the structure of the protein complexes that hold our DNA strands together could provide insight into DNA repair.
Clayton Patrick — Illusions: The Psychological Investigation of Subjective Shapes
- Is there something wrong with our visual system when it chooses to “see” a shape, for example, that does not really exist?
Nick Lashinsky — Stable Isotope Ecology of Extant Marsupials from Australasia
- A study of the relationship between environment (climate, rainfall, plant growth) and heavy atom deposits in the tooth enamel of relatively recently deceased marsupials (last 100 years or so) in order to be able to later draw conclusions about life on earth from the fossil record.
As you can see, there are plenty of subject areas covered by VUSRP students, so if you’re interested, no matter which department you are a part of, you should apply!