July 6, 2009
School of Medicine postdocs share research in inaugural poster session
The young scientists pointed, explained and employed a bit of charm at the School of Medicine’s inaugural Postdoctoral Poster Session, held on June 24. The goal: impress the faculty judges and bring home some cash and prestige.
The event, part of the Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Association’s Scientific Seminar Series Awards Ceremony, showed off the high level of research being conducted by the school’s postdoctoral fellows. The session drew scores of faculty and fellows who stopped by Turner Concourse to see what colleagues in other labs are working on. The JHPDA added the poster session to give fellows who could not take part in the seminar series an opportunity to showcase their work.
Ye Yan explains her research to faculty judges Angelo De Marzo and Vasan Yegnasubamanian, both of the Department of Oncology. Yan won first place in the basic translational poster category.
The seminar series, now in its third year, takes place between January and June, and this year fellows submitted 37 abstracts. From this group, 10 were selected by a competition committee to be presented during five lunchtime sessions, with faculty judges evaluating the research on the basis of scientific impact. The first-place winner in the seminar series was Jonathan Jun, of the Department of Medicine, for his presentation “Hypoxia-Induced Lipolysis as a Novel Mechanism of Hypercholesterolemia.” Jun won $500.
During the poster session, a panel of seven School of Medicine faculty judges evaluated the 47 posters submitted in both clinical and basic/translational research categories.
In the clinical category, Stephen Sozio, of the Department of Medicine, won first prize. Sozio wowed the judges with his poster titled “Multiple Markers of Inflammation are Not Associated With Risk of Cerebrovascular Events in Patients Initiating Dialysis.” Said one judge, “Proving a negative is not easy, and he was very persuasive. Exceptional work.” Ye Yan, of the Department of Neuroscience, won in the basic/translational category for her poster “The Antioxidant Enzyme Prdx1 Controls Motor Neuron Differentiation by Thiolredox Dependent Activation of GDE2.” Sozio and Yan each received $250, a blue ribbon and some bragging rights.
For a list of all the winners, go to www.hopkinsmedicine.org/jhpda/about/scientific.html.