April 27th update

Greetings fellow BioMinds companions!

Sorry for the tardiness in this post, the week has been very demanding and it was troublesome to find time to write this.
Up to the moment the research I have been involved with has changed. I had ordered some sensor sleeves for the Apollo Free Radical Analyzer; but there were logistical errors that resulted in a delay in the delivery and I have been lead to study other effects of the sulfmyoglobin synthesis reaction. Specifically I have been analyzing the stability of the sulfmyoglobin complex. This is an important factor because it is necessary and crucial in order to follow through with crystallization. At the moment there have been delays, including the possible strike on Friday, so I will have to work as speedily as possible in order to have sufficient amounts of data for the conclusion of the semester.

Now, as for the main topic of the post, the BioMinds poster day was a very successful and interesting activity. One thing that I would like to add, before I go in detail, is that I feel that the poster session was TOO short. I’m guessing that the”re were approximately from 90-100 posters on display. One hour for a poster session of that magnitude I feel, and this is in my most humblest opinion, it was very restrictive on this whole experience. I was very interested in the three, preselected posters that I evaluated, but I still wanted to visit dozens of other posters that I found very captivating. Don’t get me wrong, I could’ve done that outside of the allotted time, after 2:00PM, but everybody was picking up and packing up to leave! Perhaps a little more structure was needed so that a higher interaction between the group could’ve been achieved.

As for the three posters:

1) The first poster I visited was by Adriana Dia. This poster was titled Potential Protein-Protein interaction motifs in envelope Glycoprotein of Dengue virus and other Flavivirus. This poster was very well prepared in all the provided requisites, and additionally the student was also very well prepared. One interesting comment that I would like to make is that this whole research experience seems to involve a computer program that simulates Biochemical interactions. The interactions obviously apply to the study of the Dengue virus, but I found it incredibly interesting that they could be simulated at a digital level.

2) The second poster I visited was by Andrea V. Rivera. The title was Understanding the role of phosphorylation in the nonesense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway. This poster was also very well done and the presenter was very prepared. I can see why she won the ABRCMS best poster award (i think !?). It was interesting to understand a little but of the specialized research that is ocurring in the field of Oncology. I do understand that this project was very dense and complicated, I just wish I had more time in order to capture the best essence of the project.

3) The third and final poster I visited was by Juliany Rivera. The poster’s title was Extremophilic diversity in mangrove’s rhizosphere; a source of putative novel mocroorganisms with biotechnological potential. This poster clearly met with all the criteria that was established in the evaluation sheets. This research seems to have been an attempt to catalog the biodiversity (at a micro level) at the saline areas of sothwestern PR. I found it highly interesting, especially the future applications that could be given to the field of Biotechnology.

The posters displayed at the BioMinds Research Day were very interesting. The population of research students at the UPR proves to be very rich and diverse in knowledge. The experiences did not seem limited to the fields of natural sciences, and it was very rewarding to see all the future applications that could be given to humanity. I would’ve wished to have visited each poster but due to logistical issues I was not able to. Even though this occured, I am sure that the BioMinds community will have a very promising future, in the years that will follow this experience.

~ by chrismolini on April 29, 2009.