Prairie View A&M University students traveled to Phoenix, AZ for the 2017 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students where over 1,000 students were in attendance. Ali Fares, interim dean and land-grant program director, said he was proud of all the hard work the students exhibited at the conference. “This is a great opportunity for students to participate in professional development activities that will help to enhance their confidence level while also improving their communications skills,” said Fares. The student projects presented at the conference were funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Gabriel Phillips, a senior agriculture major, who worked under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Ampim, was a winner in the chemistry poster division. Phillips presented on Bioactives and Compounds of Industrial Interest in Egyptian Spinach (Corchorus olitorius L.) seeds. His exploratory research, conducted in the Spring and Summer of 2016, revealed that Egyptian Spinach seeds contain several compounds with potential pharmacological and industrial uses. Phillips stated, “Being selected for an award was incredibly validating because I feel as though my efforts are a major contributing factor to agriculture and its progression.”
Under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Carson, James Fearon, a junior chemical engineering major and Joseph Marshall, a senior chemistry major, presented research on Green Biosynthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using Capsicum Annum Extract that investigates extracts from plants to inhibit microbial growth to assist in food safety. Fearon took home a win in the chemistry poster division. Ardawna Green, a senior biology major, presented a poster titled “Defining the genomic structure of caprine genes involved in Apoptosis” and Jessica Watts ‘17 presented her poster titled “Gene expression in the developing goat testes: identification of a caprine spermatogenesis transcriptome”. Watts successfully competed for a FASEB travel award based on her extended abstract.