MWU Medical Students Active in Research

If you ask any of our students what they like about MWU, I would venture that nearly all would say that it is our outstanding faculty and their abililty to teach. We are proud to be a University committed to teaching the next generation of health care professionals. We are also proud to be able to support our students' and faculty's interest in research. To that end, we have established the Kenneth A. Suarez Summer Research Program, which provides funding for medical students to pursue their research interests during their summer break.

To give you a snapshot of some of these projects, the list below captures the student research initiatives this past summer at both campuses:

AZCOM

Kevin Chamberlain (with Dr. Grow, Department of Anatomy) "The Effect of Nicotine and Ethanol in Combination on Acetylcholine Receptor Clustering"

Paula Fanning (with Dr. Chaudhuri, Department of Anatomy) "Investigation of Learning and Memory Disorders in a Chick Model of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)"

Eric Groen (with Dr. Leyva, Department of Microbiology) "Expression and Purification of Halocin Genes"

Jesse Jensen (with Dr. Al-Nakkash, Department of Physiology) "Genistein and its Effects on the CFTR Channel in Male Mice"

Brandon Markus (with Drs. Broderick and Al-Nakkash, Department of Physiology) "Mechanism(s) of Action of Short-Term Genistein Treatment on Ischemic Recovery of Heart Function in the Ovariectomized Rat"

Alena McGraw (with Dr. Yueh, Department of Biochemistry) "Investigation on the Effects of Maternal Ethanol Consumption on Development of Hippocampus in Mouse Offspring"

Robert Nelson (with Dr. Katzif, Department of Microbiology) "Comparison and Quantification of Carotenoid Pigment Among Wild-Type and Cold Shock Mutant Strains of Staphylococcus aureus"

Saul Rosenstein (with Dr. Hall, Biomedical Sciences) "Comparison of the Optic Nerves Between Nocturnal and Diurnal Eyes"

Andrew Sacks (with Dr. Call, Department of Pharmacology) "Role of Blimp-1 in Drosophila Germline Stem Cell Maintenance"

Megan Wangh (with Drs. Devine and Baker, Departments of OMM and Biomedical Sciences) "The Effectiveness of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment for Parkinson's Disease"

Jonathan Willms (with Dr. Heesy, Department of Anatomy) "Comparison of Volumetric and Spatia"

CCOM

Alexander Berger (with Dr. Fay, Department of Pharmacology) "The Role of Cul5 in Insulin-like Growth Factor Signaling in Breast Cancer Cells"

Brent Brown (with Dr. Laddaga, Department of Microbiology & Immunology) "Involvement of the Tyrosine/Tryptophan Permease in Chlamydia pneumoniae TW183 Invasiveness and Persistence"

Bharti Chaudhari (with Dr. Chandar, Department of Biochemistry) "Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Analyses of p53 Regulated Genes in Oseoblasts"

Elaine Cruz (with Dr. Woods, Department of Microbiology & Immunology) "Regulation of Interleukin-8 in Rheumatoid Arthritis Fibroblast-like Synoviocytes by Fractalkine"

Evan Diamantakos (with Dr. Prozialeck, Department of Pharmacology) "Novel Methods for the In Situ Evaluation of Epithelial Cell Necrosis in the Rat Kidney"

Benjamin Hanshaw (with Dr. Goral, Department of Anatomy) "THP-1 Cell Line as a Model to Study Effects of Ethanol on Human Macrophage Inflammatory Response"

Mike Hollandsworth (with Dr. McCulloch, Department of Physiology) "Central Projections of the Anterior Ethmoidal Nerve"

Robert Johnson (with Dr. Inouye, Department of Anatomy) "Morphometric Variation in the Lumbar Zygapophyseal Joints"

Sarah Kozak (with Dr. Goral, Department of Anatomy) "The Effects of Mist Therapy on Immune Function"

Hyo Lee (with Dr. Ramsey, Department of Microbiology & Immunology) "The Role of CXC Chemokines in the Pathogenesis of MoPn Urogenital Infection of Mice"

Anne Lyons (with Dr. Chandar, Department of Biochemistry) "Effect of Prostate Cancer Cells on Osteoclast Activation and Bone Resorption"

Sana Meah (with Dr. LePard, Department of Physiology) "The Effect of Diabetic Neuropathy on Neuronal Nitric Oxide Synthase in Mice"

Joel Mensing (with Dr. Viselli, Department of Biochemistry) "DDE Antagonism of the Androgen Receptor in the Immune System"

Trent Place (with Dr. Van Winkle, Department of Biochemistry) "Stability of c-Myc and Maintenance of Pluripotent Human Embryonic Stem Cells"

Asfia Qaadir (with Dr. Mayer, Department of Pharmacology) "The Effect of Manzamine A on Cytokine Generation in Activated Rat Neonatal Microglia"

Nisheeth Rai (with Dr. Green, Department of Biochemistry) "Determination of the Role of Escherichia coli Gene Products OmpF, OmpC, and PhoE in uptake and Sensitivity to Antibacterial Drugs"

Monica Rdzanek (with Dr. Prozialeck, Department of Pharmacology) "β-catenin-induced Gene Expression after Cd2+-stimulated Disruption of the Cadherin/β-catenin Complex"

Thomas Roberts (with Dr. Green, Department of Biochemistry) "Determination of the Rate Limiting Step in p-aminobenzoic Acid Biosynthesis in Escherichia coli"

Pratik Shah (with Dr. Volin, Department of Microbiology and Immunology) "GRO, IL-8, IP-10m and RANTES Expression by Cytokine-stimulated Human Iris Stromal Cells and Endothelial Cells"

Siddarth Shetgeri (with Dr. Chandar, Department of Biochemistry) "Effect of Prostate Cancer Cells on Proliferation and Bone Specific Gene Expression in Osteoblasts"

James Siegert (with Dr. O'Hagan, Department of Physiology) "Sympathetic Neural Control of the Uterine Circulation During Pregnancy in Rabbits"

Sushma Surapanem (with Dr. Plotkin, Department of Microbiology and Immunology) "Effect of Insulin and/or Glucose on the Association of Organisms with Catheter Materials"