Graduate Student Accomplishments

Martha Carletti successfully defended her grant proposal for her comprehensive exam in June, entitled Post-Transcriptional Gene Regulation in Periovulatory Granulosa Cells.  She is the first author on an abstract for the 40th meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction, Regulation of the Natiuretic Peptide Pathway by LH and CEBPbeta in Mouse Granulosa and Cumulus Cells.   She was awarded a Graduate Student Travel Scholarship to present a poster at the SSR meeting.  Martha is in the third year of her 4-year Self Graduate Fellowship from the University of Kansas.

Jeffrey Cotitta received a $500 travel award from the Office of Graduate Studies to attend the Future of Male Contraception meeting to be held in Seattle, Washington in September where he will present a poster, Live imaging to visualize the effect of the candidate male contraceptive agent Gamendazole on actin organization in Sertoli Cells in vitro.  He was a co-author on a paper, entitled The Multiple Roles of Mps1 in Drosophila Female Meiosis published in PLoS Genetics.  Jeffrey also presented a poster at the 2006 ASCB meeting held in San Diego, California, entitled Live Imaging Reveals that Chiasmata Ensure Timely Coorientation During Drosophila Meiosis.

Tim Donohue served as a MD/PhD Student Council secretary and treasurer. He also was the Physiology student representative to the Graduate Student Council.  Tim was co-chair of both the volunteer and photography committee for Student Research Forum, and he also created the brochure for the Student Research Forum.  Tim was co-author on a paper entitled, Sympathetic hyperinnervation and inflammatory cell NGF synthesis following myocardial infarction in rats, Hasan, et al, Brain Res. 2006 Dec 8;1124(1):142-54. Epub 2006 Nov 7. 

Argenia Doss made an oral presentation at the 2007 KUMC Student Research forum, entitled The Effects of Estrogen on the Course of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy.

Stephanie Fiedler was selected for the Biomedical Research Training Program pre-doctoral fellowship for 2008. She received the DC Johnson travel award, as well as a travel grant from the Office of Graduate Studies to give an oral platform presentation at the Society for the Study of Reproduction's 40th annual meeting in San Antonio. Her work, entitled LH/hCG Induced Expression of MicroRNAs in Murine Granulosa Cells During the Periovulatory Period, was also presented at the 2007 Student Research Forum. Stephanie served as President of the department's student organized Physiology Society for the `06-`07 school year.

Darcy Griffin received a Graduate Student Travel Scholarship to present a first author poster, entitled “Stability of effects in stimulus trigger averages of EMG activity under different task conditions,” at the 36th annual Society for Neuroscience conference in Atlanta Georgia.  Darcy also presented this research at both this year’s KUMC Student Research Forum and the Biomedical Training Program’s Research Symposium.  She received the Biomedical Research Training Grant Award for the fiscal years 2005-07.  She also co-authored the abstract “Output properties of the hindlimb representation of primary motor cortex in rhesus macaques.” 

Anisha Gupte was awarded a KUMC Graduate Student Travel Scholarship to present her first author poster, entitled “Heat shock mediated JNK inactivation improves insulin signaling in skeletal muscle,” at the Experimental Biology meeting (FASEB) held in Washington DC, in April 2007. Anisha also gave an oral presentation and a poster presentation at the annual Student Research Forum 2007. She won the best oral presentation award in the Musculoskeletal session. Anisha was awarded the Biomedical Research Training Program pre-doctoral fellowship for 2007-2008 for her research in insulin resistance and stress kinases.

Heather Hudson presented a poster, on which she was first author, entitled “Output Properties of the Hindlimb Representation of the Primary Motor Cortex in the Rhesus Macaque,” at the 36th annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta, Georgia in October 2006.  She submitted an abstract, on which she was first author, entitled “Cortical Control of Fast and Slow Muscles of the Ankle in the Rhesus Macaque,” for the 37th annual Society for Neuroscience meeting.   At the Student Research Forum in April 2007, Heather gave a presentation entitled, “Output Properties of the Hindlimb Representation of the Primary Motor Cortex (M1) in the Rhesus Macaque.”  In March 2007, she presented a seminar for the Neuroscience program, entitled “Cortical Motor Control of the Hindlimb in Primates.”  In June 2007, Heather successfully passed her comprehensive exams.  Heather was also an active member of the KUMC Student Recycling organization.

Lynda McGinnis presented a poster at the Society for the Study of Reproduction annual conference, Omaha, NE August 2006.  She received first place in the 3rd Annual Gilbert S. Greenwald Symposium on Reproduction Poster competition, Kansas City, KS October 2006, entitled “Distribution of activated Src family kinases and phospho-tyrosine containing proteins in mouse eggs from meiosis through second polar body extrusion.”  Lynda was the primary author of a publication entitled, “Localized activation of Src-family protein kinases in the mouse egg,” Developmental Biology 306:241-254. She also co-authored a paper entitled, “Long-term storage of mouse spermatozoa after evaporative drying,” Reproduction 133:919-929.

Mariam Riazi-Kermani was first author on a paper, entitled “Observations on mastoid versus ear canal recorded cochlear microphonic in newborns and adults,” which was accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology.  She was second author on a paper, entitled “Effect of morphine on the neuropathogenesis of SIVmac infection in Indian Rhesus macaques,” accepted for publication in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology.  Mariam was awarded the Debra L. Park Award for Outstanding Student in Hearing Science.  At the 2007 KUMC Student Research Forum, she tied first place for her poster presentation, entitled “Motor and sensory evoked potentials in a rhesus macaque model of opiate dependence and neuro-AIDS.” She was also a recipient of a USA-Caribbean HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse Travel Award as well as a KUMC Graduate Student Travel Scholarship for her first author poster, entitled “Motor and sensory evoked potentials in a rhesus macaque model of opiate dependence and neuro-AIDS,” which was presented at the USA-Caribbean Conference on HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society meeting in Arcachon, France.  Mariam was also co-author on a poster, entitled “Effect of morphine on SIV concentrations in brain of macaques,” which was presented at the Society on NeuroImmune Pharmacology meeting in Salt Lake City, UT.

Sarah Tague attended the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta, Georgia with the help of a graduate student travel award.  At this meeting she presented a poster, entitled “Expression of estrogen receptor alpha splice variants in sympathetic ganglia is regulated by estradiol and targets of neuron projection.” Shortly afterwards she was invited to give a short oral presentation at the Greenwald symposium on the same topic.  This spring she participated in the student research forum giving a presentation, entitled “The possible antagonistic regulation of CGRP by vitamin D and estrogen in sensory neurons and its effect on muscle nociception.” In June she attended the Midwest regional pain interest group meeting in St. Louis. Sarah also co-authored two papers published this year from work done before entering the physiology program in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research and The Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry. In the coming year she is organizing the formation of a Kansas City regional Estrogen Focus Group and heading the KUMC Neuroscience Journal Club.  She also plans to attend the American Society for Cell Biology meeting in Washington DC, where she will present a poster, entitled “Vitamin D and estrogen interact to regulate neuritogenesis in dorsal root ganglion neurons.”

Alison Ting was first author on a paper, entitled Characterization of a preclinical model of simultaneous breast and ovarian cancer progression, published in Carcinogenesis.  She also coauthored on a paper, entitled Ovarian endocrine disruption underlies premature reproductive senescence following environmentally relevant chronic exposure to the aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonist 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, published in Biology of Reproduction.  She was awarded first place in the Oncology session for the presentation, entitled Effects of tamoxifen on a preclinical model of simultaneous breast and ovarian cancer progression, at the 2007 Student Research Forum.  She attended the Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting in Boston and the IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Symposium in Kansas City at which she won an award for presenting a poster, entitled Tamoxifen prevents mammary but not ovarian preneoplasia in a preclinical model of simultaneous breast and ovarian cancer progression.  Alison received an award from the NSF for participation in the 2007 East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes Program for US Graduate Students.

Gwenaëlle Wernli was awarded a Biomedical Research Training Program fellowship. She was co-author on a paper, entitled Sympathetic hyperinnervation and inflammatory cell NGF synthesis following myocardial infarction in rats, published in Brain Research. She was awarded a travel scholarship to present a poster, entitled “Noradrenergic regulation of proNGF in the rat heart,” at the 2006 Society for Neuroscience meeting.