UA News

Nearly 100 students from the UA and San Miguel High School will presenting their research during the Undergraduate Biology Research Program's 21st annual conference held at the UA.

Robert Lopez, a junior at San Miguel High School in Tucson, has long been interested in science and has previously considered research, but his first time working with DNA and sequencing sealed the deal.

Lopez, the youngest member in the laboratory directed by S. Patricia Stock, a University of Arizona associate professor of entomology who has a joint appointment in plant sciences, has been studying, monitoring and characterizing specific families of nematodes.

He got involved through the UA's Undergraduate Biology Research Program, or UBRP. On Saturday, he will be among nearly 100 UBRP students who will be presenting their investigations at the UA as part of the program's 21st annual research conference.

"I like to know how things work, so UBRP is everything I could have hoped for and more," said Lopez, whose research seeks to better understand the parasitic nature of the two families in insects, which could lead to safer pesticides. 

All told, 94 students – two of whom attend San Miguel High School and are working in UA laboratories – will present their research during the research conference.

The conference will be held Jan. 23, 1 to 5 p.m., in the Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch Building, 1657 E. Helen St.

Dr. Jessica Dominguez, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, is the event's keynote speaker. Dominguez is a UA alumna who was involved in UBRP and BRAVO! during her time studying at the UA. The event is free and members of the public are encouraged to attend.

UBRP pairs students with faculty members, involving them in research projects that have traditionally been reserved for graduate students.

In addition to work in the lab, UBRP students are also involved in fieldwork with some of the current students investigating nematodes in the Santa Catalina Mountain range, bacteria in the Kartchner Caverns and the diversity of beetles in the southern region of Sonora, Mexico.

During the conference, students will showcase their original research on topics such as natural selection related to skin pigmentation, the development of cardiac muscle, cell-based therapy options for Parkinson's Disease, deadly amoeba found in water in Arizona, how the human papillomavirus infects cells and a number of other topics involving the investigation of animal and plant species.

Alice Cai, a UA sophomore studying molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry and also East Asian studies, is one of 140 students involved in the program.

"Research experience is incredibly valuable, regardless of program – of course UBRP has many more benefits and pushes students very hard – especially when started early," said Cai, a Flinn Scholar and UA Honors College student.

"There is also no substitution for having to double check and triple check results for publication, even running a test to see if a plasmid ordered from a company is really in the tube, because it may be so small it looks like nothing is there," Cai said. "Nothing is ever clear cut and surprises pop up everywhere.  The uncertainty factor and the explanations produced despite all the fuzzy lines is the true problem solving in research."

Collectively, the body of work students will present speak to the immense a range of research opportunities and topics relevant to biological sciences. Students also involved in Biomedical Research Abroad: Vistas Open, or BRAVO!, a UA program that began in 1992, also will be presenting their research.

"The program has always tried to be as inclusive as possible and we have defined biology very broadly so that it allows us to include faculty mentors who are doing any kind of research that can be related back to biology," said Carol Bender, who directs UBRP.

As a result, UBRP involves students and faculty conducting research in agriculture, ecology, pharmacy, medicine, speech, language, and hearing, public health, psychology and a range of other disciplines.

"All of these can be considered biologically-involved, so we can accommodate most any student interested through the program," said Bender, who also is the molecular and cellular biology program director.

And with a Feb. 1 application deadline for the program, which begins during the summer, Bender said undergraduates of all levels should consider applying. "We like to get them early in their college careers," she said, noting that freshmen are sometimes intimidated by applying, but that they should do so.

Kyle R. Almryde, who earned his speech, language, and hearing sciences degree last month, is involved in UBRP, said he is especially grateful for the funding. Almryde said the funding enabled him to present his research last year during the Organization for Human Brain Mapping's 15th annual meeting in San Francisco.

"It was a major event for neuroscientists worldwide, and an incredible and unusual opportunity for an undergraduate student in general," he said. UBRP, he said, "has taught me what it means to be a good scientist and provided me with some of the skills that will help me reach my goals in the scientific community."

Almryde also is presenting his research on Saturday. He works in the laboratory headed up by UA research scientist Thomas Christensen in speech, language, and hearing sciences investigating how a person's level of listening, not reading, attention affect what they remember – specifically, what words they will remember. He also is using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI.

Almryde will be presenting on a number of findings related to what people tend to remember and why and what neural networks come to play to aid in remembering.

"The implications of this study and other studies like it are laying the foundation for research in the future that focuses on specific sensory disorders, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, specific language impairment and even traumatic brain injury," Almryde said.

Charity Adusei, also a UBRP student, is chiefly concerned examining ways that tests used to evaluate adults experiencing the onset of aphasia, a language disorder generally acquired after an individual has a stroke or neurological disease, may be culturally or linguistically based.

"With monolinguals and bilinguals as participants, we hope to standardize these tests irrespective of cultural background," said Adusei, a junior majoring in molecular and cellular biology.

She has conducted her work as an undergraduate researcher in the Aphasia Research Project, collaborating with the project's director Dr. Pélagie Beeson, and Sandra Cruz-Alejandre, a graduate from Mexico City.

Adusei said that through the project and as a UBRP student, she plans to continue her research, which she hopes will lead to improvements in the exams to ensure that results are more accurate, leading to better treatment.

"In UBRP, we are introduced to lots of opportunities," Adusei said, adding that she has been able to merge her interests in the chemical, behavioral and social sciences. "I love it. It's amazing how both worlds have combined, which is a big plus for me."