Fourth Annual Research Day Held in Conjunction with McGehee Lecture
May 19, 2014 | More than 120 students had the opportunity to showcase their research efforts on campus at the 2014 Research Day held in April. The event was held the same day as the Robert E. McGehee, Jr. Ph.D. Distinguished Lectureship in Biomedical Research which featured C. Thomas Caskey, M.D., professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. This is the fourth annual campus-wide research day, where students were divided into morning and afternoon groups to give poster presentations about their research. The first and second floors of the I. Dodd Wilson Education Building were bustling with 131 students from each college and the graduate school who presented different topics ranging from lung cancer screening to scoliosis to drug interactions. Devin Cox, a UAMS Graduate School student in genetic counseling, presented her research on Phelan-McDermid syndrome. “Autistic features have been seen in Phelan-McDermid syndrome, so I wanted to find out what that means,” she said. “I qualified the autistic features and found that all features were seen.” Cox looked at its correlations with patients’ genetic information. Her mentor is Tiffany Lepard-Tassen, a genetic counselor in the UAMS College of Medicine. Between the morning and afternoon poster session, students and faculty members gathered for the lecture. Robert E. McGehee, Jr., Ph.D., dean of the UAMS Graduate School, introduced Caskey, who has more than 35 years of experience in molecular genetics. McGehee said that it was an honor for the research day to be anchored with the lecture series. Caskey talked about the way medicine will be practiced in the future with genetic screening. Most of the genetic screening done now is in newborns or is prenatal. He looked at how things have changed and the opportunities for the future. “Technology is powerful, but it has to be used in conjunction with standard medical care,” Caskey said. The lectureship was made possible by a gift from the grandparents of a student McGehee mentored. The anonymous couple appreciated McGehee’s support and influence as a mentor. The gift endows the first distinguished lectureship in the UAMS Graduate School, but it impacts the education of students in all five UAMS colleges as well as the Graduate School. After the poster sessions, the nine students who had the highest scores from the judges were given awards. They included: Graduate Students Professional Students (M.D., Pharm. D., etc.) House Staff/ Fellows/ Postdocs Overall Award |
