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8 GDCB students receive travel awards

 Bhavika Patel, Ian Braun and Kai Chang
Receiving Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology travel awards for fall 2018 are, from left, Bhavika Patel, Ian Braun and Kai Chang.
 Bibechana Adhikari, Ting Miao, Weijia Su, Kerui Huang and Hao Jiang
Five students received Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology travel awards during spring 2019. From left are Bibechana Adhikari, Ting Miao, Weijia Su, Kerui Huang and Hao Jiang.

Eight Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology (GDCB) graduate students received GDCB travel awards during the 2018-2019 academic year. Bibechana Adhikari, Hao Jiang, Kerui Huang, Ting Miao and Weijia Su received awards in the spring, while Ian Braun, Kai Chang and Bhavika Patel received awards in the fall. The awards help offset the cost of the students attending and presenting their research at varied conferences.

Adhikari is the recipient of a Dale W. Young and W.E. Loomis Award for her attendance at the 61st Annual Maize Meeting in St. Louis in March. She presented a poster, "Characterization and mapping of a maize mutant affecting endosperm gene networks." Her major professor is Phil Becraft.

Braun, the recipient of a Dale W. Young and W.E. Loomis Award, attended the International Plant Phenotyping Symposium, Adelaide, Australia, in October 2018 where he presented a talk on "Computational Classification of Phenologs Across Biological Diversity." Carolyn Lawrence-Dill is his major professor.

Chang received a Sui-Tong Chan Fung Fund Travel Award for her travel to the Keystone Symposia in Keystone Colo., in January 2019. She presented her poster, "The role of TGF-Beta/activin and mTORC2 signaling in cardiac homeostasis." Her major professor is Hua Bai.

Hao received a Dale W. Young and W.E. Loomis Award, which will go toward his attendance at Plant Biology 2019 in San Jose, Calif., from Aug. 3-7. He will present either a poster or a talk on "GSK3-Like Kinase BIN2 Phosphorylates RD26 to Potentiate Drought Signaling in Arabidopsis." Yanhai Yin is his major professor.

Huang is the recipient of a Sui-Tong Chan Fung Fund Travel Award. She attended the 60th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Dallas, Texas, in March where she presented her poster, "Peroxisome-mediated inter-tissue communication via inflammatory cytokine Upd3." Her major professor is Hua Bai.

Miao received a Sui-Tong Chan Fung Fund Travel Award to go toward her attendance at the 60th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Dallas, Texas, in March. She presented a talk, "Regulation of lipogenesis by Kr-h1-mediated acetylation of fatty acid synthase during Drosophila larval development." Hua Bai is her major professor.

Patel, a spring 2019 graduate, received a GDCB Departmental Award. She attended the Society for Neuroscience in November 2018. Patel presented a poster titled "Development of biomaterial-based cell transplantation strategies using zebrafish as an in vivo system." Don Sakaguchi is Patel's major professor.

Su received a Dale W. Young and W.E. Loomis Award for her attendance at the Maize Genetics Conference in St. Louis in March. She presented "TIR-Learner, a new ensemble method for TIR Transposable Element annotation, provides evidence for the impact of TIR TEs on Maize Genome Structure and Evolution." Her major professor is Tom Peterson.

Students can apply for the travel awards each spring and fall semester. GDCB Department's Graduate Affairs Committee is in charge of the process. The 2018-2019 committee includes GDCB Associate Professor Maura McGrail, chair; GDCB Professor Xun Gu; and GDCB Professor Eve Wurtele.