The Wayne State University School of Medicine’s annual Chuan-Pu Lee, Ph.D., Endowed Graduate Student Research Presentation Day showcased the diverse biomedical research of graduate students at the School of Medicine and other WSU schools and colleges, including the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the College of Engineering.
Now in its 28th year, the event, held Jan. 27 in Scott Hall’s cafeteria and the Margherio Family Conference Center, provides a platform for graduate students to present their work to WSU research faculty and students, and encourages interdepartmental collaboration. This year, students presented 20 oral talks and 25 poster presentations.
“From interacting with those present at GSRPD, the event ran smoothly and participants learned a lot from the oral and poster presentation sessions,” said organizing committee Co-Chair Sonia Khalid, a Translational Neuroscience doctoral student. “We hope to expand participation from other schools across campus in the future.”
The research day is supported by a gift from Dr. Lee, who died in 2016. The endowed funds provide awards and prizes. Dr. Lee retired in 2011 after 36 years on the School of Medicine faculty. She was a strong advocate for WSU graduate students, offering pre- and post-doctoral travel awards to help offset the cost of national and international conferences.
Several faculty members from the medical and main campus volunteered to judge the student presentations.
The 2023 organizing committee and day-of moderators included Co-Chair Margaret Sena Akpo, Habiba Elshenawy, Hansi Mugunamalwaththa, Opeyemi Dhikhirullahi, Afoluso Olayonwa, Kyle Siegel, Oladejo Ahmodu, Ehimenmen Sarah Ataman and Tyiesha Head.
The organizing committee shared special thanks to the Office of Graduate Scholars.
The event included a keynote address from Professor and Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences Mark Greenwald, Ph.D., who gave a talk about his research on treatment for opioid use disorder.
Dr. Greenwald, the Gertrude Levin Endowed Chair in Addiction and Pain Biology,
directs the Substance Addiction Research Division, its Human Pharmacology Laboratory and the outpatient treatment research clinic in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University. He co-directs the National Institute on Drug Abuse T32-funded “TRAIN@wayne” addiction neuroscience program. The NIH has continuously funded his research since 1996.
An awards ceremony followed his presentation. The student winners were:
Oral Presentation
- First place: Shichao Wu, “Blocking Inflammation Suppresses Aneurysm Progression in a New Marfan Syndrome Mouse Model with FBN1Q2467X Nonsense Mutation”
- Second place: Warlley Cunha, “CASC15 lncRNA as a Mediator of Vascular Senescence in the Renin-Angiotensin System”
Poster Presentation
- First place: Nasrin Movahhedin, “A novel Theranostic Approach to Treat Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) with DNA Repair Deficiencies”
- Second place: Margaret Sena Akpo, “Investigating the Role of Cell Adhesion Molecules in Muller Glia Morphology and Tiling”