Pitt-Greensburg Science majors shine at regional convention

Pitt-Greensburg Science majors

Twenty-three Pitt-Greensburg science majors participated in the Beta Beta Beta National Biological Honor Society’s Northeast District 3 Regional Convention at SUNY Fredonia, NY. Seventeen students gave either oral or poster presentations of their capstone research. Olivia Long, PhD, assistant professor of Biochemistry, is the group’s advisor.

The students brought home two first place awards, a second place award, and an honorable mention. For their first place wins, the students received $750 travel awards to present their capstone research at the national conference to be held in June at Monterey Bay, CA. This will be the third national biannual conference Pitt-Greensburg students have attended using their travel award prizes.

Placing first were Marina Shenouda for her oral presentation, “Rescue the Retina; The Effects of Tyrosine 262 and Tryptophan 281 on Chromophore Binding Specifically in Blue and Green Cone Opsin,” and Amanda Henderson, Raeann Tsui, and Patapon Tongdee for their poster presentation on their capstone research, “Forget Alzheimer’s! A Study Investigating the Effects of Antioxidants on Neurodegeneration as modeled in C. elegans.”

Tim Legenzoff placed second for his oral presentation on investigating molecular crowdings impact on enzyme kinetics, which was taken from his work as a Green Scholar with Chloe Rowland, PhD, assistant professor of Biochemistry. Timmy Race, Lexi Valko, and Erika Arrington won honorable mention for their group’s poster presentation investigating a drug addiction model in C. elegans.

Pitt-Greensburg’s chapter also brought home several awards. In addition to receiving the conference spirit award, the group placed second for the chapter history award (scrapbook), second in most delegates in attendance, losing to the host school, and second for the outstanding chapter award.

Publication Date

Wednesday, December 31, 1969 - 23:00