Three Hampden-Sydney biologists, Jay Brandt ’15, Chris Ferrante ’15, and Taylor Meinhardt ’16, accompanied Professor Mike Wolyniak to the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) in Philadelphia.  The ASCB Annual Meeting attracts roughly 8,000 scientists and exhibitors from around the world each December, including Nobel laureates and other top names in the field.  Jay and Chris presented their joint project on peptide synthesis as a potential novel form of antibiotic.  The research is both their Senior Fellowship project at H-SC and a semester-long classroom research opportunity in which Jay and Chris will work with Professor Wolyniak’s Genetics and Cell Biology class in the spring 2015 semester to collect and analyze data. First, Jay and Chris presented at the undergraduate poster session, featuring 150 different projects drawn across the full gamut of cell biology fields.

Chris Ferrante ’15 and Jay Brandt ’15 at the undergraduate poster presentation session

The site of the undergraduate poster presentation. The Atrium of the Pennsylvania Convention Center was once the trainshed for the Reading Railroad.

Jay and Chris gave their presentation again two days later at the general session alongside  undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and career scientists:

Representing Hampden-Sydney at the general session

Professor Wolyniak gave a talk and a poster at the meeting about a new ASCB teaching mentorship program piloted at Hampden-Sydney last academic year which has potential to become a national model.  The meeting also gave students like Taylor interested in a career in biological research the opportunity to attend sessions on how to get into graduate school and select a research lab as well as take in the research activities of leaders in cell biology related fields.

There was also time to take in Philadelphia:

The Liberty Bell with Independence Hall in the background

One of four eagles on the Market Street Bridge. Originally from Penn Station in New York City, 22 identical eagles still exist today, including the four on this bridge and one on the H-SC campus.

Taylor, Prof. Wolyniak, Chris, and Jay….brotherly love in the City of Brotherly Love