Three Hampden-Sydney seniors, Jay Brandt, Chris Ferrante, and Stephen Woodall, recently presented their research work at the annual Experimental Biology (EB) meeting in Boston.  EB is a federation of six different biological professional societies and is one of the largest scientific conferences in the world.

Woodall, Ferrante, and Brandt at the conference

Chris Ferrante was the first recipient of the Hampden-Sydney student chapter of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s travel award, which is available to a Hampden-Sydney biochemist/molecular biologist each year to defray the costs of attending the meeting.  All three students participated in two poster sessions, one specifically for undergraduates and one for the general meeting.

Ferrante and Brandt presenting at the undergraduate poster session, where over 250 students from across the nation and several countries presented their research

To give an idea of the scope of the EB meeting, Chris and Jay’s poster in the general session was sandwiched between posters from Hiroshima University, Japan, and Harvard Medical School while Stephen’s fell between work from the University of Connecticut and Trinity College of Dublin, Ireland.

Woodall at the general session

Stephen after visiting the many, many vendors at the meeting

Stephen’s work with Dr. Kristian Hargadon examined tumor immunology in a mouse model while Jay and Chris’ work with Drs. Mike Wolyniak and Bill Anderson considered the synthesis of polypeptides to create new forms of antibiotics.  All three students plan on attending medical school in the future, with Jay already set to begin at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in the fall of 2015 as part of H-SC’s early articulation agreement with EVMS.

On Faneuil Hall with Samuel Adams

It was a big meeting!