Kevin Fields did his research through the Apprenticeship Program of Health Sciences Minority Program at the University of Minnesota. He worked with Dr. John Van Pilsum in the Department of Biochemistry. His project was to refine the separation of enzyme L-arginine:glycineamidinotransferase, an important first step in creatine synthesis, using a simple two-column process.
J. Kelly Gravier worked on a rather
theoretical project, which focused on sterilization techniques. Dr. Craig
Meadows was her advisor at Medtronic. Kelly worked with a variety of sterilization
methods but concentrated her research on the development of a prototype
Deep Vacuum HVP that employed the use of aqueous hydrogen peroxide to
sterilize foods and such things as dairy packaging.
Dean Koutroupas studied the function
of the immune system to recognize and eliminate foreign substances, such
as bacteria, from the body. Occasionally, however, the immune system fails
to correctly distinguish bacteria from normal body tissues and produces
antibodies to these tissues, thus producing disease. Dean worked with
Dr. Peter Santi at the University of Minnesota’s E.N.T. Department
and used chinchillas to determine whether antibodies produced against
a common infectious bacteria, streptococcus, can also react with inner
ear tissues to produce hearing loss and other inner ear disease.
Martin Law worked with Dr. Ashok
Singh in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Veterinary
Diagnostics as part of the Health Science Minority Program. Martin’s
research focused on the effect of insecticides on human blood. Specifically,
he monitored the exposure to organophosphorus insecticides by measuring
acetylcholinesterase and cholinesterase activity in human blood.
Stephanie Norling studied the behavioral
changes of a maturing juvenile female white-cheeked gibbon as part of
the Zooschool Project at the Minnesota Zoo. She observed the animal for
all social behaviors. Pursuant to Stephanie’ findings, which included
significantly low levels of aggression and high percentages of grooming
and play, it was determined that the female was still functioning well
within the family unit.
Elizabeth Magno studied fat extraction
methods historically used by the food industry produce different fatty
acid profiles. Elizabeth’s project in conjunction with Dr. Patricia
Sackett and the University of Minnesota’s Food Science Department
attempted to identify which method best provides the best agreement between
percent total gross fat and percent total calculated fat by gas chromatography.
In addition to her initial experiment, she evaluated seven food matrices
to determine similarities in fatty acid composition across extraction
techniques.
Sara Proman studied the effects of time and plasmid type on plasmid yield. She worked with Dr. Michael Murtaugh at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Veterinary Pathobiology. Sara grew three identical bacterial cultures and purified their DNA. Her results proved that purification periods between 24 and 48 hours produced the best plasmids.
Adam Regelmann worked with patients
who had cystic fibrosis had progressive destruction of their lungs. Abnormally
high amount of white blood cells are present in their airways. Lung tissue
degrading enzymes are released when white blood cells rupture. Adam studied
lung tissue in the labs of the University of Minnesota and observed that
an inhibitor of these enzymes significantly decreased their tissue degrading
activity in lung washings. In addition to his laboratory work, Adam was
a Westinghouse Science Talent Search Semi-Finalist.
