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Student  Research Day 2003 Student Research Day 2003 Winners Undergraduate Oral:  1st place—Justin McCrary,  2nd place—Alaina Pancio  Undergraduate Poster: 1st place—Kyle Strickland, 2nd place—Ella Zimmerly  College of Dental Medicine student Quang L. Nguyen presents to the judges during Student Research Day, Nov. 7. Clinical Professional Clinical Science Oral: 1st place—Jason T. McMullan, 2nd place—Elizabeth Nunnery Clinical Professional Social/Behavioral Science Poster: 1st place—William Sasser, 2nd place—Cindy B. Nichols Clinical Professional Basic Science Oral:  1st  place —David Hicklin, 2nd place—Marianne Albert  Clinical Professional Basic I Poster: 1st place—Martha Jeter, 2nd place—Ian Burns Clinical Professional Basic II Poster: 1st place—Gina Iacovella, 2nd place—Caroline Harbeson 28 of the 38 winners of the Student Research Day, held Nov. 7. The program and all abstracts can be found at http://www2.musc.edu/Graduate/SRD/2003/Program.html. Ph.D. Oral I:  1st place—Adrian Grimes, 2nd place—Jessica Paulk  Ph.D. Poster I:  1st place—Cindy Allen, 2nd place—Anne Deschamps Ph.D. Oral II:  1st place—Kristie Lindsey, 2nd place—Octavia Peck  Ph.D. Poster II: 1st place—Jie Fan, 2nd place—Gregor Krings Ph.D. Oral III:  1st place—Lena Heung, 2nd place—Steven Reuland Ph.D. Poster III:  1st place—Zachary Bowman, 2nd place—Jason Guichard Ph.D. Poster IV: Patrick Brian Giles and Ravinder Pannu. These presenters, who tied for first, also receive the 2003 Kinerd-Gadsden Graduate Alumni Award Photo by Margaret Atwood, MUSC Art Services and Digital Imaging Residents and Fellows Oral and Poster:  1st place—Christopher Robinson, 2nd place—S. Hinan Ahmed  Postdoc I Poster: 1st place—Ashish Sharma, 2nd place—Sumita Bandyopadhyay Postdoc II Poster: 1st place—Hang Yin, 2nd place—Meihua Sui  Postdocs Oral:  1st place—Ming Li, 2nd place—Andrea del Pilar Lopez First place Informatics/Bioinformatics Prize awarded by the MUSC Library  was given to Laurie Zone-Smith  for her paper on the Development of a Nursing Intensity Database to Measure Nursing Workload and Patient Outcomes. Second place went to Yian A. Chen for her paper on Expressed Sequence Tags and Micro-arrays.  Both received cash prizes and a copy of the newest EndNote software.  The Informatics/Bioinformatics prizes are judged on the use of information systems in health care and the ability to create, manage, disseminate and use information using computing and communication technology.   Summer undergraduate research students win awards by Dick Peterson Public Relations That special satisfaction teachers get when they see their legacy in action wasn’t lost on College of Graduate Studies Dean Perry Halushka, Ph.D., during Student Research Day Friday. “These are my scientific grand-children,” he said with the pride of a parent as he introduced four Research Day presenters, three seniors and one junior from Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn. The early evening awards ceremony had just concluded, and two of the four had won awards. “Two out of four aren’t bad odds,” Halushka said as he began to explain how four undergraduates from a small institution in Tennessee became his progeny, scientifically speaking. It began with Albert Ruff, Ph.D., the students’ mentor at Lee. When Ruff was a student at Lee University, he spent the summer of 1992 in MUSC’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program, a research experience he says propelled him from Lee into Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he earned a Ph.D. He eventually became a professor of biology at his alma mater. From left are Matthew Ballard, a junior at Lee University, Dr. Perry Halushka, Dr. Albert Ruff, and seniors Cassia D. Davis, Alaina K. Pancio, second place undergraduate oral presentation, and Ella Zimmerly, second place undergraduate poster presentation. Four of his students from Lee enrolled in the 2003 Summer Undergraduate Research Program “and did some incredibly impressive work,” Halushka said. “It was amazing what they accomplished in one summer.” So amazing that Halushka encouraged them to enter the annual competition. That two of them won awards iced Halushka’s cake. And he was celebrating every crumb. “Our faculty thought they were graduate students when they first presented their research at the end of their summer research experience,” Halushka said.  Smaller institutions like Lee University lack the recognition of the larger, well- known institutions, he said, but the research experience MUSC gives them in the summer program demonstrates how good these students really are. Their presentations, judging and award ceremony over, Ruff and his four students faced a seven-hour drive back to Cleveland, Tenn.     Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.