Four students represented McDaniel College at the Maryland Collegiate Honors Conference, “In Honors, Black Lives Matter,” held virtually on Feb. 26-27. McDaniel College Honors students Dalanda Diallo, Signe’ Kula, Maxwell Pardoe, and Raquel Sobczak were excited to have the opportunity to present at the conference and enjoyed hearing and learning of the stories and research from other presenters.
McDaniel seniors Kaitlin Murphy and Anna Kuhn are presenting at the Entomological Society of America’s Entomology 2020 Virtual Meeting with presentations available to be viewed Nov. 11 through Nov. 25. Alumnae Jessica Wyatt ’20 and Suji Kim ’20 also participated as presenters for the event with Holly Martinson, assistant professor of Biology. The meeting features livestream sessions and symposia on Nov. 16, in addition to on-demand symposia, student competition, and 10-minute presentations, posters, and infographics.
More than 40 students participated in McDaniel College’s Student-Faculty Collaborative Summer Research Program. The Student-Faculty Collaborative Research experience is a 10-week program for undergraduate students at McDaniel to pursue research, which is supported by donors. Thirteen faculty members have been leading projects virtually, while two Chemistry professors received special permission to perform COVID-19 research in labs on campus.
The FDA just approved cedazuridine, the cancer drug Chemistry professor Dana Ferraris invented more than a decade ago when he worked in the biotech industry as a medicinal chemist. In its approval announcement, the agency says the combination of cedazuridine with the cancer drug decitabine in pill form is “an important advance in treatment options for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a type of blood cancer, who previously needed to visit a health care facility to receive intravenous treatment.”
In the face of the deadly global coronavirus pandemic, pharmaceutical data vaults have been unlocked and shared – an unprecedented move in research that McDaniel Chemistry professor Dana Ferraris seized to give his students the opportunity this summer to discover drugs to fight COVID-19.
Now on their way to doctorate programs, medical school, high school classrooms and careers that span wildlife preservation, agriculture production and forensics, McDaniel’s 2020 Biology graduates all learned valuable skills and life lessons while immersing in the capstone research that is the culmination of their studies in their major.
The Forest Online course at McDaniel College is not only about researching wildlife, forest protection, ecotourism and community in the Peruvian Amazon but also has the purpose to teach students to become great storytellers and turn what they have learned into high-impact stories. The three-part course is taught in the fall semester, during McDaniel’s January Term and in the spring semester.
Sixteen Biology, Chemistry and Chemistry-Kinesiology majors collaborated with a team of Chemistry professors on summer research aimed at antiviral, antibacterial and cancer drug development, pollution clean-up, cell and tissue imaging, and ways to invigorate general chemistry lab.
Kelly Novak teamed up with Physics professor Jeff Marx to design her major in Meteorology, a concentration of physics and math courses enriched with chemistry and environmental studies, which earned the Honors student a competitive summer research experience in atmospheric science and offers of funded graduate studies.
Sophomore Elva Joya seizes every opportunity to explore a future in medicine from her double major in Biomedical Sciences and Psychology to her internship in Spain shadowing surgeons and learning about the country’s free public healthcare system.
News, experts, trends, research, interesting classes and fascinating people. It’s all here at McDaniel College – let us help you find what you’re looking for.
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