Discovery Day

Published on Friday, October 25, 2024

By: Sarah Sterling, MD

At the end of July, the Medical Student Research Program (MSRP) and the School of Medicine (SOM) hosted the first SOM Discovery Day. Discovery Day was an opportunity for students and their faculty mentors to present the research projects they worked on during the Summer of Research MSRP. It was an exciting way for students and their mentors to share their hard work and efforts, and it served as a chance for students to get additional exposure to the different types of biomedical research occurring on our campus.

Discovery Day started with several concurrent poster presentations. Sessions were moderated by faculty and grouped by general area of interest: public health research, basic science and translational research, and clinical research. Students presented their posters and faculty and students had the chance to ask questions and make suggestions for future areas of investigation.

Following the poster sessions, oral abstract presentations were delivered by selected students. Students had the option to submit an abstract for an oral presentation, if they chose. Abstracts were subsequently reviewed and scored by a team of faculty reviewers, and the top eight abstracts were selected for presentation. On Discovery Day, the students gave brief power point presentations on a variety of areas of research from educational to basic science to public health research.

Although all poster and oral abstract presentations were excellent, some students had particularly outstanding presentations. For each poster presentation session, reviewers’ scores were tabulated and the student with the highest score in each session was recognized. Similarly, during the Oral Research Presentations, reviewers’ scores were tabulated and the student with the highest score was recognized.

All presentations were reviewed and scored by a group faculty, residents, and fellows. Additionally, faculty, residents, and fellows scored presentations and performed abstract reviews and many faculty served as moderators and discussion leads. As you can tell, Discovery Day would not have been possible without an amazing group of volunteers! Porscha Fuller and Rakesh Patel from the SOM were instrumental in the day’s success. In the future, we are hopeful Discovery Day can be expanded and include students outside the MSRP, too, and we will have additional opportunities and need for faculty and fellow engagement! If you are interested in participating in future Discovery Days, please reach out to Dr. Sarah Sterling at sasterling@umc.edu.

Discovery Day 2024 Outstanding Presentations:

Outstanding Poster Presentations
Student:	Mentor:	Project:
Richard Rein	Lorena Amaral, PhD	Progesterone as a Potential Treatment to Preeclampsia
Joshua Murphy	Michael Brown, PT, DPT, SCS	The Effects of Palmar Cooling on Repeated Sprinting Ability
Parker Gleason and Holman Henry Taylor	Hamdi Sukkarieh, MD	Adolescent Tibial Tuberosity Fractures: Is Prophylactic Fasciotomy Really Needed?
Anna Robertson	Albert Lin, MD	Retinoid Binding Protein 3 (RBP3) in Diabetic Retinopathy – Cause or Consequence
Mary Pevey	Candace Howard-Claudio, MD, PhD	Exploring the Relationship Between Chest Fat Components and Coronary Artery Calcium Scores in Older African Americans
Natasha Burrell	Licy Yanes Cardozo, MD, PhD	Metformin Improves Mesenteric Visceral Adipose Tissue Insulin Signaling in a Rat Model of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Outstanding Oral Research Presentation

Student:

Mentor:

Project:

Mattie Derivaux

Srishti Shrestha, PhD and

B. Gwen Windham, MD

Olfaction and Subjective Cognitive Decline