October 15, 1999

Biology students attend biology symposium at Penn State

For four days, Loyola undergraduates attended the Pennsylvania State University's 18th Summer Symposium in Molecular Biology. Attending were biology/pre-med majors Melissa Burmeister, Virginia Burmeister, and Angela Molinario; chemistry/pre-med major William Pearson; and biology assistant professor Ray Green, Ph.D.

"The best part of the trip was getting into the meetings and getting in to the professional realm of science," said Angela Molinario. "It blew my mind to see

what was really going on compared to the biology lab." The symposium titled "Chromatin Structure and DNA Function: Twenty-five Years of the Nucleosome" exposed students to theories behind DNA, chromatin structure, and new research being done in the field.

Students attended oral presentations given by researchers in many fields including molecular genetics, protein chemistry and cell biology. They also attended poster presentations that provided them with insightful information on current lab research, techniques, and instrumentation. Included in the presentations were two posters from Loyola representatives: Angela Molinario's "Phosphorylation of Tertrahymena H2A Histones in Yeast" and Green's "Linker DNA Destabilizes Higher Order Chromatin Structure." Both were very well received and were visited by Timothy Richmond, Ph. D., the keynote speaker and one of the most prominent scientists currently engaged in chromatin research. During the poster sessions, students were given the opportunity to interact with researchers from around the world who have presented the most recent data on chromatin structure and control of gene activity.

In route to the symposium, the Loyola group camped at and visited Smoky Mountain National Park. They also visited several landmarks including the Natural Bridge in Virginia (one of the seven natural wonders of the world) and Ruby Falls in Tennessee.

La'Tesha Wilson, '01, Intern in the Offices of Public Affairs and Publications