Research-poster event yields student winners, precedes Innovations lecture
| April 13, 2012 | |
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Research posters about contaminated water in North Carolina and cancer screening in Kenya wowed the judges at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health’s annual student poster event held April 3 prior to the annual Innovations in Public Health lecture presented by imaginative researcher and chemist Joseph DeSimone, PhD.
Jen Shields (left) discusses her research with Dr. Anna Schenck, associate dean for public health practice.
Jen Shields, doctoral student in environmental sciences and engineering, won the Delta Omega Theta Chapter Award with her study titled “Hepatitis E Virus in Waters Proximal to Swine Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Eastern North Carolina.” Shields found that the Hepatitis E virus from swine waste sprayed on agricultural fields may contaminate surface water in streams and creeks nearby. Jie Ting, doctoral student in epidemiology, won the 2012 Gillings Poster Award with her presentation titled “HPV mRNA Testing of Self-Collected Specimens for Cervical Lesions Detection, Kenya.” Ting’s study showed little difference between samples collected for cervical cancer screening by women compared to samples collected by their physicians. Self-collected samples could be a useful, alternate method of detecting cervical cancer in low-resource settings.
Christin Daniels, director of research at the School, studies Jie Ting’s winning poster.
The poster event showcases original research by students at the School and provides them with the opportunity to interact with the faculty and other students about their work and to generate new ideas or collaborations. “It is wonderful that students from all of our School’s departments and the Public Health Leadership Program participated in the event this year,” said Sandra Martin, PhD, associate dean for research and professor of maternal and child health. “I’d like to thank all of the students – and their faculty mentors – who submitted posters for this event.”
Thirty-four graduate students and two undergraduates presented their posters at the annual Spotlight on Student Research event in the Armfield Atrium of the Michael Hooker Research Center.
Dr. Joseph DeSimone
DeSimone, Chancellor’s Eminent professor of chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill and William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University, delivered the Innovations in Public Health lecture in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation Auditorium after the student poster event. His lecture, titled “Co-opting Moore’s Law: The cost-effective design of vaccines and therapeutics,” fit this year’s lecture theme of “Micro Particles Macro Impact” by highlighting his work with nanotechnology for vaccine development. “DeSimone is deservedly famous for his work in chemistry, materials sciences and nanotechnology as a channel for new therapies and vaccines,” said Julie MacMillan, MPH, managing director of Research and Innovation Solutions at the School. “His inventions would be reason enough for us to invite him to speak at the school.”
DeSimone also explored the impact of interdisciplinary approaches to public health problems.
“Someone said, ‘He’s unafraid of what he doesn’t know,'” added MacMillan. “This combination of remarkable imagination and fearlessness is what solves public health problems, too. We feel so lucky that he agreed to give our Innovations in Public Health lecture this year.”
Both events were organized by the Research and Innovation Solutions unit at the School.
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Linda Kastleman, communications editor, (919) 966-8317 or linda_kastleman@unc.edu.
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