12:04 p.m., May 4, 2010----Three University of Delaware undergraduate researchers - Tejal Naik, Laura Sloofman and Amy Styer -- won awards at the Experimental Biology 2010 meeting held April 24-28 in Anaheim, Calif.

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As part of the meeting, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology sponsored its 14th undergraduate poster competition.

Naik, a junior Honors Program student majoring in biological sciences, received an award for the best poster in the thematic area of chemical biology and drug discovery.

Sloofman, a senior Honors Program student majoring in quantitative biology, won honorable mention for her poster in the systems biology category, and Styer, a senior Honors Program student majoring in biochemistry, won honorable mention for her poster in the protein structure and function category.

For the last decade, the UD Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Undergraduate Science Education Program has been sending students to the Experimental Biology meetings to present research.

Since 2001, students from the University have received more awards in this competition than students from any other college or university.

This year, the contingent included four UD faculty members, 13 UD students and one Lincoln University undergraduate researcher.

In addition to Sloofman and Styer, UD students who attended were Rebecca Brown, Aleksey Dvorzhinskiy, Jean Huynh, Megan Kissig, Tyler Larsen, Tejal Naik, Michael Napolitano, Rachel Randell, Robert Sheehan, Katharine Shelly and Jamie Stull. Lincoln student Wachen Peters also attended.

Faculty who attended were Harold White, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; David Usher, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences; Seung Hong, laboratory coordinator in the Department of Biological Sciences; and Gary Laverty, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

White, director of the UD HHMI Undergraduate Program, said this was a great group of students. “They really got into the meetings and interacted well together. I think they learned a lot about the importance of large meetings in disseminating new scientific discoveries and stimulating new research,” he said.

The trip to Experimental Biology 2010 was organized by the University of Delaware HHMI Undergraduate Science Education Program with additional support from travel grants from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Scholars Program, and the Office of Equity and Inclusion.

The HHMI Undergradaute Science Education Program, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Scholars Program, the Charles Peter White Fund, the UD Undergraduate Research Program, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Eye Institute, and the Department of Defense supported research by the students.

For details on UD participation, see the website.