We are delighted to welcome you to the annual Barnard Biology Research Symposium! This symposium is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating the exemplary work of our Senior Thesis Research & Seminar and Guided Research & Seminar students. Under the guidance of their dedicated mentors, both at Barnard and throughout New York City, our students have spent the 2023-2024 academic year working on projects across a range of biological disciplines, including computational biology, cell biology, genetics, animal behavior, ecology, and more.

Today, we feature the hard work of our presenters and congratulate them and their mentors on their steadfast commitment to their research! We hope today’s presentations and posters will inspire the next generation of Barnard Biology majors to follow boldly in their footsteps in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

We encourage you to join us today for both sessions, the first of which will feature presentations by our Senior Thesis Research & Seminar students from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm, followed by the Guided Research & Seminar poster session from 1:30 to 3:30 pm.

Biology majors enroll in Senior Thesis Research & Seminar to fulfill their senior capstone
requirement for the major. This year-long course requires students to work on independent
research projects under the guidance of their mentors. It culminates in a scientific paper and
a 15-minute research talk presented in today’s first session.

9:45 am to 10:00 am ⸺ Opening Remarks by Professors Jessica Goldstein, JJ Miranda, and Alison Pischedda

10:00 am Isabella Martinez

Sexual conflict over mating duration in Drosophila melanogaster

Alison Pischedda (Department of Biology, Barnard College)

10:15 am Danya Gewurz

Stop the spread: Antibiotic resistance is a major problem

Allison Lopatkin (Department of Chemical Engineering, University of
Rochester) and Jonathan Snow (Department of Biology, Barnard College)

10:30 am Sumayya Mokit

The effect of water stress on red oaks and red maples in Black Rock Forest

Andrew Reinmann (Environmental Sciences Initiative, CUNY Advanced
Science Research Center)

10:45 am Cindy Ruan

Mutations causing human disease have a strong coevolution relationship

Yufeng Shen (Department of Systems Biology, Columbia University Irving
Medical Center)

11:00 am Angelene Soto

Proteasome inhibition: a treatment for microsporidia infection in honey bees

Jonathan Snow (Department of Biology, Barnard College)

11:15 am Break

11:30 am Emma Kaufman

Repurposing nitroxoline to treat virus-associated lymphomas without reactivating HIV

JJ Miranda (Department of Biology, Barnard College)

11:45 am Angelina Li

Investigating a novel RNA-dependent function of the DNA-repair protein Ku80 in suppressing innate immune response in human cells

Shan Zha (Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Institute for Cancer Genetics, Columbia University Irving Medical Center) and Yimeng Zhu (Institute for Cancer Genetics, Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

12:00 pm Alana Rabinowitz

Monitoring dopamine release and neuronal activity in the nucleus accumbens and dorsal medial striatum during inhibitory learning

Peter Balsam (Department of Neuroscience and Behavior, Barnard College), Eleanor Simpson (Columbia University Medical Center), and Chirag Upreti (NYSPI Columbia Medical Center)

12:15 pm Sophia Sowinski

Latent factor modeling of alternative splicing at single cell resolution

David A. Knowles (Departments of Computer Science & Systems Biology, Columbia University and New York Genome Center) and Karin Isaev (Department of Systems Biology, Columbia University and New York Genome Center)

 

Biology majors enroll in Guided Research & Seminar to fulfill upper-level labs required for the major. This year-long course requires students to work on independent research projects under the guidance of their mentors. It culminates in a scientific paper and a poster presented in today’s second session.

Poster 1 Hadia Aftab

Understanding the role of heme on biofilm formation and planktonic cell growth in Mycobacterium smegmatis

Rebecca Donegan (Department of Chemistry, Barnard College)

Poster 2 Salsabeel Al-Silwi

Using BAC recombineering to generate transgenic zebrafish models: Manipulating neuromast deposition in posterior lateral line development

Holger Knaut and Weiyi Qian (Department of Cell Biology, NYU Grossman
School of Medicine)

Poster 3 Tian Bai

Evaluation of next-generation SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease inhibitor

David D. Ho and Sho Iketani (Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center,
Department of Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

Poster 4 Victoria Cordero

The honey bee heat shock response is maintained throughout aging

Jonathan Snow (Department of Biology, Barnard College)

Poster 5 Lela DeVine

Identifying epigenetic drivers of cell fate decisions in pancreatic premalignant tumors through a NRF2-TET1 axis

Christine Iok In Chio (Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

Poster 6 Shaira Jafar

Unraveling the role of amino acid residues on the Rad51 interface in homologous recombination and cancer susceptibility

Eric Greene (Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University)

Poster 7 Fatima Khwaja

Mice condition insulin release to the flavor of their diet

John Glendinning (Department of Biology, Barnard College)

Poster 8 Laura Kors

Exploring the genetic basis of behavioral isolation in Drosophila yakuba and Drosophila santomea

Peter Andolfatto, Ana Pinharanda, and Flora Born (Department of Biological
Sciences, Columbia University)

Poster 9 Emily Lan

Investigating the association between SMARCA4 mutations and poor responses to KRAS inhibition in lung adenocarcinoma

Carla P. Concepcion-Crisol (Department of Molecular Pharmacology and
Therapeutics, Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

Poster 10 Aastha Mehta

Mis-splicing rescuing in SF3B1-mutated diseases

James Manley and Thomas J. Yao (Department of Biological Sciences,
Columbia University)

Poster 11 Lila Muscosky

Distinguishing doors and floors on all fours: landmark learning as
a tool for vertical navigation in dogs (Canis familiaris)

Alexandra Horowitz (Department of Psychology, Barnard College)

Poster 12 Sylvie Oldeman

Polyamine depletion primes cells for differentiation

Juan M. Schvartzman and Maya Emmons-Bell (Department of Medicine/HICCC, Columbia University)

Poster 13 Daniela Plaza

Repurposing drugs for treatment of primary effusion lymphoma
coinfected with KSHV and EBV

JJ Miranda (Department of Biology, Barnard College)

Poster 14 Jacksyn Sallay

Investigating epigenetic modulation of ChAT in CD8+ T-cells by 5-
Aza as a therapeutic strategy for pancreatic cancer

Timothy C. Wang and Ruth A. White (Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer
Center)

Poster 15 Sophie Sandler

Using single-cell genomics to identify targeted treatments for primary effusion lymphoma

JJ Miranda (Department of Biology, Barnard College)

Poster 16 Lala Tolbert

Prospective study of appetitive sensations and food craving changes after low calorie diet, sleeve gastrectomy, and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass

Judith Korner (Division of Endocrinology at New York Presbyterian and
Columbia University Irving Medical Center)

Poster 17 Chantelle Tseng

The effects of electrospun gelatin scaffold morphology on periodontal ligament growth as a regenerative strategy

Helen H. Lu and Thomas F. Bina (Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Columbia University)

Poster 18 Isabella Viola

Investigating differences between immature and mature airway basal cells by transcriptome and organoid culture analyses

Wellington V. Cardoso (CCHD, Department of Medicine, Columbia University
Irving Medical Center)

Poster 19 Emma Wang

Multiphase 3D-printed scaffold to guide rotator cuff regeneration

Chang Lee and Hun Jin Jeong (Columbia University College of Dental
Medicine)

Poster 20 Yasmine Zaydon

Greater vulnerability of rods compared to cones in vitelliform macular dystrophy due to BEST1 mutations

Stephen Tsang (Department of Ophthalmology, Columbia University Irving
Medical Center)

---

Closing Remarks (3:30 pm to 3:45 pm)

Thank you for your support of our students today!