February 2010 Winner: James G. Cripps, Dartmouth Medical School- American Association of Immunology Conference, Baltimore, Maryland  

January 2010 Winner: Lindsey Crawford, SUNY Upstate Medical University- AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010, Washington, D.C.  

December 2009 Winner: Dr. Irene Ch'en, UCSD- 14th International Congress of Immunology in Kobe, Japan  

November 2009 Winner: Dr. Stuart Fraser, Mount Sinai School of Medicine- Keystone Symposia: Stem Cell Differentiation and Dedifferentiation, Keystone, CO.   

October 2009 Winner: Nagisa Sakurai, City of Hope National Medical Center- 51st ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition in New Orleans, LA.   

September 2009 Winner: Tetsuro Sasada, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School- (iSBTc) 24th Annual Meeting & Biomarkers Workshop in Washington, DC.

August 2009 Winner: Shannon Rose, Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute- Neuroscience 2009, Chicago, IL

July 2009 Winner: Sambuddho Mukherjee, Duke University Medical Center - NIH Basic Immunology 2009, Bethesda, MD

June 2009 Winner: Dr. Denis Gris, UNC at Chapel Hill - Neuroscience 2009, Chicago, IL 

May 2009 Winner: Dr. Jeremy C. Jones, University of Wisconsin-Madison - 2nd European Conference on Immunology, Berlin, Germany

April 2009 Winner: Dr. Georgia Perona-Wright, Trudeau Institute - 2009 Annual Meeting of the International Cytokine Society in Lisbon, Portugal

March 2009 Winner: James Su, UC Berkeley - Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology 2009 Annual Meeting, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Read James's Interview

February 2009 Winner: Dr. Jui-Hung (Jimmy) Yen, Temple University - 96th American Association of Immunologists Meeting, Seattle, WA

January 2009 Winner: Charles B. Lovely, University of Louisville - 25th Fungal Genetics Conference, Asilomar, CA
Read Ben's Interview 

December 2008 Winner: Jill M. Schartner, University of Wisconsin - Madison- Keystone Symposia: Regulatory T-cells, Keystone, CO

November 2008 Winner: Mustimbo E. P. Roberts, University of Rochester Medical Center- Keystone Symposia: B-cells in Context, Taos, NM

October 2008 Winner: Dr. Lara E. Pereira, Emory University - The 26th Annual Symposium for Nonhuman Primate Models for AIDS, San Juan, PR

September 2008 Winner: Dr. Nancy Lorenzon, University of Denver - Biophysical Society Meeting, Boston, MA

August 2008 Winner: Dr. Lyse Norian, University of Iowa - AACR Meeting, Denver, CO 

Please describe your research?

High axial myopia (near-sightedness > -6 diopters) results from excessive elongation at the weakened posterior pole sclera, with blinding complications such as glaucoma and retinal detachment. Presently an epidemic in parts of Asia and Europe, myopia is a significant public health problem without an effective treatment. Refractive surgery and optical appliances compensate only for the focusing error, but do not treat the excessive eye elongation. My project represents an interdisciplinary effort between the Wildsoet Lab (http://vision.berkeley.edu/wildsoet/) and the Healy Lab (http://biomaterials.berkeley.edu/index.htm) at UC Berkeley. The biomaterials aspects of my project looks at roles that the sclera plays during high myopia development, and from those observed roles design and fabricate completely synthetic biomaterials to halt axial eye elongation.

What was the highlight of the conference?

The ARVO (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology; http://www.arvo.org) 2009 Annual Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was excellent. The program included presentations covering global perspectives, such as epidemiologic trends in disparities in eye disease, to very specific topics, such as some of the most recent developments in IOL (intraocular lens) technology. The conference brought together tens of thousands of scientists, clinicians, and industry representatives for 5 days of engaging interactions. Some of my favorite sessions of the conference include talks presented on refractive error, lens and cataract, diabetic retinopathy, ocular drug delivery, and glaucoma. In addition, the industry exhibit booths at the meeting were very useful in getting to know the current state of the art technology on the market. Particularly, from the perspectives of scientists and engineers, the industry exhibits were also very helpful in getting to know what clinical needs are out there and what can be improved upon.

 What was the highlight of your Florida trip?

The highlight of my Florida trip was enjoying the Floridian sun, relaxing on the beach and sipping margaritas! Besides that, I also had the opportunity to give a talk entitled “Effect of in vivo atropine delivery at posterior pole sclera using biomimetic extracellular matrix for myopia control”, which had wonderful responses and questions from the audience during and after the talk. I would like to thank BioLegend for awarding me the BioLegend Travel Award, which has helped a lot to offset my conference expenses, allowing me to focus more on the science. Thank you!

What is your experience with BioLegend? 

Excellent customer service without a doubt, which makes BioLegend stand out as a great source for any science laboratory.

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Please describe your research?

We are studying intracellular communication, signal transduction, and how that helps cells controls host infection. This involves how changing growth patterns, environmental signals, and nutrients,  effects signaling and gene regulation.Specifically, I study Mating Type Specific Signaling in Ustilago maydis.  The phytopathogenic fungus U. maydis undergoes a dimorphic transition in which cell fusion and pathogenic development must occur for U. maydis to complete its lifecycle. Both cell fusion and pathogenicity are controlled by two loci, the a locus, encoding a pheromone and pheromone receptor, and the b locus, controlling pathogenic development.

What was the highlight of the conference?

The highlight was being able to present the data with a diverse group of people from other labs, and other countries.  This was a small conference, with only 950 attendees  every 2 years, but it was a special opportunity for us, as we are the only lab within University of Louisville that works on this type of research with viral diseases.   It is nice to discuss with colleagues and we didn't have that community anywhere else.

 What was the highlight of your California trip?

Seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time.  We flew into San Jose and drove down the beautiful California coast.

What is your experience with BioLegend? How did you hear of the travel award?

Every month I would apply for the travel award, when I won, I had already sent in for the next month drawing. Thank you BioLegend for the great experience!

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