Discoveries speakers present on a variety of topics, including eating disorders, asthma, diabetes, sea turtles, anxiety and PTSD, breast cancer, epilepsy, and more.Hosted by the University of Alabama at Birmingham Graduate School, “Discoveries in the Making” will give graduate students and postdoctoral researchers an opportunity to share their exciting new discoveries with the public starting at 6 p.m., Tuesday, June 11, at The Lumbar in Birmingham.
Upcoming talks in the Discoveries in the Making series include:
Tuesday, June 11
Speaker: Bre Minniefield; Title: “African American health matters”
Summary: One out of three American adults is suffering from high blood pressure, with African Americans having the highest rate of uncontrolled blood pressure. Minniefield is investigating the genetics variants that may explain why African Americans have a wide range of health responses to high blood pressure medication.
Speaker: Jack Schoelz; Title: “The genome and the blob”
Summary: As personal DNA sequencing gets increasingly popular, more and more people are interested in learning about their genome to learn more about who they are. But if you could crack open a living cell and see a genome for yourself, you would notice the DNA is wrapped up in complex packaging. Schoelz’s research focuses on what this packaging is made of and why it matters.
Tuesday, July 9
Speaker: Sarah Adkins; Title: “Art as a canvas for scientific discovery”
Summary: Throughout history, the arts have made meaningful contributions to scientific discovery; however, this type of interdisciplinary thinking is rarely reflected in current day science classrooms. Considering that education is in desperate need of reform, Adkins’ team explores how agar art can be used to promote scientific discovery in an introductory science course.
Speaker: Kristin Olson; Title: “Beyond behavior: Chlamydia and genetics”
Summary: Chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infection, and a leading cause of infertility in women. Olson’s work investigates the role of genetics in chlamydia reinfection.
Tuesday, Aug. 13
Speaker: Lisa Antoine; Title: “Location is everything”
Summary: By the end of 2019, the National Brain Tumor Society expects physicians to diagnose approximately 86,000 new brain tumor cases, which will add to almost 700,000 existing cases. Antoine’s research focuses on developing a computational fluid dynamics model to predict the optimal injection location to treat brain tumors.
Speaker: Sandra Cutts; Title: “Land recycling: A strategy for likely success with redeveloping brownfields”
Summary: Cutts’ research goal is to recommend best practices that could ultimately promote and result in successful brownfield redevelopment.
The Discoveries in the Making series is free and open to the public. A complete schedule is available online.