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Bioscience Update

Science projects are coming to their conclusion this time of year!  Besides all of the projects that we will be presenting at the Innovation Celebration tomorrow night, we have had some special opportunities to present our work to the larger community recently. 

On Wednesday, April 3 six CAPS Bioscience students participated in the Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair (student and project titles bulleted below).  Overall, there were four gold ribbons and one silver ribbon awarded to the group.  In addition, Eryk, and Dawson and Hailey received a special invitation to display their posters at Linda Hall Library, and Dawson and Hailey received purple rosettes acknowledging that they were division winners for team projects in animal science.  Their poster will be on display at Science City as well.

  • Oskar Cheranov, Exploration of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Hydrolase ​for Addressing PET Plastic Waste
  • Dawson Christensen & Hailey Colson, Big Cat Ethology in a Captive Environment: A Study on the Effects of Captivity on Panthera
  • Manav Mehta, The Role of scaRNA in Differentiation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells from Human Skin Fibroblasts into Cardiomyocytes
  • Emily Moore, Assessing the Insect Repellency of Alleppo, Nigella, and Marjoram Extracts on the Red Flour Beetle, Tribolium castaneum
  • Eryk Yarkosky, Mucin ‘snot Messing Round: Glycoprotein Mucin 5AC as an Antiseptic

The day after the science fair, four CAPS Bioscience students travelled to Orlando, Florida for four days to participate in the annual meeting of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology conference at the Orange County Convention Center.  Oskar Cheranov, David Centeno, Luke Feuerborn, and Hannah Min presented a poster on their molecular research into the enzyme PETase, a molecule that has the potential of solving the plastic recycling problem.  These students along with Linda Arterburn, Chloe Penrod, and Grace Raley, who couldn’t make the trip, had been studying PETase and modeling its molecular structure for more than a semester.  You can see their 3D printed models in the image presented.  Overall, it has been an exciting year, and we look forward to presenting our scientific progress at the Innovation Celebration tomorrow night.