UCR students have continued to receive awards for their stem cell research. In April, Devon Ehnes, a student with Nicole zur Nieden, was given an award for the best platform presentation at the SelectBio meetings on the Clinical Translation of Stem Cells held in Palm Springs. Devon's presentation was entitled: "Over-expression of miR-361 in Embryonic Stem Cells as a Means to Generate Clinically-Relevant Osteo-Progenitors". At the same conference, Maricela Maldonado won the award for best poster presentation for her work on modulating differentiation with substrates of varying stiffness, which she did in Jin Nam's laboratory. Her poster was entitled: "Enhanced differentiation to mesendodermal and ectodermal lineages using nanofibrous scaffolds".

In spring of 2014, Vasu Bahl, a student with Prue Talbot, won a travel award from the Society of Toxicology to present her research at the national meetings in Phoenix. Vasu's presentation dealt with the use of mouse neural stem cells to screen thirdhand smoke for toxicants that could damage neonatal brain development. Finally, Sabrina Lin, who also works with Prue Talbot won an award at the recent AAAS meetings held at UCR for her poster dealing with a novel toxicology-in-a-dish model for studying the effects of environmental chemicals on development of the nervous system.

Devon Enhres

Maricela Maldanado

Sabrina Lin

Vasu Bahl