Pathobiology Celebrates Research with Donors, Student Award Winners

On Friday, Aug. 25, five PhD students and two master’s degree students were recognized for their research at the annual Voss Pathobiology Graduate Student Research Expo at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

The PhD award winners and their projects are:

• 1st Place—Jingjun Lin: Proper exiting of competence state benefits Streptococcus pneumoniae D39 acute infection; Dr. Gee Lau, advisor.
• 2nd Place—Chi Yong Kim: Small GTPase immunity associated proteins mediate resistance to Toxoplasma gondii infection in Lewis rat; Dr. William Witola, advisor.
• 3rd Place—Qingzhan Zhang: Inhibition of type III interferons in the intestinal epithelial cells by porcine epidemic diarrhea virus and innate immune evasion; Dr. Dongwan Yoo, advisor.
• Honorable Mention—Maya Scott: Exposure to arsenic in Florida and associated cancer risk: A spatial epidemiological study; Dr. Marilyn O’Hara Ruiz, advisor.
• Honorable Mention—Alycen Lundberg: Investigating the pharmacokinetics, tolerability, and anti-cancer activity of the novel drug isobutyl-deoxynyboquinone (IB-DNQ) in feline oral squamous cell carcinoma; Dr. Tim Fan, advisor.

The MS-Residency award winners and their projects are:

• MS Award—Jennifer Nickolyn-Martin: Evaluating the sensitivity and specificity of MALDI-TOF MS in the identification of Leptospira; Dr. Carol Maddox, advisor.
• Honorable Mention—Jonathan Samuelson: Evaluation of optical coherence tomography for surgical margin assessment in resected canine soft tissue sarcomas; Dr. Herb Whiteley, advisor.

The 2017 Voss Research Expo was made special because Dr. Edward W. Voss. Jr. and his wife and daughter, Virginia Voss and Cathy Voss Treiber, were able to attend the event. Dr. Voss is a former professor of microbiology and director of the Cell Science Center at the University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He served at Illinois for 31 years before retiring in 1999.

In 2004, Ed and Virginia established the Voss fund to recognize graduate students’ research in the Department of Pathobiology. The awards have been made to innovative students each year since.

—Da Yeon, Eom