Final Post Biominds 2008-2009!!!!!

Final post after two years of participation within the Amgen Foundation BIOMINDS Program, first cycle. First off, I would like to thank everyone not only @ AMGEN but also everyone @ UPRM Dr. Buxeda, Deyka Lopez, and Lizzy Muniz. It has been a long two years but very fruitful and enjoyable. 

Last month we had our annual Poster Presentation Day. All in all, it was a very nice event, we got to me all the other members, observe their work and create close relationships. Seminars offered presented new outlooks on aspects and were interesting. In addition to the activity we were each assigned three posters which we evaluated and observed. I was assigned F-7 Juliani Rivera Calo, H-1 Diego Hernandez, and K-1 A. Lopez Cruz.

Mr. Lopez offered a very interesting poster on the applications of organic chemistry to nanotechnology. This poster I found particular, since I am a biologist and this was the only poster which I had to evaluate and not only was it organic chem, but also with nanotech. Although not my area, I found it so nice to find applications for organic chemistry. His results were very positive and he explained very well, so he knew his material very well. 

Later I evaluated, Mr. Hernandez’s poster in molecular microbiology. Gave me a flashback of days @ the Parguera with the bioluminescent bay, because his project was amplifying the LuxH 16S region from entire bacterial libraries. He had done a great deal of work and had already finished 50% of all his samples with primer design and all. It was a project with alot of biotech potential, it would provide another source of fluorescent marking with new parameters and uses. 

Finally, I evaluated Ms. Juliani Rivera, a project in general microbiology. She was on the search for new species and quantifyable data on extremophiles. In this case, salinity, from southern mangroves. She tested to quantify the bacteria a different distances from the shore and at different depths. She had very conclusive results on both aspects and now has begun to work on the identificacion of these. 

All in all, it was a great day and alot was learned.