Congratulations to Brooke McKnight, First Place Winner of the 2014 Scientista Symposium!

First Place Winner Brooke McKnight with poster.

Congratulations to Brooke McKnight, an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for winning the First Place Award at the 2014 Scientista Symposium. 

Brooke was awarded First Place at the inaugural Scientista Symposium on April 5, 2014, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for her abstract entitled, "Pancreas Specific SEC23B Deficiency Results in Pancreatic Degeneration in the Mouse.” Brooke has been working on this project for the past year at the Ginsburg Lab in the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute with her mentors David Ginsburg, Rami Khoriaty, and Lesley Everett. The project focuses on characterizing SEC23B, which is a core component of COPII (coat protein complex II) coated vesicles, which transport proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to the Golgi apparatus. Mice ubiquitously deficient in SEC23B die perinatally with massive pancreatic degeneration, and as per Brooke, "We hypothesized that this was caused by pancreatic digestive enzymes becoming retained in the ER. We haven’t resolved what is going on yet, but we are continuing to do experiments in hopes of determining the role of SEC23B in secretion."

Currently in her senior undergraduate year at the University of Michigan, Brooke will graduate this May 2014 with a Bachelor's of Science in Cell and Molecular Biology. At the University of Michigan, Brooke is the school outreach coordinator of FEMMES (Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering and Science), a student group that aims to encourage girls to learn and explore their potential in STEM (science, technology, math and engineering). Brooke also serves as a Study Group Facilitator for Introductory Biochemistry (MCDB 310) through the Science Learning Center (SLC), an interdisciplinary resource center sponsored by the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts to support  teaching and learning in the natural sciences at the University of Michigan. Next year, Brooke will begin the journey towards a PhD at Wayne State University in its cancer biology graduate program. Brooke would like to eventually attain her MBA and join industry, but currently she is just looking forward to exploring all the possible routes her degree can take her! 

Congratulations on your amazing accomplishments Brooke and we look forward to following your journey in STEM!

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