Valencia College Hosts Biotechnology Research Biosymposium
Biosymposium attendees
Valencia College held their first Biotechnology Research Symposium in November with 17 students, faculty, staff, and industry participating. Their ATE grant, BioSpark, is providing opportunities like this for students to showcase their work and network with industry partners.
Valencia studentsPhoto credit: Valencia College
Valencia student Oscar Camargo presented his internship work with Annette Khaled from the University of Central Florida on a poster titled “Chaperonin Containing TCP-1 (CCT/TRiC) Is a Novel Therapeutic and Diagnostic Target in Neuroblastoma.” His work with the team was published on Frontiers in Oncology.
Another student, Nina Pagani, also presented her work evaluating and validating an RT-PCR assay for the Detection of the Monkeypox Virus with Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The Journey of Medical Virology recognized her contribution and work to this cutting-edge research.
When asked what she learned at the Biosymposium, Nina said she was surprised by “the diversity of research done within biotech and the different companies in Florida that are hiring students.”
Likewise, Natasha Davis, a current biotech student completing her internship within the Biotechnology program, liked “how we were able to meet with other students that were part of the program and see the different paths that they chose to take for this internship.”
This fall semester, she has worked closely with Susan Ingersoll, professor, biotechnology and program director, Sothy Kien, instructional lab supervisor, and Pedro Cruz, lab assistant II, to optimize an enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) protocol for the upcoming protein class. A commonly used laboratory technique, the ELISA uses antibodies to detect the protein of interest.
When asked what she learned on the day, she mentioned that Craig Rosenstein, director of research and development from AxiVEND, advised her to “plate our ELISA from the highest concentration to the lowest and changing the tips very often.”
Alexis Nequinto and Khristine Saceda co-presented a poster on their work on Aviana Molecular Diagnostics.
Vanaja Ragavan, CEO and president of Aviana also showed up to support the students' work. Since completing their internships, both Khristine and Alexis have been hired to work for Aviana and the company is looking to hire a third student from the program.