By QUINN EASTMAN

This year's annual Medical Student Research Symposium will offer something for everyone at the medical school. Molecular biologists, surgeons, neuroscientists, epidemiologists and even jet-setting photo essayists will find poster presentations aimed at their specialties.

Subjects range from HIV sequence diversity in South Africa to X-ray scattering on ATP-bound enzymes, and everything in between.

The 39 student presentations that make up this year's symposium will be open to the public from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow in Fairchild Auditorium lobby.

In contrast to last year, where the research symposium included lectures and aposter presentations, this year's event has only a poster session.

Medical student Melissa Ketunuti spent last summer in a Johannesburg hospital sequencing the HIV nef gene in viral samples from perinatally infected South African children. The nef gene helps HIV to sneak around immune detection. Her research analyzed how the nef gene mutated in response to pressure from the immune system.

A Brazilian initiative to deliver anti-retroviral medications along with other AIDS support to groups of underserved Brazilians was the focus of medical student Melissa Enriquez' presentation. Her entry is one of several student projects this year that cast an international eye to medicine. Photo: Courtesy of Pat Cross

Ketunuti's results showed that the viruses evolve as they continue to infect the children and that the mutations that arise differ between viral subtypes.
She said scientists have studied the HIV subtype that's prevalent in South Africa, subtype C, less than the subtype that's prevalent in North America, subtype B. "C actually affects the most people," she said. "So it's important to learn more about it."

Ketunuti, who had not been to Africa before, said the trip opened her eyes to extremes of wealth and poverty. "It was an incredible place," she said. "People were dying left and right from something for which a treatment exists here."
In another project with an international angle, Michael Ho studied the response to SARS in Asia. He constructed a poster full of pictures of travelers being scanned by infrared cameras in airports and fast-food worker wearing facemasks.

Ho's photo essay on the medical response to the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong and Taipei will be on display in his absence while he continues an overseas stay.

"The poster sessions are the best way for students to discuss their research with others," said Pat Cross, PhD, associate dean of medical student research and scholarship. "It's more interactive," she said. "They can get feedback from people in their specialties." Next year Cross hopes to have some students also present their research at departmental grand rounds meetings or in other seminar settings.

Representatives from the medical school's alumni association will be checking out the posters at the symposium. At the end of the poster session, they will give cash awards totaling $1,000 to a few of the participating students.
Other presenters and topics include:

• Rebecca Berquist: Teenagers who get liver transplants have trouble sticking to their immunosuppressive therapy

• Alyssa Brewer: The retina maps to an additional part of the brain, one that neuroscientists didn't expect.

• Joanna Chan: The best way to quantify skin color is to look for the color blue

• Amy Neuder: The best way to stretch the bladder for diagnosing cystitis

• Alenka Zeman: Evaluating flu vaccines.

All of the students received support from the Medical Student Scholars Research Program.