Local Triangle PhD Students Receive Funding from BWF

Enhancing the graduate experience

Local Triangle PhD Students Receive Funding from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – Several PhD graduate students from local universities received professional development support to help ensure their success in predoctoral graduate studies. The Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program (GDEP) provides $5,000 over two years to support underrepresented Ph.D. candidates enrolled in a North Carolina university and conducting biomedical research.

Funds will support the following:

• Support for travel to participate in conferences, workshops, courses, and training.
• Costs associated with the purchase of equipment, materials, and supplies related to their research, presentation, short course enrollment, workshops, and training.
• Participation in a peer network system of diversity and/or underrepresented graduate students.

The following PhD graduate students are 2019 Graduate Diversity Enrichment recipients:

Duke University

Alejandro Antonia
Host-Directed Therapy to Circumvent Immune Evasion by Leishmania major

Dalton Nathaniel Hughes
Network Dynamics of Negative and Positive Valence Systems in Decision Making

Luis Alexander Navarro
Guided Adsorption of Protein-Bottlebrush Hybrids for Functional Surface Coatings

Estefany Yamilet Reyes
Mechanism to evade host immunity by Mucorales fungi

Blanca Victoria Rodriguez
Characterizing the association of RNA with bacterial membrane vesicles and their delivery to host cells

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

LaKeya Charmaine Hardy
Using STALs to exploit CD22 on peanut-specific memory B cells to induce tolerance

Juanita Limas
A Novel Way of Blocking Origin Licensing and Recapitulating Early Oncogene Activation

Shenee Chantel Martin
Examining the molecular consequences of sleep disruption in Alzheimer’s disease onset and progression

Kia Zolee Perez-Vale
Defining the molecular mechanisms underlying apical-basal polarity establishment and morphogenesis.

Ricardo Rivera-Soto
Characterizing the role of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway in KSHV-associated malignancies.

Tamara Vital
Exploring the mechanism underlying a small molecule inhibitor of chromatin accessibility

For more information about the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program, visit www.bwfund.org/gdep.

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Media contact: Russ Campbell 919-667-8866 or news@bwfund.org