Five Bemidji State University students will have the opportunity to continue their undergraduate research after being named as recipients of the Dr. Richard Beitzel Biochemistry Student Research Fund.

Established as an endowment gift from Bemidji State University alumnus Dr. Elwood Largis (’65), this scholarship is awarded every spring to biochemistry students who conduct research on campus. The five recipients and their projects are as follows:

• “Time-Dependent Effect of Antioxidants on Reactive Oxygen Species Steady-State Levels in Wounded Human Dermal Fibroblasts” by Jessica Carney, biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology senior.
• “Creating NHE1 Knockout Cells to Advance Ovarian Cancer Research” by Rumer Flatness, biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology junior, and Taylor Kot, biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology senior.
• “Subcellular Colocalization of Rho GTPase TCL with Rab Family GTPases“ by Simone Intriago, biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology senior.
• “Mapping of transposon insert locations which cause the transformation of euchromatin to heterochromatin by inverse PCR” by Madeline Gruys, a biology senior.

Under the guidance of multiple professors in BSU’s science department, these research projects focus on the smallest cell to the largest organ. Many of the scholarship recipients aim to continue their education in graduate or medical school to future their careers in this field.

By — Mary Balstad