Scientific Seminar Committee

The Scientific Seminar Committee organizes seminar series and poster sessions where the postdoctoral fellows have a chance to showcase their research.

We meet on an as-needed basis, up to once a month.

Projects we are currently working on include:

The Scientific Seminar Series

The Scientific Seminar Series was started by the JHPDA in 2006 and has been promoted as a competition in 2007. From the abstract submissions, 10 abstracts are selected which are then presented during 5 lunch-time seminars. Each 1-hour seminar features two speakers with the top 3 speakers awarded prize money. Presentations are judged by three neutral Hopkins faculty judges, one of whom is an expert in the area of the presentation, the JHPDA Scientific Committee as well as the audience. The seminars traditionally take place between January and June with fall abstract submission deadline.

The JHPDA Scientific Seminar Series is a competition promoted among Post-Doctoral Fellows from across the entire School of Medicine. The Scientific Seminar Series was started by the JHPDA in 2006 and has been promoted as a competition in 2007. The seminars take place between January and June with fall abstract submission deadline. The top 3 speakers awarded prizes totaling $ 1000.

From the abstract submissions (39 for 2009), 10 abstracts were selected by the committee which were then presented during 5 lunch-time seminars. Each 1-hour seminar features two speakers for whom presentations are judged by Hopkins faculty judges, one of whom is an expert in the area of the presentation, as well as the audience. The presentations are judged on the basis of scientific impact as well as broad appeal to the many disciplines at Johns Hopkins.

The Scientific Poster Session is a new competition started this year. Due to the difficulty of selecting only 10 speakers for the Scientific Seminar Series, and the quality of research here in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, we decided to host the First Scientific Poster Session to display the high level research conducted by the Post-doctoral Fellows. This event is also conducted as a competition with top posters receiving awards both in Clinical and Basic/Translational Research categories.

Posters are presented during a Scientific Seminar Series Awards Reception where the winners of the Scientific Seminar is announced.

2008: Second Scientific Seminar Series

First place ($500): Kartik Venkatachalam, "Defective clearance of apoptotic cells underlies the motor deficit in a Drosophila model of mucolipidosis" Department of Biological Chemistry.
Second places ($300): Tracy D. Vandorsall "Cerebral White Matter Atrophy and Cognitive Dysfunction Following Traumatic Brain Injury" Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Division of Medical Psychology.
Third place (tie, $200 each): Lavinia Alberi "Notch signaling is activated by synaptic activity in neurons" Department of Neurology;
Florence Depontieu "Tumor-associated MHC II-restricted phosphopeptides: New targets for immune recognition" Department of Surgery

The 2009 Scientific Seminar Series Awards Reception was held in the Turner concourse Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 from 4:15 to 6:30.

After 5 months of presentation and 37 outstanding posters, here the names of the winners of the 2009 Scientific seminar series.

2009: Third Scientific Seminar Series

First place ($500): Jonathan Jun "Hypoxia-induced lipolysis as a novel mechanism of hypercholesterolemia" Department of Medicine
Second places (tie, $300 each): Kalyan Srivastavam "Platelet Factor 4 mediates inflammation in cerebral malaria" Department of molecular and comparative pathobiology. Mingui Xiang "Discovery of two novel Na+/H+ antiporters: candidate genes for essential hypertension" Department of Physiology.
Third place ($200): Yingli Fu "Mesenchymal stem cell delivery and engraftment tracking using multifunctional perfluorinated microcapsules" Department of Radiology and Radiological Science

2009: First Poster Session

Clinical Poster Category
First place ($250): Stephen M. Sozio "Multiple Markers of Inflammation Are Not Associated With Risk of Cerebrovascular Events in Patients Initiating Dialysis" Department of Medicine/Nephrology.
Second pace ($100): Michael E. Nottidge "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Emergency Department Triage" Department of Emergency Medicine, ACCM.

Basic/Translational Poster Category
First place ($250): Ye Yan "The antioxidant enzyme Prdx1 controls motor neuron differentiation by thiol-redox dependent activation of GDE2" Department of Neuroscience.
Second place ($100): Zhi Xie "Global Analysis of Human Protein-DNA Interactions Reveals Preferred Binding Sites for Both Annotated and Unconventional DNA-binding Proteins" Department of Ophthalmology.
Third place (tie, $75 each): Nilkantha Sen "GOSPEL: A novel neuroprotective protein that binds to GAPDH upon S-nitrosylation" Department of Neuroscience;
Jianyang Wang "TbPIF8, related to a yeast mitochondrial helicase, is required for trypanosome viability and kDNA organization" Department of Biological Chemistry.

Poster Peoples’choices (3 way tie, $75 each)
Abhinav Sidana (Clinical) "Cryoablation and cyclophosphamide combination for cryoimmunotherapy of metastatic cancer: an interim analysis of Phase I trial" Department of Urology.
Jahn N. O’Neil (Basic/Translational) "Bilateral Effects of Unilateral Cochlear Implantation in Congenitally Deaf Cats: A critical period for synaptic plasticity" Department of Otolaryngology.
Marianne Stefanini (Basic/Translational), "The increase of plasma VEGF following an anti-VEGF intravenous injection explained by a computational model" Department of Biomedical Engineering.

	Florence Depontieu, Co-Head f.depontieu@jhmi.edu		Swetha Kandula Theresa Evans-Nguyen Rahul Jain Sonal Gupta Juan Wei
	Jitka Sojkova, Co-Head jsojkov1@jhmi.edu