Last weekend Larissa, Nancy, and Jake went to the 43rd Maine Biological and Medical Sciences Symposium at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory.

It was Jake’s first time a science conference and Nancy’s second. The MBMSS event had both undergraduates and other Maine researchers presenting their work in a variety of fields including: developmental and cellular biology, regeneration, genetics, bioinformatics, environmental biology, toxicology, infectious disease, neuroscience, and physiology. We made it to MDIBL by noon for lunch and the sessions of presentations. The keynote speaker prompted some interesting among the three of us, as we thought a lot of about the importance of the mitochondria. While it should’ve been a relatively “chill” day, sitting through hours of presentations took quite a mental toll on Jake and Nancy. Luckily, a lobster was awaiting for dinner! Our day concluded with poster sessions where we (Jake and Nancy) were exposed to research done by many other Maine students.

The following morning Jake did a wonderful job presenting his poster on utilizing ChIP to investigate Ahr1b regulation of Nrf genes.

Nancy did an excellent job, as well, with her presentation on Nrf1 paralogs and their role in mediating phthalate toxicity. She was one of three undergraduate students who were selected to give presentations to the conference.

The conference weekend adventure ended with a trip to Wiscasset for more seafood at Red’s!