Newsroom
Summer students receive awards for their contributions
August 27, 2015
The end of August has marked the last presentations of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute’s summer student seminar series and also the awards ceremony for the best student presentations. This year 40 students from throughout the institute participated, ranging from high school students to newly graduated bachelor students and medical students. Based on both peer and coordinator evaluations, the following students were awarded a presentation award:
Overall category (50% coordinator + 50% peer marks):
1. Alex Straus (Gold) (Supervisor Dr. Lauralyn McIntyre)
Presentation title: “The Efficacy of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in the Treatment of Pre-Clinical Models of Sepsis: A Systematic Review.”
2. Rebecca Xu (Silver) (Supervisors Dr. Lee-Hwa Tai and Dr. Rebecca Auer)
Presentation title: “Characterization of MDSC activity in cancer surgery patients”
3. Elaine Rose (Bronze) (Supervisors Dr. Carolina Ilkow and Dr. John Bell)
Presentation title: “Tailored Oncolytic Viral Therapeutics for Pancreatic Cancer”
Peer category (100% peer marks):
1. Scott Gunn (Gold) (Supervisor Dr. Christina Addison)
Presentation title: “The Role of Focal Adhesion Kinase in Breast Cancer Mediated Osteolysis”
2. Genevieve de Caen (Silver) (Supervisors Dr. Mehdi Shafa and Dr.Bernard Thébaud)
Presentation title: “Applications of in vivo gene editing for the treatment of surfactant protein B deficiency”
3. Lauren St. Germain (Bronze) (Supervisors Dr. Marie-Claude Bourgeois-Daigneault and Dr. John Bell)
Presentation title: “Optimization of paclitaxel chemotherapy as a viral sensitizer for oncolytic virus in breast cancer cell lines”
Coordinator category (100% coordinator marks):
1. Olivia Cook (Gold) (Supervisor Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy)
Presentation title: “Referrals and Hospital Admissions in Emergency Department Syncope Patients”
2. Winston Cheung (Silver) (Supervisors Dr. Caryn Ito and Dr. William Stanford)
Presentation title: “Evaluation of Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cell (MSC) Based Therapies of Sepsis Using Humanized Mouse Models”
3. Brian Laight (Bronze) (Supervisors Dr. Chris Storbeck and Dr. John Bell)
Presentation title: “Enhancing Oncolytic Viral Therapy Through Application of Selective Pressures”
As summer student coordinators we would like to thank all students for their enthusiastic participation, and all supervisors and labs for supporting their summer students in this endeavor. We look forward to welcoming you back next year!
The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute summer student coordinators
Dr. Jennifer Collins and Dr. Mehdi Shafa
