Maria A. Serrat, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of anatomy and pathology at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, has been named the 2015 recipient of the Basmajian Award by the American Association of Anatomists.
Serrat was recognized during the organization’s Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology.
The Basmajian Award recognizes members teaching human or veterinary gross anatomy, in the formative stages of their career, who have made outstanding accomplishments in biomedical research or scholarship in education.
“I am indebted to Dr. Laura Richardson for nominating me for this prestigious award, and for supporting my research and professional development since I joined the department in 2009,” Serrat said. “I could not have made such achievements without the support of Dr. Richardson and our chairman of anatomy and pathology, Dr. Linda Brown.”
Serrat’s research specializes in growth and morphology of the postnatal skeleton. One area of grant-funded focus is on heat-enhanced molecular delivery to skeletal growth plates.
Serrat graduated from Miami University in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. She then earned her master’s degree in anthropology from Kent State University and followed with a doctorate in biological anthropology from Kent State University in 2007. She completed postdoctoral training at Cornell University from 2008 to 2009.
In addition to receiving the award, Serrat will present “Imaging IGF-I uptake in growth plate cartilage using in vivo multiphoton microscopy” in a special symposium that she organized titled “Vascular and connective tissue imaging in situ: returning bone to the skeleton.”
In other conference news, school of medicine researcher Gary O. Rankin, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the department of pharmacology, physiology and toxicology, will lead a special symposium, “Pharmacogenetics and Drug Toxicity.”
Several Marshall graduate students were selected for graduate student travel awards for this year’s conference and will be showcasing their research through both oral and poster presentations. They are:
- Jenna C. Kerby, first-year medical student, “Temperature-enhanced extremity lengthening is growth rate dependent.” Kerby was selected as one of only eight trainees to give an oral presentation in the Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology Section of the American Physiological Society’s Abstract-Driven Trainee Featured Topic.
- Caroline Ann Hunter, biomedical sciences Ph.D. student, travel award received from American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), “c-Src regulates mitochondrial translation by phosphorylation of elongation factor Tu.”
- Christopher Racine, biomedical Sciences Ph.D. candidate, travel award received from American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), “Oxidative stress induced following exposure to 3,5-dichloroaniline (3,5-DCA) in vitro: Role in Nephrotoxicity.
- Holly L. Tamski, biomedical sciences Ph.D. candidate, travel award from American Association of Anatomists (AAA), “Infrared Thermal Imaging to Collect Quantitative Surface Temperatures from Mice in Unilateral Limb Heating Study.”
- Justin Tomblin, biomedical sciences Ph.D. candidate, recipient of the Best Research Performance Award from Marshall’s biomedical sciences program which provides travel to a national meeting, “Pyrrolidine Dithiocarbamate Selectively Induces Autophagy and Cell Death in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells.”
Undergraduate student Miles Gray, a senior biochemistry major, is also traveling to the conference. In addition to the student researchers, Marshall University faculty, from a variety of disciplines and programs, are scheduled to present their findings.
Researchers from the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, Forensic Science Graduate Program, the School of Pharmacy, and the School of Medicine will present at the meeting which runs through April 1.