Five students from Creighton University attended the Big East Research Symposium. The symposium, held in Madison Square Garden in New York City, gave students from all Big East schools the chance to present their research to colleagues and judges.
The event, which was on Saturday, March 15, consisted of two one-hour sessions, one of which the students were assigned to. During a session, each participating student would give eight- to 10-minute poster presentations. Three judges would listen to each presentation before naming the top presentations at the end.
Selected students from Creighton were junior Alessandra Kakish and seniors Liana Chinen, Zach Onyszchuk, Cleo Zagurski and Nathan Jobalia.
Kakish, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, was mentored by Julie Soukup, Ph.D., a professor of Chemistry and the Vice Provost of Research here at Creighton. Her research focused on finding new ways to target bacteria in order to overcome antibiotic resistance.
“Antibiotic resistance [is] one of the major threats for our health communities,” Kakish said. She cited that there are around 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections contracted globally every year.
“A lot of these bacteria are resistant to the treatments that are already out there,” Kakish continued, “…so [this] novel mechanism would help combat that.”
This specific project offered a unique opportunity to intersect her two fields of study, Kakish said.
“I’m a [biochemistry] major but also [a] global health minor, so being able to find a project that kind of intersects my two interests was something I wanted to do,” she said.
In addition to exploring her fields of interest, Kakish also mentioned some of the experiential benefits of participating in research.
“I [think] there’s skills that you learn from research that you don’t necessarily learn in a classroom,” Kakish said. A few of the benefits she described were learning how to communicate the research to different audiences, practicing critical-thinking and troubleshooting skills and learning how to work with a team or mentor.
Chinen’s research project was done in collaboration with the Boys Town National Research Hospital Institute for Human Neuroscience. Her faculty mentor for the project was Max Kurz, Ph.D., of the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions, and her other mentor was Morgan Busboom, Ph.D., a Creighton alumnus who recently received her Ph.D. in patient-oriented research.
Chinen’s project focused on the difference between the brain changes of individuals with cerebral palsy who respond or do not respond to physical therapy.
According to Chinen, this project taught her the importance of personalized medicine.
“My project really showed that…some physical therapy interventions aren’t going to work on everyone, and now we need to [do] this research so that we can better understand the whole person and kind of adapt treatment strategies so that everyone can have the best outcome from physical therapy,” she said.
Additionally, Chinen mentioned how this project has prepared her to take on bigger roles in future research projects. Specifically, Chinen noted her excitement for her current project regarding Alzheimer’s patients with Down syndrome.
“I got to write the manuscript for the Down syndrome project because…now that I have more experience, I told my P.I. I really want to grow my ability [to] write scientifically. … In med school I want to do research, and so he gave me the opportunity to…practice the skill,” Chinen said.
Both Kakish and Chinen encourage all students to try their hand in research.
“I definitely think everyone should at least try research. Give it a chance,” Chinen said.
“If I’m going to be fully honest, I didn’t even know about research before I came to Creighton,” Chinen continued, “I was…encouraged by my advisors to at least try it, because it’s…something that med schools look for. And then I realized I really, really liked it.”