Student researchers to share experiences with Congress

Karen C. Tully Arizona Daily Wildcat Biochemisrty senior Pragyna Shankar is one of three seniors from the UA selected to meet with members of the Congress today and tomorrow. Pragyna was chosen to represent the school in Washington D.C.'s second annual Capitol Hill Research Poster Conference.

Molecular and cellular biology senior Amy Miller, biochemistry junior David Solkoff and biochemistry senior Pragyna Shankar are representing the UA at the second-annual Capitol Hill Research Poster Conference in Washington.

The three are among 87 undergraduate students across the nation named as winners in the Capitol Hill research competition.

"Because it was a competitive process, we feel very fortunate that we had three students chosen for it," said Carol Bender, director of the Undergraduate Biology Research Program.

The students are scheduled to meet with Republican Arizona congressional delegates Sen. John McCain, Sen. John Kyl and Rep. Jim Kolbe, plus someone from the staff of Democratic Rep. Ed Pastor.

Miller worked with Dr. Pamela Kling of the UA Department of Pediatrics on a project called "A Potential Treatment for Anemia in Premature Infants: Enternal Absorption of Erythropoietin in the Neonate."

Erythropoietin is the hormone responsible for red blood cell production. Its absence in premature infants causes severe anemia.

Miller's project focused on ways to administer the hormone orally that may lead to new treatments for that type of anemia.

"I really like research because it gives me the opportunity for hands-on experience," Miller said. "I basically constructed this entire project - that was a really eye-opening experience."

Solkoff worked with research professor Ronald Watson of UA's Health Sciences Arizona Prevention Center on a project called "Antioxidant Supplementation in Treatment of Immune Dysfunction and Oxidation Induced by Murine AIDS in Old Mice."

The project studied ways to combat the effects of AIDS and aging through the use of anti-oxidant nutritional supplements.

Shankar, aided by UA toxicology and pharmacology professor James Halpert and Joan Schwartz at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., designed a project titled "Cytokine Expression in Antisense-IL-3 Mice with a Progressive Neurological Disorder."

The project studied the role of hormone-like substances called cytokines and chemokines in the onset of neurological disorders like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's dementia and AIDS dementia complex.