Department of Biological Sciences

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Student in Research:
Graduate Students (MS)

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Pavan Chigurupati is working on a research project to determine role of tobacco SABP2 in basal and non-host resistant mechanisms in plants.

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Amukta Mayakoti has joined our research group in spring 2010. She is working on a project to explore freshwater microalgae from local water bodies (East Tennessee) as a source of biodiesel. She presented a poster at the "2011 Appalachian Student Research Forum" which won second place award in the category of Natural Sciences and Mathematics  http://www.etsu.edu/studentresearch/Winners_2011.pdf


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Nkongho Binda Collins has joined Kumar lab in spring of 2010. He comes from University of Buea, Cameroon. His research interest involves use of plants for Phyto-remediation. He presented a poster at the "2011 Appalachian Student Research Forum" which won first place award in the category of Natural Sciences and Mathematics http://www.etsu.edu/studentresearch/Winners_2011.pdf

Undergraduate students (BS)

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Bingqing Zhao is a exchange student pursuing BS in Biology degree at ETSU. She has joined my lab in summer 2011.

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David Donald is undergraduate student pursuing BS in Biology at ETSU. He is currently working as a research assistant funded by NSF-REU.

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Oliviya K. Simo is a undergraduate student majoring in Biomedical Engineering at ETSU. She is involved in in research in my lab.

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Ornella K. Simo is a undergraduate student majoring in Biomedical Engineering at ETSU. She is involved in in research in my lab.

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Hira Chaudhary is an Honor's undergraduate student. She was awarded a "Student Faculty Collaborative Research Grant" from Honors College, ETSU to pursue research on isolation and characterization of tomato homologs of tobacco SABP2.

 

2011 Summer Interns

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Cyrus Alavi graduated from Science Hill high school, Johnson City, TN. He is currently a freshman at University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. He decided to gain some research experience in my lab at ETSU during summer of 2011. Here is what he has to say about his experience in my lab, "As a rising freshman with the long term goal of obtaining a professional degree in biology, I decided to volunteer a few weeks of my time to work in Dr. Kumar’s plant physiology lab. I figured that a little lab experience would go a long way in preparing me for possible research opportunities while I was in college. It was in Dr. Kumar’s lab that I learned the basics of lab work such as how to properly follow lab protocol, how to maintain an organized work place, how to run some basic experiments, and how to do a database analysis to search for similar proteins using BLAST. It is not the practice of sonicating bacterial samples for protein expression analysis or setting up SDS-protein gels that I am thankful for however, it is the experience of working with others in a scientific setting that I think is most valuable. Working in  the lab this summer was rewarding and I look forward to pursuing undergraduate research at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa".

 

 

Evan McConnell graduated in spring 2010 from Science Hill high school, Johnson City, TN. He is currently a sophomore at University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. During summer of 2011 he decided to gain some research experience in my lab at ETSU. Here is what he has to say about his experience in my lab, "My experience in Dr. Kumar’s biochemistry lab was a positive one. Not only did I garner lab techniques and general methods of protein purification, but I made connections with everyone in the lab that I’ll always remember. In addition to protein purification, I was given the opportunity to isolate DNA from bacteria and run acrylamide gel electrophoresis to determine the different sizes of proteins in a sample. These experiments were easily susceptible to determinate errors and it was my responsibility to run things properly in order to receive reliable data. Seeing how research is conducted firsthand was beyond valuable and I now have an idea of what working in a lab for a living is like. Being a biochemistry major, the time I spent in Dr. Kumar’s lab is very important to my career path. With my freshman year behind me and plenty of chemistry courses in my future as a student, the more I can lessen operator error in lab the better. I greatly appreciate the chance I was given and cannot thank Dr. Kumar, as well as everyone else in lab, enough for being patient and willing to teach."