Program will start at 5:30 PM and end at 9:00 PM. There will be two poster sessions of about 30 min each (6:00-6:30 and 6:30-7:00), short talks by students (7:15-8:00) and a Keynote address (8:00-8:45).
Keynote Speaker: Nick Grams, Ph.D.
Coming from a small town in south-central Pennsylvania, Nick discovered his love for the life sciences thanks to several amazing high school teachers. From then on, he fostered his passion by attending Lafayette college and pursuing a Bachelor of Science in biology. While at Lafayette, Nick focused his education on the molecular side of biology, with some of his favorite classes being molecular genetics and infectious diseases. He conducted two years of research with Dr. Manuel Ospina-Giraldo on the pathogenesis of Phytophthora species, culminating in two publications and an Honors Thesis in 2019. He was a constant presence in the biology department during his time at Lafayette, also serving as a Teaching Assistant for Lab Coordinator John Drummond and Dr. Ospina-Giraldo for a total of 6 semesters. After Lafayette, Nick attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine where he was awarded an NIH T32 fellowship. He conducted his thesis work investigating the capsid assembly and genome packaging of human Adenoviruses in the lab of Dr. Matthew Weitzman, which led to three publications. In 2024, Nick completed his PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology with a specialty in Molecular Virology and joined the Virology Team at Dispatch Biotherapeutics, a clinical stage cancer immunotherapy company located in Philadelphia, PA. Nick is currently a Senior Scientist II at Dispatch, where he manages a small team responsible for designing, building, and testing oncolytic viruses for the treatment of late-stage, treatment resistant gastrointestinal cancers.
MEETING SCHEDULE
5:30 PM Meeting Registration and Poster setup; (Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center, fourth floor)
6:00 PM Poster Session I (Odd-numbered posters); (Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center, fourth floor)
6:30 PM Poster Session II (Even-numbered posters); (Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center, fourth floor)
7:00 PM Micro-talk Set-up; Hugel 103
7:15 PM Micro-talks; Hugel 103
8:00 PM Keynote Talk; Hugel 103
Meeting will include coffee, cookies, and assorted snacks.
PRESENTATION GUIDELINES
Oral presentations will be ~5 minutes long (plus ~2-3 minutes for questions). Posters should be no larger than 3′ high by 4′ wide.