{"id":959,"date":"2026-01-12T15:22:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T20:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/?page_id=959"},"modified":"2026-01-12T15:23:54","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T20:23:54","slug":"symposium-2025","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/symposium\/symposium-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"The 22nd Annual Graduate Research Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/qbp\/files\/2026\/01\/12_5_25-Joe-Culver-394x636.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"394\" height=\"636\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-961 aligncenter\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/files\/2026\/01\/12_5_25-Joe-Culver-394x636.png 394w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/files\/2026\/01\/12_5_25-Joe-Culver-635x1024.png 635w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/files\/2026\/01\/12_5_25-Joe-Culver-768x1239.png 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/files\/2026\/01\/12_5_25-Joe-Culver.png 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Friday, December 5th<br \/>\nCILSE 101, 610 Commonwealth Ave<\/strong><\/p>\n<h1>Program<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>8:30 am \u2013 Registration<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>9:00 am \u2013 <\/strong><strong><span>Opening Remarks<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Shannon Stott, Ph.D., BME Chair<\/li>\n<li>Darren Roblyer, Ph.D., BME Faculty<\/li>\n<li>Kate Herrema &amp; Maya Bartels, QBP Co-hosts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>9:20-10:20 am \u2013 Student Speakers<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Aarohi Mehendale: Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI) for assessment of skin involvement in Scleroderma<\/li>\n<li>Dev Raj Mehrotra: Non-destructive Longitudinal Raman Spectroscopic Monitoring of Osteoarthritis Treatment Progression<\/li>\n<li>James Robson: Deciphering Sequence-to-Function Frameworks of Programmable RNA Sensors<\/li>\n<li>Aalanna Farrell: Investigating mechanisms of vascular toxicity by tyrosine kinase inhibitors in cancer treatment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>10:20-10:50 am \u2013 Coffee Break<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>10:50-11:50 am \u2013 Student Speakers<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Maryam Dashtiahangar: High-throughput assessment of cooperative cofactor recruitment to composite DNA elements<\/li>\n<li>Zoe Garman: Investigating the role of relaxin-2 in uterine fibroids<\/li>\n<li>Audrey Van Heest: Engineering Tumor Microenvironment-Responsive Biosensors for Precision Oncology<\/li>\n<li>Jordan Smiley: Enhancing Vaccine-Induced Immunity with Self-Amplifying RNA<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>12:00-1:00 pm<span>\u00a0<\/span>\u2013 Keynote \u2013<span> Dr. Joe Culver, <em>Professor of Radiology, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>1:00-2:30 pm \u2013 Lunch and Student Posters<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>James Roberts: AI Agents for Biological Design Tools<\/li>\n<li>Aedan Brown: Evolutionary simulations of metabolism reveal role of constant selective pressure<\/li>\n<li>Samuel Zhou: Dopamine loss alters striatal cholinergic interneuron intracellular dynamics and movement encoding<\/li>\n<li>Emily Davis: FAK as a central mediator of provisional matrix assembly during stromal repair<\/li>\n<li>Sophie Zic: Building a custom system to perform sequential spatially resolved transcriptomic experiments<\/li>\n<li>Christopher Lu: Implementing Base Editing to Correct a Pathogenic Variant of Wolfram Syndrome for Preventing Neurodegeneration<\/li>\n<li>Katie Breuckman:<\/li>\n<li>Rockwell Tang: Neurogenic low frequency blood flow oscillations and microcirculatory perfusion associated with stroke recovery<\/li>\n<li>Ezra Cho: Modulating Antigen Processing through Nanoporous Cages to Bias Adaptive Immunity<\/li>\n<li>Siyi Zheng: Harnessing DNA-based vaccines to generate lung-resident immunity<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, December 5th CILSE 101, 610 Commonwealth Ave Program 8:30 am \u2013 Registration 9:00 am \u2013 Opening Remarks Shannon Stott, Ph.D., BME Chair Darren Roblyer, Ph.D., BME Faculty Kate Herrema &amp; Maya Bartels, QBP Co-hosts 9:20-10:20 am \u2013 Student Speakers Aarohi Mehendale: Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI) for assessment of skin involvement in Scleroderma Dev [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17498,"featured_media":0,"parent":33,"menu_order":22,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":964,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/959\/revisions\/964"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/qbp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}