2026 URS Schedule
| Time | Presentation/Activity | Location |
| 8:30 – 9:00 | Sign-in | LSI West Atrium |
| 9:00 – 9:15 | Opening statement by student chairs and department head | LSI 1 |
| 9:15 – 9:30 | Designing islet-specific TCR Tregs for Type 1 Diabetes
Darya Laptieva |
LSI 1 |
| 9:30 – 9:45 | Gut-Derived Metabolite Signalling & Microglia Amyloid-β Plaque Remodelling as Mediators between Inflammatory Bowel Disease & Alzheimer’s Disease
Raisa Allarakhia |
LSI 1 |
| 9:45 – 10:00 | Epigenetic Regulation and Bivalent Promoter Resolution in Synovial Sarcoma
Soroush Torfehnejad |
LSI 1 |
| 10:00 – 10:15 | FNC01 and analogues exhibit potent antimycobacterial activity, low cytotoxicity, and bactericidal effects, and are compatible with existing therapies
Zohra Nikjo |
LSI 1 |
| 10:15 – 10:30 | Vamp4 a v- SNARE Protein Influences Vacuolar Function and Virulence in C. neoformans
Sophie Thanasack |
LSI 1 |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Break | LSI West Atrium |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | A First Exploration of Single-Stranded DNA and RNA Virus-Derived Endogenous Viral Elements in Sponge Genomes
Edward Sobczak |
LSI 1 |
| 11:00 – 11:15 | Genetic and microbial regulation of endogenous retroviruses
Madilyn B. Portas |
LSI 1 |
| 11:15 – 11:30 | SARS-CoV-2 Non-Structural Protein 6 (NSP6) Inhibits Viral Infection: A Proposed Model for Viral Interference
Kéryanne Gagnon |
LSI 1 |
| 11:30 – 11:45 | Engineering immune-evasive self-amplifying RNA vectors to enhance RNA therapeutic performance
Kayla Wen |
LSI 1 |
| 11:45 – 1:00 | Lunch and Posters | LSI West Atrium |
| 1:00-1:15 | Expression of Autotransporter BrkA Fails to Activate CpxAR Envelope Stress Response and Confer Heat Tolerance in Escherichia coli
Ella Buric, Simran Dhesi, Mikaela Pirillo, Natalie Viegas |
LSI 1 |
| 1:15-1:30 | An Engineered OmpT Cleavage Site Enables Secretion of the BrkA Passenger Domain
Shafique Remtulla, Aiden Liebrecht, Zohra Nikjo, Helen Azer |
LSI 1 |
| 1:30 – 1:45 | High Dietary Vitamin C Intake is Associated with Increased Anti-Inflammatory Taxa and Decreased Pro-Inflammatory Taxa in Parkinson’s Disease Microbiome with No Correlation to Age of Onset
Denali Gordon, Riko Murata, James Nam, Jeremy Siu, Kyle Yeung |
LSI 1 |
| 1:45 – 2:00 | Influenza A Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase Phylogenetic Groups do not Differentially Influence the Cloacal Microbiome Composition of Wild Mallard Ducks
Howard Chen, Ryan Chen, Alex Elbaz, David Medvedev, Soroush Torfehnejad |
LSI 1 |
| 2:00-2:15 | A machine learning model for predicting Crohn’s Disease using the microbiome and clinical data from biopsy samples
Yuqing Jin, Tara Philip, Muntaqim Syed, Caroline Wei, Jiyang Xin |
LSI 1 |
| 2:15-2:30 | Tobacco and E-cigarette use are associated with pathogenic salivary microbiome in China, but not in the United States of America
Kayla Audreyartha, Sophia Carrasco Obregon, Kaiya Yuxin Chi, Aimee Garcia Castro |
LSI 1 |
| 2:30 – 3:00 | Rapid Fire Talks 3×1 (See below) | LSI 1 |
| 3:00 – 4:00 | Keynote Talk: Dr. Biggs | LSI 1 |
| 4:00 – 4:30 | Closing remarks and prizes | LSI 1 |
3×1 Presentations
HSP70 as a Host-Directed Target for Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Therapy
Helen Azer
Evaluation of soluble Ag43a as a competitive inhibitor in Escherichia coli biofilm prevention and disruption
Andy Wang, Harinderjit Ghuman, Jairoop Hundal, Saman Rostami
Lactose intolerance had no significant effect on the diversity, composition, and function of the human gut microbiome in patients with multiple sclerosis
Naomi Small, Kaitlyn Liu, Yoshier Hu
Engineering Surface Display of an Anti-Amyloid-β Nanobody Using the BrkA Autotransporter in Escherichia coli
Johnny Huang, Marcus Liang, Moe Jalaeian, Sina Hakimpour
Testing the Environmental Sculpting Hypothesis: Effects of Early-Life Visual Experience on Adult Pattern Separation in Mice
Vanesse Li
Conditional Mucin Degradation by Candida albicans: N-Acetylglucosamine-Induced Mucinase Activity is Associated with Secreted Aspartyl Protease 4
Indra Yavuukhulan