Researchers of Emory

Xiancong Zhang  is a rising senior majoring in Chemistry and Biology. He was awarded a Spring 2016 Conference Grant which he used to present at the Experimental Biology Conference in Chicago.   I went to Experimental Biology (EB) in Chicago from 4.22-4.25 as an undergraduate poster presenter. EB is an annual international meeting of six societies, focusing on the latest research progress and cross-communication between disciplines. According to its website, it is a “multidisciplinary, scientific meeting features plenary and award lectures, workshops, oral and poster presentations, on-site career services and exhibits spotlighting equipment, supplies and publications required for research labs and experimental study.”

Anisha Kaldindi   I am in the research group of Dr. Gretchen Neigh in the Department of Physiology in the School of Medicine. I have been working on a project that involves looking at how chronic adolescent stress affects factors of the stress axis in adulthood. We have developed a protocol in which our animals experience chronic stress during the adolescent period and then we collect the brain tissue in adulthood. Since we are interested in specific regions in the brain we use a machine called a cryostat that allows us to make very thin slices of the brain. There is a lot of literature on the anatomy of the brain in  rats  (our model system), so we are able to use a book called the Rat Brain Atlas, to look at the structural elements of the brain and determine where we can collect the tissue from the region we are interested in.