Fairmont State student wins first place at National Biological Honor Society Convention

 Fairmont State University Biology student Dana Goodman (Man, WV) received the John C. Johnson Award at the Beta Beta Beta (Tribeta) Biological Honor Society 2024 National Convention in Columbus, GA. 

The John C. Johnson Award is for excellence in undergraduate research presented in a poster session at either a district or national meeting. District awards are given annually in each district and national awards are given bi-annually at national meetings.  

Goodman won second place at the regional convention, and first place nationally for her undergraduate research poster presentation titled Effect of Proline Residue during Insertion of pHLIP into Membrane. She is the first person from Fairmont State to win both regionally and nationally. 

Her research explored the use of the amino acid Proline to identify which pH Low Insertion Peptides (pHLIP) sequence was most efficient during insertion into a cell membrane. pHLIP can insert only into cancer cells, which could be used to deliver drugs specifically to those cells. This differs from the typical chemotherapy cancer treatment because it only affects cancerous cells instead of the entire body.  

During Goodman’s research a biophysics approach was taken using thermodynamics (the science of the relationship between heat, work, temperature, and energy) and the Wolfram Mathematica coding (a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing) to form her conclusion. 

“We were able to find a specific pHLIP sequence that optimized the change in free energy,” said Goodman. “This means that we found a sequence that could deliver therapeutic drugs to specific cancer cells, without hurting surrounding cells. Optimizing the free energy allowed for the protein to fold properly without denaturing.” 

The entire project was funded through the STaR (West Virginia Science, Technology and Research) SURE grant, which provides research experiences to undergraduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. She received funding for a year-long research project, but with the spring 2024 semester being Goodman’s last, she had to finalize her project in only 15 weeks. 

“I worked really hard to get it done in time and then when I presented my work at the regional convention I won second place, which meant I qualified for the national conference. I was the first person from Fairmont State to qualify for nationals, where I won first place. I didn’t think I was going to win because I competed against about 50 other people who had more time to prepare and did really significant research.” 

Goodman doesn’t take full credit for her success though. She said she would not have been able to complete such a high-quality presentation in such a short amount of time without the assistance of faculty members Dr. Ganga P. Sharma and Dr. Kristy Henson. 

“Dr. Sharma helped me the entire time. It was just the two of us working on this project,” said Goodman. “When [Dr. Sharma] was out for a few days, Dr. Henson helped me with the layout of my poster, and that was the biggest thing that people noticed when I presented – how different my layout was.” 

Goodman’s project was inspired by her aspiration to become an Oncologist. Now a Fairmont State graduate, Goodman plans to attend medical school at an in-state institution next year. Her abstract will be published in the September edition of Bios, Tribeta’s quarterly Biology Journal.