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Tropical Medicine undergraduates, graduate students and post-docs were selected to receive several awards during the Spring 2016 Semester. These recognitions included awards for poster and oral presentations at the ASM Hawaii Branch Spring Meeting and the JABSOM Biomedical Sciences and Health Disparities Symposium, travel and presentation awards at several national scientific conferences, the Virginia S. Hinshaw Biomedical Research Scholarship Award, the ARCS Foundation Honolulu Koenig Award in Medicine, the Founder Region of Soroptomist International Dissertation Fellowship, the UH Manoa Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Inaugural Competition, and a research grant from The Association for Fordays Self-Reliance Support in Japan. A complete list of these awards is provided below.  Congratulations to all of these students for their outstanding accomplishments!

2016 American Society for Microbiology, Hawaii Branch Spring Meeting Awards (April 30, 2016):

Undergraduate Poster

• 1st Kendrick Go: Assessing the clinical significance of HPV quantitation in HIV-associated anal dysplasia (Advisors: Dr. Nittaya Phanuphak and Dr. Bruce Shiramizu)

MS Poster

• 1st Micah Tepora: Safety and Protective Efficacy of Respiratory Syncytial Virus-like Particles (RSV VLPs) in a Murine Model (Advisor: Dr. Pramila Walpita)
• 2nd Han Ha Youn: Characterization of C-terminally truncated dengue virus type 1 envelope proteins in Drosophila S2 cells. (Advisor: Dr. Wei-Kung Wang)
• 3rd Daniel Strange: Ebola virus glycoprotein stimulates proinflammatory cytokine expression through toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) signaling in mice (Advisor: Dr. Saguna Verma)

PhD Poster

• 1st Samuel Tassi Yunga: Do neonatal B cells primed to Plasmodium falciparum antigens in utero generate malaria-specific B cell memory? (Advisor: Dr. Diane Taylor)
• 2nd Jourdan Posner: Pattern recognition receptor ligands drive the differentiation and activation of human B cell subsets. (Advisor: Dr. Sandra Chang)
• 2nd Kenji Obadia Mfuh: Development of a saliva-based diagnosis of malaria. (Advisor: Dr. Vivek Nerurkar)

Undergraduate Oral Presentation

• 2nd Mc Millan Ching: Expression of yeast-phase antigen in liquid culture and in THP-1 cell line determine the time-dependent transition of dimorphic Penicillium marneffei. (Advisor: Dr. Srida Youngchim and Dr. Axel Lehrer)
• 3rd Kellyan Nguyen: Detection of Hepatitis E Virus in farm animals and in raw pork in endemic areas of western Thailand (Advisor: Dr. Pomsawan Leaungwutiwong and Dr. DeWolfe Miller)

MS Oral Presentation

• 2nd Alanna Tseng: Role of West Nile Virus NS4B in the Retention of NS5 in Virus-Induced Replication Organelles. (Advisor: Dr. Pakieli Kaufusi)

PhD Oral Presentation

• 1st Samuel Tassi Yunga: The human prenatal antibody responses to Plasmodium falciparum. (Advisor: Dr. Diane Taylor)
• 2nd Kenji Obadia Mfuh: Infectious Etiologies of Febrile Illnesses in Cameroon (Advisor: Dr. Vivek Nerurkar)
• 3rd Nelson Lazaga: Infection, Characterization, and Pathogenesis of In Vitro Urine-derived Rearranged Human Polyoma JC (Advisor: Dr. Vivek Nerurkar)

Travel Award

• 1st  Nelson Lazaga (Advisor: Dr. Vivek Nerurkar)
• 2nd Samuel Tassi Yunga(Advisor: Dr. Diane Taylor)
• 3rd Alanna Tseng (Advisor: Dr. Pakieli Kaufusi)

Biomedical Sciences and Health Disparities Symposium, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Dean’s Award (April 21-22, 2016)

Brooks Mitchell:  Convergence of Innate and adaptive immunity in the evolution of HIV-associated cognitive impairment (Advisors: Dr. Lishomwa Ndhlovu and Dr. Cecilia Shikuma)

• 1st place in the Graduate Student Division, $100
• Tie for Best Overall Poster, $50

Annual meeting of American Society for Virology 2016, Travel Award

• Wen-Yang Tsai, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow, Mentor: Dr. Wei-Kung Wang)

2016 American Society of Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology Trainee Research Honorable Mention Award; 2016 Travel Scholarship to present and attend the 2016 Towards an HIV Cure Symposium and the 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016)

• Eleanore Chuang (Advisor: Dr. Bruce Shiramizu):

2016 Chancellor Virginia S. Hinshaw Biomedical Research Scholarship Award

• David Siemann, First Place $1000 (Advisor: Dr. Saguna Verma)
• Yukie Sato (Lloyd), Second Place, $750 (Advisor: Dr. Diane Taylor)
• Glen Chew, Second Place, $750 (Advisor: Dr. Lishomwa Ndhlovu)

ARCS Foundation Honolulu Award: 2016 Koenig Award in Medicine, $5000  

• Glen Chew (Advisor: Dr. Lishomwa Ndhlovu)

Founder Region of Soroptimist International Dissertation Fellowship, 2016-2017 Academic Year, $10,000; The Association for Fordays Self-Reliance Support in Japan, Research Grant, $5000

• Yukie Sato (Lloyd) (Advisor: Dr. Diane Taylor)

 UH Manoa Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Inaugural Competition 2016, UH Manoa Office of Graduate Education

• Samuel Tassi Yunga (Advisor: Dr. Diane Taylor)
  • First Place Award
  • People’s Choice Award

2016 Translational Research in NeuroAIDS and Mental Health Research (TRNAMH) Scholar Award, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, TRNAMH Program

• Joanna Kettlewell (Advisor: Dr. Bruce Shiramizu)