IRSC Student Takes First Place at Inaugural South Florida Translational Research Symposium at FIU

April 26, 2022 Robert Lane

Two Indian River State College (IRSC) Biology students competed at the Florida International University (FIU) inaugural FIU Center for Translational Science South Florida Translational Research Symposium held April 13-14, 2022, in Port St. Lucie—with one IRSC student earning top accolades in the undergraduate category. In addition to the competition, the symposium featured plenary speakers addressing topics in aging, oxidative stress and inflammation, endothelial function, and metabolism.

FIU Symposium

At the competition, Crissy Massimino won first place in the undergraduate category for her poster presentation “Characterization of a novel jumbo phage for potential agricultural applications.” Yasmin Ortiz's poster presentation focused on “Manual curation of Diaphorina citri genes associated with Female Reproduction.”

In preparation for the competition, the students worked with Dr. Tom D’Elia, IRSC Professor of Biology, and Megan Carroll, IRSC Assistant Professor of Biology who served as faculty research mentors.

“The symposium was a valuable opportunity for our students to present their research and interact with scientists and graduate students from across South Florida,” shares Dr. D’Elia. “Crissy and Yasmin did an outstanding job sharing the results of their projects—they are both amazing students and researchers who represented our biology program very well.”

Ortiz graduates this Spring earning her B.S. in Biology degree, and she will work for the Florida Medical Entomology Lab in Vero Beach as a research technician following her graduation. Massimino will continue her studies at IRSC to complete her B.S. in Biology degree.

“Graduates from our program fill critical research positions in the academic, business, and industrial job sectors, and we are seeing more such jobs on the Treasure Coast as the medical and biotechnology industries expand," states Dr. Anthony Dribben, IRSC Dean of Science. “A significant number of our students pursue postgraduate programs in medicine, pharmacy, and science—and students who have the research experience on their resume that our B.S. Biology program offers are stronger candidates for admission.”

For more information on the Biology program at IRSC, visit irsc.edu, email info@irsc.edu, or call 1-866-792-4772. Congratulations to these two outstanding Pioneers for their accomplishments!