Thirteen dedicated Presbyterian College scholars shared their work last week at the 2023 Summer Research Symposium.

Live presentations varying from breast cancer research to Brazilian race relations were given in Harrington-Peachtree Center earlier in the day, followed by poster presentations in Thomason Library that afternoon.

Chaplain and dean of spiritual life, the Rev. Dr. Buz Wilcoxon ‘05, addressed student researchers with recollections of his experiences as a PC student – discovering the power of the liberal arts.

“Here in this land of liberal arts, everything was connected,” he said. “Faith and reason. History and philosophy. Sociology and biology. Politics and literature. People and places. Ideas and stories. The connections were forming and easier to see – connections between myth and math, between dogma and data, between measures and meaning, between poems and protons, between arts and science, between living and serving.

“This way of seeing the world and the connections between parts of the world is something that, for me, was extremely invigorating. Rather than silos of individual departments, I was thrown into the deep waters of what we do best here at PC.”

Wilcoxon told students their research reveals similar connections between race and democracy, robotics and prosthetics, genetic alterations and breast cancer, and artificial intelligence and pharmacy education.

“Those connections matter, because they’re about the real world that is all interconnected,” he said. “The academy, our democratic society, in fact, the whole world is being changed for the better because of the research that you are doing, not just because of the results that you’re finding, but because of the connections that you’re discovering, and helping others to see as well.”

Student research was funded by the PC Summer Fellows Program, the S.C. IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (SC-INBRE), S.C. Independent Colleges and Universities, and the PC School of Pharmacy.

Presenting live:

• Marigordon Varner (Summer Fellow), a senior from Gray Court, presented “Using Acoustics to Probe the Granular Jamming Transition.” (Dr. Eli Owens, advisor)
• Charlotte McGuinness (SC-INBRE), a senior from Rock Hill, presented “Historic Proteomic Profiling of EMT-Transformed MCF10A Breast Cells Reveal Dynamic Changes in Epigenetic Modifications.” (Dr. Austin Shull, adviser)
• Patrick Buchanan (Summer Fellow), a senior from Myrtle Beach, presented “Gilberto Freyre, Racial Democracy, and Contemporary Race Relations in Brazil.” (Dr. Jaclyn Sumner, adviser)
• William Leonard (Summer Fellow), a senior from East Meadow, N.Y., presented “Optimization and Substrate Scope Analysis of Iron Porphyrin-Catalyzed Oxidation of Ketoacids to Aldehydes.” (Dr. Ladie Kimberly De La Cruz, adviser)
• Andrew Polatty (SC-INBRE), a senior from Greenwood, presented “Reactive Oxygen Species-Triggered Carbon Monoxide Prodrugs for Target Delivery.” (Dr. De La Cruz, adviser)

Presenters at the poster session:

• Carter Baytes (SC-INBRE), a senior from Kershaw, presented “Multidrug Resistance in Cancer Cells.” (Dr. Amy Messersmith, adviser)
• Clint Caldwell (SC-INBRE), a senior from Lake City, presented “Coronal Mass Ejections and Human Physiology.” (Dr. James Wanliss, adviser)
• Jacob Clerc (SC-INBRE), a senior from Warrenville, and Ashton Shannon (Summer Fellow), a senior from Chester, presented “Investigating the Unjamming Transition for the Development of a Soft-Robotic Gripper.” (Dr. Owens, adviser)
• Sam Evans (SC-INBRE), a senior from Greenville, presented “Effects of Dietary Iron on Taxonomic Composition and Function of Zebrafish Gut Microbiome.” (Dr. Stuart Gordon, adviser)
• Margaret Leonard (SCICU), a sophomore, presented “The Potential Correlation Between IL32 Gene Expression and Secreted CXCL2/3 Levels in SUM159PT Breast Cancer Cells.” (Dr. Shull, adviser)
• Ashley Solomon (PCSP), a P3 from Greer, presented “Evaluation of Best Practice Agreement to Generate Anticoagulation Clinic Referrals.” (Dr. Eileen Ward, adviser)
• Reagan Young (PCSP), a P2 from Florence, presented “Leveraging the Capabilities of AI Enhanced Learning Tools for Pharmacy Education: Optimizing ChatGPT to Generate Drug Knowledge Test Questions.” (Dr. Serge Afeli, adviser)

Afterwards, students acknowledged the tremendous value of doing research during the break between semesters.

“Summer research was a very big learning opportunity for me,” Varner said. “It happened incredibly fast because summer is so short, but it was great to work with some colleagues and collaborate and learn some new lab skills.”

McGuinness said her biggest finding this summer was her future.

“This summer made me develop a love for research because that was all I was doing,” she said. “It was really nice to immerse myself in it and not have to think about anything else. I really loved it and see myself going to grad school, hopefully to continue doing it.”

Buchanan, too, enjoyed the focus of doing only research this summer and realizing its potential to drive his career goals.

“Working here over the summer was awesome,” he said. “It was kind of like a microcosm of what I want to do for six more years in graduate school. It was nice to sit down and have nothing else to do except focus on one project – six to eight hours a day just reading and taking notes and putting together a presentation. I thought it was such a unique and wonderful opportunity. It really reminded me that I want to do this.”