Soriano Chavez Wins in Bioinformatics Consortium’s Poster Contest
Emilio Soriano Chavez (center) is congratulated on his winning poster contest entry by Dr. Wieda Tong (left), director of the Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics at FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research, and Bryan Barnhouse, president and CEO of Arkansas Research Alliance.
JONESBORO – During the Arkansas Bioinformatics Consortium (AR-BIC) 10th annual meeting, winners in the 2024 poster contest were announced, including Emilio Soriano Chavez, a senior at Arkansas State University.
Soriano Chavez won first place, including a $500 prize, in the undergraduate/high school division of the contest. Students from UALR won second and third in this division.
A double major in biotechnology and computer science, Soriano Chavez conducts research with Dr. Maureen Dolan, associate professor of molecular biology at A-State and a member of the research faculty at Arkansas Biosciences Institute.
“I feel extremely grateful and humbled for being selected as a recipient of this award, which highlights the hard work of my lab members and myself," Soriano Chavez said. "This inspires us to keep working on sharing our research with the scientific community.”
Soriano Chavez, who transferred to A-State from Campus Queretaro in Mexico, is part of the WORMS (Waxworm Organic Recycling Management System) team.
He conducted the poster project as a fall 2023 independent study course under Dolan and Dr. Asela Wijeratne, assistant professor of bioinformatics, in collaboration also with Hannah Seats, WORMS project technician, and Winston Miller, a molecular biosciences doctoral student.
The title of his poster was “Differential Analysis of Gut Microbial Composition and its Importance for Plastic-Degrading Waxworm Larvae.” This is a follow-on study to the NASA SPOCS project, in which a team of A-State students were selected by NASA to prepare an experiment, which was run on the International Space Station in 2022.
“Emilio did the bioinformatic analysis of an experiment Hannah conducted to work out some baseline procedures and information so we can now look at the impact on the waxworm gut microbiome when exposed to microgravity,” Dolan explained.
The Poster Contest is growing in popularity within AR-BIC because it recognizes research contributions from students who have dedicated their scholarly careers to the pursuit of innovation and discovery.
“The future of innovation and discovery is placed in the hands of our state’s young scientists,” said Bryan Barnhouse, president and CEO of Arkansas Research Alliance, which helped sponsor the event. “Recognizing the achievements of these promising researchers is both an honor and a privilege.”
More than 200 members of the state’s bioinformatics community attended the meeting in North Little Rock. The two-day event featured several high-profile guest speakers and moderators, including the Federal Drug Administration’s chief scientist and principal deputy commissioner Dr. Namandjé Bumpus and Dr. Rich Woychick, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
The contest was judged by a committee representing the state’s research-driven institutions.
