Andrew Renda earns Best Poster Award at the FUSION Nucleic Acids Conference

Andrew Renda, a graduate student in the Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology (BMMB) Program earned the “Best Poster” Award at the FUSION Nucleic Acids Conference held in Nassau, Bahamas Feb 13-16, 2019.  The title of his presentation was CsrA Mediated Translational Activation in Escherichia coli.

Renda conducts his research under the direction of Dr. Paul Babitzke, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Co-director of the Center for RNA Molecular Biology.  Renda’s specific topic of research in the laboratory is study of the global regulatory protein CsrA in E. coli to discover new mechanisms of gene regulation.  The research done in the Babitzke Laboratory provides a basic foundation for the principles of bacterial physiology, biochemistry, and genetics. The laboratory’s focus is to elucidate bacterial genetic regulatory systems that provide support and information for infectious disease and medical research labs.

Currently Renda is working to develop a new technique that will be of use to any research lab that studies protein-RNA interactions. His goal is to discover new mechanisms of global gene regulation in bacteria mediated by protein-RNA interactions. Renda hopes to one day obtain a position in a medical research laboratory working towards the development of less harmful therapeutics for terminally ill patients.