Biology students win physiological awards

Two Grinnell students recently won awards for research presentations at the Iowa Physiological Society (IPS) annual meeting in Des Moines. IPS provides networking opportunities for physiologists in applied research and teaching.

“The IPS experience gives the students an opportunity to interact with undergraduate peers in a local setting before potential attendance and presentation on a broader level,” said Clark Lindgren, professor of biology who encouraged the biology students to attend.

• Zheng Su ’11, a biology and economics double major, won first place in the undergraduate poster competition for his research on “neurotransmitter release at the vertebrate neuro-muscular junction.” His award comes with a voucher for attendance at the national meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Washington D.C. next spring.
• Kathryn Walder ’12, a biological chemistry and English double major from Iowa City, won third place for her research poster on “cell ablation at the lizard neuro-muscular junction.”
• Biological chemistry major Xingjie Zhang ’12 also presented a paper titled “Kiss and Run is only performed by a specified sub-pool of synaptic vesicles at the lizard neuro-muscular junction.”