Research Guides: TRU Undergraduate Research Conference 2023: Home

Welcome to the 2023 TRU Undergraduate Research and Innovation Conference

Welcome to the 2023 TRU Undergraduate Research & Innovation Conference. The 18th annual conference will take place March 20-24, 2023. Below you will find:

The schedule for 2 virtual lecture sessions, and links to REGISTER for those sessions; come listen to students give 12-minute presentations about their work, and then answer your questions.
The times for 2 in-person poster sessions and a list of which posters will be avaiable for viewing; plan on coming by the House of Learning's 1st floor Learning Commons to see the posters and talk with some of the student researchers. Snacks will be available, and no pre-registration is required; just come by and take a look!
Poster abstracts and virutal posters are available for many of the posters listed below for online viewing throughout the week.

All parts of the conference are free to attend, and open to all members of the TRU and Kamloops community.

Questions can be directed to Elizabeth Rennie, erennie@tru.ca

2023 Undergraduate Conference Virtual Lecture Schedule

Lectures have been organized into 2 sessions. Students will present for 12 minutes each. Once all students have presented their research, the session moderator will lead a question and answer period, taking audience questions for the students from the Teams chat. Please REGISTER for the sessions at the links below; your immediate confirmation emails will include the links to the live virtual sessions.

SESSION A: Wednesday March 22, 4:00 - 5:30pm

Please REGISTER at https://tru.libcal.com/calendar/events/urc2023sessionA

Kiara McDonald: Broadcasting in networks: Searching for optimal coverings and packings (Supervisor: Richard Brewster)
Abu Harera Nadeem: Characterization of UV resistant molecule(s) in Trembling Aspen tree powder (Supervisors: Natasha Ramroop Singh and Kingsley Donkor)
Nehemie Nguimbous: Numerical approximation of the Riemann-Liouville integral (Supervisor: Yana Nec)
Olivia Rose Roberts: The Hidden world of Fine Art comics: The Evolution of Fine Art narratives (Supervisor: Darlene Kalynka)
Hannah Valihora: A feminist analysis of endometriosis discourse: Experiences of disempowerment and dismissal, and moving towards an ethics of care for endometriosis patients (Supervisors: Rochelle Stevenson and Jenny Shaw)

SESSION B:Thursday March 23, 3:00 - 4:30pm

Please REGISTER at https://tru.libcal.com/calendar/events/urc2023sessionB

Kelsey Cruz: Effect of antimicrobial copper on microorganism growth in non-clinical settings (Supervisors: Naowarat Cheeptham and Joanna Urban)
Emily Dagasso: Synthesis off first-row transition metal catalysts for alkene hydroamination (Supervisor: Dipesh Prema)
Kiera Duffy: The Crimes of the unidentified; A Need for The typography for child victims of exploitation (Supervisor: Heather Price)
Shams Khan and Ehsan Mamatjan: AI and IoT based prediction, explanation, and monitoring system for ischemic stroke (Supervisor: Yasin Mamatjan)

Poster Session A: Wednesday March 22, 11am - 3:30pm, House of Learning 1st floor Learning Commons

Okiki Khamel Agunbiade, Nicholas Eccleston, and Dalvin Zuze: Transportation across the rural-urban fringe: Comparing methods, ease, cost, and time of travel across the region (Supervisor: Tom Waldichuk)
Almat Bolatbekov: A smart recommender-based heart attack warning system (Supervisor: Yasin Mamatjan)
Fernando Bouthillier: Genomic comparison of Streptomyces species from different habitats (Supervisor: Naowarat Cheeptham)
Kiera Duffy: The Crimes of the unidentified; A Need for The typography for child victims of exploitation (Supervisor: Heather Price) In the present study, I will explore legal decisions involving online child exploitation in Canada, and within these cases, I will examine if the victims are identified or not. The details of these cases are pivotal in having the offender charged, creating a victim typology, and preventing future offences. Without specific details of the victim, there is a risk of not being able to prevent future crime, meaning the pattern will just continue to repeat itself. These cases are stored in The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII), which is an online database. The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII), provides real cases of child exploitation within Canada and the dates they took place. From just July 30th, 2021, to October 10th, 2022 there were a total of 500 reported and documented cases of child exploitation in Canada alone. These cases were all tried in a court of law, and the written legal decisions are made available to the public. These cases are the minority, not the majority, as it is likely that the true number of child exploitation acts go undocumented, unreported, and undisclosed. Of these documented cases, many still featured unidentified child victims, this has a large impact on the typology which could be made for Canada.
Tiffany Duhault: A white man's world: Inequality at it's Finest - educational card game (Supervisor: Jenna Woodrow) It is without question that women, transgender men and women, and gay men continue to be at a disadvantage because of their gender identity (Johnson 2017). I will argue that the main areas of discrimination around the world are within sexual violence, healthcare and women of colour. The goal for this project was to address the concerns and lack of awareness surrounding gender discrimination. I applied a philosophical approach of intersectionality and epistemology to address these issues, while also creating an engaging project to educate individuals on gender prejudice and discrimination.
Carla Figueroa: Determination of THC in selected cannabis flower buds by LC-MS (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor)
Ethan J. Furlong: The effects of modifying hydrophobic tryptophan residues in novel indolicidin derivatives with pharmaceutical potential (Supervisor: Heidi Huttunen-Hennelly) The creation of new antimicrobial agents is a significant area of research needed to be examined due to the era of antimicrobial resistance. Various microbial products are being studied to combat this issue. One of particular interest is antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) which is the main focus of this study and investigates this problem. However, using AMPs as antimicrobial medication is hindered due to their potential toxic and hemolytic activity. This study will analyze the AMP indolicidin which is known to have exceptional antimicrobial activity. Although a wide variety of microbes are susceptible to indolicidin, it would make a poor pharmaceutical due to its high hemolytic activity. To counter this, different derivatives of indolicidin will be examined that have tryptophan amino acid residues replaced with alanine residues in attempt to reduce hemolytic properties. The indolicidin derivatives Δ4,8, Δ4,9, Δ6,11, and Δ8,11 will undergo antibiotic sensitivity testing to inspect their potential therapeutic use. Such experiments will include the Kirby-Bauer test, an optical density analysis, and a peptide concentration assay.
Akash Ghosh: Uncovering the voices: Exploring IBPOC community views on healthcare policies through social media data (Supervisor: Randy Lin) A vital part of giving minority people access to high-quality medical care is understanding their barriers and problems with the healthcare system, on basis of their cultural backgrounds. For understanding their needs better, we need to gather more personalized data from them and analyze it. However, conventional techniques for gathering personal data can involve intensive manual labor and challenging questions. The manual process therefore ends up being very time consuming and expensive. In this research project, we tried using a technical way to solve this problem so that it can be inexpensive, repeatable, and faster to gather, analyze, and update data that is medically and culturally relevant. The goal of this project was to understand how people from different cultural backgrounds are finding our healthcare system and our solution was to use data gathered from social media platforms and analyze it.
Christina Heady and Reese Miyamoto-Mansfield: Land policies and planning features of Tel Aviv's rural-urban fringe (Supervisor: Tom Walkichuk)
Celena Hoang: Determination of nisin in dairy products and alcoholic beverages by large volume sample stack-capillary electrophoresis (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor)
Casey Hopper, Emily Dagasso, and Eri Jackson: Project Xchange: Mapping the future of community engaged research at TRU (Supervisor Will Garrett-Petts) Community-engaged research is a novel approach that promotes active community involvement to address and support community change. This process focuses on collaboration and ensures that community-university partnerships prioritize the needs and goals of the involved community member(s), non-profit society or organization. Recently, Thompson Rivers University released a Strategic Research Plan that outlines the goal to become nation-wide leaders in community engaged research. We’ve been working together on a multi-disciplinary team since April 2022, using cultural mapping, an arts-based research method, to collect qualitative data from students, faculty and community members. Cultural mapping utilizes a draw-talk protocol and allows researchers to learn from those with lived and living experience. We asked our mappers to first define what community engaged research means to them, and to then draw or visualize where it does or doesn’t happen for them, and why, in the form of a map. Once complete the mapper takes the interviewer for a tour of their map, which is recorded, transcribed, and used to analyze the data. Cultural mapping provides opportunities to examine the past, assess the present, and envision change for the future. Our research is grounded in a reciprocal process, collaboratively seeking ideas of how we can co-create and facilitate a meaningful space for learning, research and resource sharing with students, faculty and community members. Once the data has been analyzed the results will be shared in a report that will make recommendations on how to guide the future of community engaged research at Thompson Rivers University.
Zhehan Jia and Paul Bouthillier: Investigating the antioxidant activity of cannabidiol (Supervisor: Nelaine Mora-Diez)
Oleksandra Kovalenko: Interaction with nisin with whey proteins by matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor)
Sara Lawrence: Fluorescent speleothems of Horne Lake Cave: investigation into whether this glowing section is of bioluminescent bacteria in nature (Supervisor: Naowarat Cheeptham)
Jessica McQueen: Louis Creek, BC: A Biological study of streambank restoration effectiveness (Supervisor: Brian Heise)
Mia W. Nevin: The significance of reach and grasp: How does skilled hand function differ in patients with suspected cerebral visual impairments to neurotypical controls? (Supervisor: Jenni Karl)
Olivia Rose Roberts: The Hidden world of Fine Art comics: The Evolution of Fine Art narratives (Supervisor: Darlene Kalynka)
Malika Sharma: Investigating an analytical method for quantifying tetrahydrozoline found in eye drops by capillary electrophoresis (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor)
Verneesha Smith: The effects of propolis against multi drug-resistant biofilms (Supervisor: Naowarat Cheeptham)
Michaela Vandermey: Simultaneous determination of roxarsone and nitarsone in poultry farm waters using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor) Organoarsenicals have been extensively used as pesticides in agriculture and currently, are used as feeding additives in animal feeding operations, aiming to prevent disease, parasitic infection, and to stimulate animal growth. In poultry operations, very limited portions of the dietary organoarsenic additives makes their way into the animal meats and more than 90% are excreted unchanged. However, the degradation products (arsenic and its derivatives) are toxic when accumulated in the human body as well as in the environment. While organosenicals are less toxic than inorganic arsenic species, in environment systems, they can be transformed into dimethylarsonic acid (DMA), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA), as well as arsenite and arsenate. These degradation products are more toxic and mobile than organoarsenicals, therefore they pose a threat to soil and groundwater quality, which can affect the human food chain (vegetables, aquatic products), exhibiting a threat to human health. A method was developed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to detect and quantify two organoarsenicals, roxarsone and nitarsone, in poultry farm waters. This research will add to the previous literature in which different instrumentation and methods of determination were used. By comparing reported concentration values, this project will help to strengthen previous studies and act as a compliment method to determining the presence and concentrations of roxarsone and nitarsone in poultry farm waters.

Poster Session B: Thursday March 23, 10am - 2:30pm, House of Learning 1st floor Learning Commons

Manuel Centeno Duque: Determination of uric acid in human saliva using capillary electrophoresis (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor)
Emily Dagasso: Synthesis of first-row transition metal catalysts for alkene hydroamination (Supervisor: Dipesh Prema) Amines are a versatile group of organic compounds that have a wide range of applications in multiple industries, including pharmaceuticals and agriculture. Various methods are utilized in the synthesis of amines, however, catalytic hydroamination is favored due to its high atom economy. Within large-scale industries, hydroamination reactions are commonly catalyzed by rare transition metals – options that are expensive, toxic and have a low abundance. This project focuses on the development of a catalyst utilizing inexpensive and readily available first-row transition metals. Bulky imino-phosphine ligands were first synthesized via a schiff base condensation of an aldehyde and a specific amine. Although the aldehyde was predominantly 2-(diphenylphosphino)benzaldehyde, the included aniline was either 2,4,6 triphenylaniline or 4-tritylaniline. The synthesized imino-phosphine ligands were then coordinated to a first-row transition metal. Each compound underwent a detailed characterization using infrared spectroscopy and 1H, 13C and 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Due to the significance of nitrogen-based compounds, and the global movement toward sustainability, the development of a hydroamination catalyst that is comprised of an abundant, inexpensive and non-toxic material is of great interest to chemists and industries worldwide.
Emily Fagg: Identification of major carotenoids in flicker bird feathers by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor)
Katelyn Frymire, Lauren Okano, Michaela Vandermey, and Oleksandra Kovalenko: Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry separation of cannabinoids and terpenes (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor)
Matthew Hanks: Genomic evolutionary comparison of Micromonospora species living in different geological habitats (Supervisor: Naowarat Cheeptham)
Shams Khan and Eshan Mamatjan: AI and IoT based prediction, explanation, and monitoring system for ischemic stroke (Supervisor: Yasin Mamatjan) Stroke , especially ischemic stroke wherein the blood flow to the brain is blocked is one of the major causes of death and disability. Modern machine learning techniques have allowed data scientists to predict risk for stroke based on patient data. These however are just predictions and do not give a doctor any insights to what factor might be causing stroke risk in a patient. We employed eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) to analyse and rank the stroke risk factors in a patient. Furthermore, the application of this machine learning model is extended to a web application that can be used as a patient monitoring framework. Lastly, elderly and people living in remote areas do not have access to proper medical facilities in order to monitor their vitals for assessment, we have used a smart wearable device that can track patient data and transmit it autonomously into our system such that the patients can get stroke risk prediction and explanation, this way a clinician can closely monitor patients who are at high risk for stroke and get alerted if their risk levels increase.
Tate Larson and Elwira Rosiak: Economic viability of small-scale agriculture in the rural-urban fringe of British Columbia (Supervisor: Tom Waldichuk)
Sara Lawrence: Fluorescent speleothems of Horne Lake Cave: investigation into whether this glowing section is of bioluminescent bacteria in nature (Supervisor: Naowarat Cheeptham)
Sara Lawrence: Temperature tolerance of probiotic bacteria for the inhibition of White-nose Syndrome for North American bats (Supervisor: Naowarat Cheeptham)
Victor Li and Sadman Mugdho: Gaming video idea generator for YouTube gaming content creators (Supervisor: Ajay Dhruv)
Chloe MacLean: The adaptive mechanisms associated with a divergence in shell preferences in two closely related hermit crabs (Supervisor: Louis Gosselin)
Julye-Anne McKenny: From parallel perspectives: A case study of consultation between the Northern Secewepmc Tribal Council and the BC First Nations Relations team in the Cariboo (Supervisor: Terry Kading)
Alivia Mercer: Determining antimicrobial susceptibility and hemolytic activity of indolicidin derivatives (Supervisor: Heidi Huttunen-Hennelly) Antibiotic-resistant microorganisms have hindered the development of antimicrobial agents that were once novel. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are increasingly being detected in humans and animals treated with antibiotics, making commercially available antibiotics less effective than they once were. Microbial compounds from various species are being studied extensively for potentially better and more effective antibacterial properties that may be used as an alternative. Antimicrobial peptides (AMP) appear to be potential antibacterial medication candidates; however, development of AMPs is impeded by its cytotoxicity. This study looked at indolicidin, a well-known antimicrobial peptide which exhibits antibacterial activity against a range of pathogens. This study testetd different indolicidin derivatives that have varying numbers of tryptophan residues. By reducing trytophan in indolicidin, indolicidin is found to be less hemolytic active and more antimicrobial active. All peptide derivatives were tested for bioactivity through the Kirby-Bauer assay. A peptide concentration assay was used to measure peptide concentration, and an optical density antimicrobial test was utilised to determine antimicrobial susceptibility. Hemolysis studies were done on red blood cells. This research will provide novel insight on which indolicidin derivatives have greater antimicrobial activity and lower hemolytic activity, resulting in greater therapeutic potential.
Abu Harera Nadeem and Karizza Catenza: Method validation of heavy metals in CBD products using ICP-MS (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor)
Nehemie Nguimbous: Numerical approximation of the Riemann-Liouville integral (Supervisor: Yana Nec) The main goal of our study is to numerically evaluate the Riemann-Liouville integral of an interesting spike-shaped function that emerges in certain reaction-diffusion processes. This formula, developed by mathematicians Bernhard Riemann and Joseph Liouville, allows us to determine the fractional derivative of a continuous function, and has many applications, especially in diffusion equations. Firstly, we split this complex integral into multiple simple ones using integration by parts. Our first objective was to evaluate one of these integrals using the composite Simpson method. We implemented the Simpson algorithm using C language and analyzed the output using Octave. The integrated function of interest depends on 2 parameters: p and gamma. The number of subdivisions needed by Simpson's algorithm to provide an accurate approximation varies greatly depending on these. Thus, our second goal was to determine automatically, based on these parameters, the number of subdivisions necessary for Simpson's algorithm to return a correctly computed value. To simplify our calculations, we limited our attention to a subset of values of p and gamma. Our current goal is to determine the number of subdivisions needed for all valid values of p and gamma by interpolating them. At the end of this study, we will have a program able to take as input parameters p, gamma and a prescribed accuracy tolerance, and return the number of subdivisions necessary to have a good approximation of the desired integral.
Kieren O'Neil: Swarm algorithms for feature selection problems based on medical datasets (Supervisor: Mohamed Tawhid) Feature selection is a crucial task in machine learning; the goal is to reduce the dimensionality of the dataset while maintaining the accuracy of classifiers trained on it. Various approaches have been developed and tested to select features from datasets. Swarm Algorithms are one such approach, these are a class of algorithms that use simple interactions between many search agents to create complex emergent behavior and search for optimal solutions. They have received great attention for solving numerous optimization problems. In this research, we apply Swarm Algorithms to feature selection. We used 19 swarm algorithms to select features from 16 medical datasets; these were used to train Decision Tree, K-Nearest Neighbours, and Naïve-Bayes classifiers. These were compared on their accuracy, then used for comparison of the Swarm Algorithms using non-parametric statistics to identify the best performers.
Harkirat Pandher: Synthesis and characterization of an iminophospine ligand and its complexation reactions with Cobalt (II) (Supervisor: Dipesh Prema) The hydroamination reaction is a convenient alternative strategy for the formation of C–N bonds. The iminophosphine ligands were synthesized via Schiff Base Condensation of 2-diphenylphosphine benzaldehyde, the corresponding amine, 2,4,6-trimethyl benzoic acid (acid catalyst) and calcium chloride (drying agent). The ligand was characterized by 1H Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Infra-Red (IR) spectroscopy. Successful coordination with CoCl2∙6H2O in diethyl ether afforded a green-colored metal complex for ligand 1.
Natalie Pietramala: Determination of the chemical ctructure of the antimicrobial secondary metabolites produced by Streptomyces spp. ICC1 and ICC4 (Supervisors: Heidi Huttunen-Hennelly and Naowarat Cheeptham) Streptomyces spp. ICC1 and ICC4 are strains of bacteria collected from the Iron Curtain Cave in Chilliwack, British Columbia. The secondary metabolites of this bacteria have antimicrobial properties that could be utilized in a variety of medicinal purposes. The goal of this project is to isolate and characterize the secondary metabolites of Streptomyces spp. ICC1 and ICC4. The Streptomyces was first cultured and then tested for antimicrobial activity against a non-multidrug resistant target bacterium, Escherichia coli #59 and Staphylococcus aureus. Once antimicrobial activity was determined, the culture was extracted with diethyl ether to isolate the secondary metabolites. After the secondary metabolites were collected, they were purified by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). The bioactivity of the purified metabolites was re-confirmed against Escherichia coli #59 and Staphylococcus aureus. The metabolites will be analyzed by mass spectrometry (MS) and hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy to determine a mass and structure of the compounds, respectively. Once the structure has been elucidated, further research into why those particular compounds exhibit antimicrobial properties will follow. This research will further the body of knowledge on Streptomyces spp. ICC1 and ICC4, and its pharmaceutical potential.
Kevin Schmidt and Reanna Bala: Geophysical hazards in the rural-urban fringe of Vancouver (Supervisor: Tom Waldichuk) Vancouver has grown rapidly over the last fifty years, pushing the rural-urban fringe farther and farther from the downtown core. The expansion of the fringe has human populations moving into more hazardous areas, like mountain sides, coast lines, and flood plains that threaten various forms of life and property. These naturally occurring events are only considered hazards because of the impact they have on the human use systems within the fringe. In this poster, we will look at how the fringe of Vancouver has expanded and how it has increased hazard risk. In addition, we will incorporate two recent case studies of hazard events. One that focuses on land slides along the sea to sky highway and the other on the flooding of the lower mainland. By using the information collected from virtual reality, literature reviews, and google earth mapping, we can attempt to locate and predict geophysical hazards and determine the consequence they will have human use systems. This data can be then used to improve community planning and human use development in the rural-urban fringe of Vancouver in order to reduce the hazard risk.
Kira Schmidt and Thea Peasgood: Sustainable development in the rural-urban fringe (Supervisor: Tom Waldichuk) The topic chosen for this project was sustainable development in the rural-urban fringe. Sustainable development is made up of three main focuses: economy, environment, and social factors. It is meeting the needs of current residents while allowing growth for future residences. The purpose of this project is to examine the obstacles and access to sustainable development through laws pertaining to solar panels, composting, waste management, visual appeal of the places, and air and sound pollution: of the seventeen sustainable development goals we chose access to clean water, taking climate action, affordable and clean energy; and funding options available to pursue sustainable projects in rural-urban fringe communities. The method we will use will be a content analysis to better understand the data. Both BC and Canada offer funding for projects in these communities to help increase sustainable amenities and resources. The conclusion of this research is important because it helps us understand the sustainable methods that work and don’t work in the rural-urban fringe. We also found the impacts certain practices have on the land while looking for a more sustainable way to continue these providing local examples to those in BC.
Samantha Schulte-Luinenburg, Olivier Jumeau, and Nicolas Willey: Wildfires and the Wildland-Urban Interface: A Case Study of Merritt, British Columbia (Supervisor: Tom Waldichuk)
Malika Sharma: Isolation of bacteriophages from sewage water samples and their effectiveness in combating multi-drug resistant bacteria (Supervisor: Naowarat Cheeptham)
Navesh Teelockee: Synthesis of Salophen and study of its coordination chemistry (Supervisor: Dipesh Prema and Kingsley Donkor) The coordination chemistry of Schiff base ligands is continuously and extensively studied each year in inorganic chemistry laboratory classes, with various transition metals in the periodic table. The N,N’-bis(salicylidene)ethylenediamine (salen) is arguably one of the best-known ligand classes and can be readily prepared from the condensation reaction between ethylenediamine and salicylaldehyde. This ligand can be easily be tuned sterically and electronically and as such in this project the N,N’-bis(salicylidene)-1,2-phenylenediamine (salophen) was synthesized from 1,2-phenyldiamine and salicylaldehyde. The NMR and IR showed characteristic peaks for the imine moiety. To study the coordination chemistry of the salophen ligand, nickel and zinc salts were used. The Ni-salophen complex formed was of reddish-brown colour, while the Zinc-solophen afforded a yellow color. Students will synthesize the ligands and metal complexes and assign NMR/IR spectra. Furthermore, students will discuss magnetic properties, the reason for the different colours and the placement of salophen in the spectrochemical series. The lab is open ended and other metals and ligand variations can easily be incorporated.
Hannah Valihora: A feminist analysis of endometriosis discourse: Experiences of disempowerment and dismissal, and moving towards an ethics of care for endometriosis patients (Supervisors: Rochelle Stevenson & Jenny Shaw)
Dylan Van Spankeren: Isolation of alanine-based indolicidin derivatives using capillary electrophoresis (Supervisor: Heidi Huttunen-Hennelly) The increased use of antibiotics in recent history has been linked to bacteria evolving immunities. These bacteria pose a threat to patients and new methodologies to combat these bacteria are needed. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been found to be effective against these bacteria. This study focused on the separation of different types of AMPs of similar physical properties. This research will use capillary electrophoresis (CE) to separate four derivatives of the antimicrobial polypeptide, indolicidin. Each derivation between polypeptides is the location of a tryptophan substitution with an alanine. The indolicidin derivatives have their substitutions at the positions Δ4,8, Δ4,9, Δ6,11 and Δ8,11. Initially various formic acid buffers will be prepared with pH ranging from 2.0 to 3.0. Separation will be significant as each derivative has the same amino acids being changed, properties such as charge, and weight will remain constant. To observe separation of peptide mixtures experimental conditions will be manipulated.
Jaden Zunti: Determination of trace elements in tear drops by ICP-MS (Supervisor: Kingsley Donkor) Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is an analytical technique that allows for the detection of trace elements in biological samples. ICP-MS uses an inductively coupled plasma to ionize elements which are then determined based upon their mass to charge ratios. The objective of this project is to examine human tear drop samples for trace elements using ICP-MS. Analysis of tear drops by ICP-MS has determined that in human teardrop fluid, elemental levels can be used to discriminate between healthy individuals and those with Type 2 diabetes. Samples from multiple families are analyzed to determine if there is correlation between the samples of each family. The samples are also analyzed to determine if use of various substances influence the composition of trace elements in human tear drops. The results of this study will determine if genetics, race, age, gender and substance use influence the composition of trace elements in human tear drops which may be used for the diagnosis of diseases.

Poster Session C: Virtual Posters

Resources

Abstracts
Writing Centre guide on Abstracts
Abstracts: Best Practices
Writing Centre guide on best practices for writing abstracts
Creating an Academic Poster
Get tips on how to create an academic poster
2022 Conference program
List of presenters, titles and abstracts from the 2022 virtual TRU Undergraduate Research & Innovation Conference