FSU Student Wins State Award for Research

A Fairmont State University student has been recognized as West Virginia Undergraduate Researcher of the Year in the sciences by WV-EPSCOR.

Jill Taylor, a junior biology major at FSU and a native of Barbour County, received a monetary award of $1,000 and a plaque. For the past three years, she has been working on a research project called "Apoptotic Mechanisms for the Treatment and Prevention of Cancer."

Support for her research was provided by a National Institutes of Health grant within the West Virginia IDea Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (WV-INBRE) network. Dr. Albert Magro, Professor of Biology/Physical Science, is the project investigator of the grant. Taylor is continuing to work on the project and is intending to accumulate data for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The competition included undergraduate research projects selected from both public and private educational institutions from across the state including West Virginia University and Marshall University. The scientific merit of the research was judged by a panel of scientists, and each of the undergraduate researchers was interviewed.

Taylor participated in the Gateways to the Laboratory Program in the summer of 2004. The highly competitive program selects 15 freshmen and sophomores and is run by Cornell University/Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center/Rockefeller University in New York. She also won an award as the outstanding summer researcher for her summer work in that program and was awarded the Lounsbery Scholar award for her dedication and hard work toward pursuing a M.D.-Ph.D. Taylor is currently applying for a summer internship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.