Students in the Mount St. Mary's Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) program recently traveled to Texas to present research examining such realms as DNA proteins and cellular reactions. The research was the culmination of time spent in competitive summer programs at institutions around the country.

The MARC program has been funded at the Mount since 1990 through multimillion-dollar research training grants from the National Institutes of Health General Medical Sciences division. The program is designed to train a diverse group of future biomedical researchers, and many Mount MARC students are accepted into PhD programs after graduation.

Students who presented their findings at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students include:

---Jasmin S. Honrado, "Optimizing Expression in Pichia Pastoris," researched at Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences in Claremont.

---Sheley M. Baylon, "Differential Regulation of Peptide Neurotransmitter Production by Forkskolin and Phorbol Myristate Acetate in Neuroendocrine Chromaffin in Cells," done at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla.

---Pa Vue, "Evolutionary Conservation of Drosophilia TAF1 Alternative Splicing," done at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

---Jonah-Lynne Padigus, "Dependence of DNA-Proten Crosslinking on Guanine Radical Protonation State," done at Mount St. Mary's College.