IIT Students Take Four “GEN 10” Awards for Excellence in Scientific research

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN) announced its “GEN 10” Award winners at the BIO International Convention in Chicago last week, honoring ten Chicago graduate students and postdocs for for excellence in scientific research, four of whom study in the Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences at the IIT College of Science and Letters.

“For the second year in a row, GEN was delighted to create, sponsor, and host the GEN 10 Awards and Peer Bash,” said John Sterling, editor in chief, GEN. “Virtually all the abstracts emailed to us reflected in-depth scientific knowledge and a true enthusiasm for basic and applied research. The ten winners represent the crème de la crème of the abstracts we received.”

Each of the GEN 10 winners gave a short presentation about their work at the BIO convention.  The goal of the award ceremony and grad bash is not only to encourage the formation of new friendships but it’s also for young researchers to interact with colleagues on possible areas of future collaboration.

IIT GEN 10 Award Winners:

  • Konstantin Andreev (BCHS Doctoral Candidate), Membrane interactions of antimicrobial peptoids, restriction of conformational flexibility as a strategy to enhance activity
  • Arathi Jayaraman (BCHS Graduate Student), Eradication of T-cell leukemia with epigenetic drugs
  • Sun Kim (BCHS Graduate Student), Commercial development of a novel genome editing technology
  • Stephanie Kunkel (BCHS Doctoral Candidate), Enhanced heme protein expression by activated sludge communities acclimated to low dissolved oxygen conditions