Biochemistry senior Nguyen Pham (Catherine Clarke group) is a winner in ASBMB’s 21st annual Undergraduate Poster Competition.
Nguyen’s poster, titled “A conserved putative kinase is required for coenzyme Q biosynthesis: Functional insights from yeast genetics”, was the winner in the “Metabolism, bioenergetics, lipids and signal transduction” category at the competition held on April 22, 2017 at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) annual meeting in Chicago. At the poster competition, more than 200 undergraduates presented their research. One winner and four honorable mentions were selected in four research categories.
The senior conducts research in the laboratory of Professor Catherine Clarke where is he involved in an investigation of Coq8, a crucial polypeptide in Coenzyme Q biosynthesis, to further elucidate its function in Q biosynthesis.
“It has been an honor conducting research under Dr. Clarke and it is an honor to receive such recognition,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen also conducts research in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry where is working on coding longitudinal data on children with autism and assisting Professor Ted Hutman and medical student Mithi del Rosario on analyzing these data in the hope of learning more about the early markers of autism in young children.
In addition, he is the Project Founder/ Event Chair for the El Camino College Healthy Opportunity Project – a premedical student project which focuses on raising awareness of healthcare issues and advocating for the study of medicine by minority premedical students, and he is a peer mentor and Intern Coordinator/Committee Co-Chair for UCLA MEDPEP, a premedical program which focuses on supporting underrepresented minority students toward health care careers.
Nguyen Pham with his mentor, Professor Catherine Clarke, at a reception in 2016.
