Jenna Wilson & Josh Zimmermann are competiting in the online 2012 IGERT Video & Poster Competition

This year, IGERT trainee Jenna Wilson is competing the online 2012 IGERT video and poster competition with co-presenter and IGERT trainee Josh Zimmermann. Graduate students from each of the 114 NSF-funded IGERT programs are presenting videos and posters through the online forum describing their innovative, interdisciplinary research. The winners of the online competition will be announced at an awards ceremoney during the IGERT Annual Conference held in Washington, D.C. on May 30th - June 1st.

The online competition invites everyone to browse the posters and watch the videos provided by the presenters while contributing to research discussions and voting on their favorite presentations. Twenty-five projects/posters will be chosen as finalists and receive an award of $2,000 per winning poster to support the professional development activities of the trainees. Twenty finalist will be selected by judges, four finalists will be selected by an IGERT community choice vote, and one finalist wil be selected by the general public. The general public judging is based on which presenter was the most effective in disseminating science to a broad community.

Jenna and Josh are presenting on the challenges in stem cell-derived therapies. Despite the great promise of stem cells, the lack of processes to manufacutre viable and homogenous cell populations is one of the difficult challenges to overcome. Currently, the industrial production of mammalian cells occurs in large scale bioreactors, which impart hydrogynamic forces that can damage stem cells and influence their differentiation. Jenna and Josh are working on a possible solution to microencapsulate stem cells in hydrogels, such as alginate beads, which can protect  ells from hydrodynamic shear forces found in the reactor environment, prevent agglomeration of stem cell aggregates, and allow for diffusion of nutrients and oxygen through the encapsulation material. Their research goal was to examine the impact of alginate microencapsulation on the viability and phenotype of ESC and MSC populations.

Please visit the link below between May 22nd - May 25th to view Jenna and Josh's poster & video presentation detailing their research findings. Voting will be open for the entirety of the three day long competition.