CRYO2018 Student Awards Open!
CRYO2018 Student Awards Open
Entry for the CRYO2018 Student Awards and Travel Grants is now open.
Download application form.
Entry for the CRYO2018 Student Awards and Travel Grants is now open.
Download application form.
Student Positions in reproductive biology, biophysics, and mathematical biology.
The International Cryobiology Youth Researchers (ICYR) had a busy week at CRYO2017 with two social events and the opportunity to actively participate in learning how to chair a session during a symposium.
On Saturday July 22 the ICYR held a dinner at the Fengda Hotel, which featured a range of Anhui province and other Chinese specialities. The food was an almost endless array of meat and fish and a number of us tasted chicken feet for the first time. Verdict: Spicy and less weird than expected!
In 2017 the Society for Cryobiology awarded over $12,000 to our student members in travel grants and prize money.
Above: All Student Prize Winners and Travel Grant Awardees
Back Row: James Benson, Chair of the Awards Committee; Ilya Savchenko (Israel); Ross Warner (USA); Krishna Ramajayam (India).
Front Row: Dayong Gao, President-Elect, Society for Cryobiology and Co-Chair of CRYO2017; Nikola Dolezalova (UK); Chandrika Kumari (India); Wenhui Li (China); Krishnaa Mahbubani (UK); Kezhou Wu (China); Jason Acker, President, Society for Cryobiology.
Not pictured: Wei Di (China); Maryam Hezavehei (Iran); Xueru Jiang (China); Jiaji Pan (USA).
Each year the Society for Cryobiology invites student members to submit an extended abstract to be considered for a number of awards including the prestigious Crystal Award for best student oral presentation, the Critser Travel Award, sponsored by the family of late cryobiologist John K. Critser, and a large number travel grants to attend the Society's annual meeting in order to present their research. All students presenting a poster at the meeting are also eligible to enter the Best Poster Award.
Ross Warner has been named the Critser Award winner for 2017.
Student member of the Society for Cryobiology, Miao Zhang, is to defend her thesis on June 23, 2017. During her PhD studies Ms. Zhang received the Society's John K. Critser award for the best extended student abstract in 2015 and the Peter L. Steponkus Crystal award for the best student oral presentation at the Society's meeting in 2016.
Thesis: Towards dry preservation of mammalian cellls
The central aim of this thesis was to test if trehalose can be introduced into mammalian cells during freezing-induced membrane permeabilization and if this subsequently stabilizes cells during freezing and/or freeze-drying. It was hypothesized that membrane-impermeable molecules including trehalose can be loaded into cells through freezing-induced membrane phase transitions. One of the conclusions was that mammalian cells can be loaded with membrane-impermeable compounds (i.e. trehalose) by subjecting the cells to freezing-induced osmotic stress and membrane imperfections. It was shown that trehalose can be used as sole cryoprotectant to cryopreserve cells. Preloading with trehalose via fluid-phase endocytosis did not increase cryosurvival rates if trehalose is also added as extracellular protectant. It is particularly freezing-induced trehalose uptake that facilitates cryosurvival when trehalose is used as the sole cryoprotectant. One other aim was to investigate if freezing-induced uptake of trehalose stabilizes cells during freeze-drying, and to assess the effect of trehalose on storage stability of DNA during freeze-drying and dried storage. No viable cells were recovered after freeze-drying and rehydration. DNA was found to be largely intact directly after freeze-drying. DNA damage in freeze-dried cells progressively increases with storage duration and temperature. DNA damage was prevented by storage of the samples at 4°C. It was shown that trehalose reduces DNA damage during storage.
Biography
Miao Zhang received her education at Southeast University (Nanjing, China) (BE, 2011), after which she completed master's studies at Ulm University (Ulm, Germany) (MSc, 2013). She was accepted in the PhD program ‘Regenerative Sciences’ in 2013 at Hannover Medical School (Hannover, Germany) and conducted her PhD project at the Institute of Multiphase Processes, Leibniz University of Hannover (Hannover, Germany), under the supervision of Dr. Willem Wolkers.
At last year's annual meeting, CRYO2016 in Ottawa, the Society for Cryobiology and the International Young Cryobiology Researchers (ICYR) introduced a student moderator at each symposium to give students the chance to gain valuable experience in moderating a session.
It was such a success that we are repeating it again this year!
If you're a student attending CRYO2017 and would like the chance to practise moderating a symposium please fill in the application form below by June 30.