Ten undergraduate students awarded Holland Future Scientist prizes

Ten undergraduate students from six Nebraska colleges and universities recently received the 2018 Richard Holland Future Scientist Award from the Nebraska Coalition for Lifesaving Cures.

The students received cash prizes totaling $5,000 at the annual INBRE (Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence Program) conference on Aug. 7 in Nebraska City.

The awards are named in honor of the late Richard Holland, an Omaha philanthropist and longtime supporter of research. This is the 11th year the Holland Future Scientist Awards have been awarded.

The students were judged for their oral and poster presentations of the research work they conducted this summer as part of the INBRE program.

The INBRE program is overseen by Paul Sorgen, Ph.D., a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Sorgen is the principal investigator of the $16.2 million grant funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.

Established in 2001, the INBRE Scholars program was created to expose students to serious biomedical research and build a statewide biomedical research infrastructure between undergraduate and graduate institutions.

The students, referred to as INBRE scholars, enter the program after completing their sophomore year of college upon recommendation of their college professors. It is a two-year comprehensive training program to prepare the students for graduate school.

The award winners are listed below:

ORAL PRESENTATIONS

1st       Tyler Rollman, Creighton University

2nd       Andrew Pham, University of Nebraska Omaha

3rd       Mika Caplan, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Honorable Mention – Molly Myers, Creighton University

Honorable Mention – Eilidh Chowanec, Creighton University