Another successful summer sharing program down the hatch!!!

For the second year in a row, the LSU PPCP graduate students organized the Summer Technical Sharing Sessions.  This year demonstrations/lectures were presented by 11 students.  Topics ranged from proteomics to using computer programs to measure colony diameters.  We had good attendance in most of our sessions.  We learned an important lesson: techniques should be very different from ones taught in labs and classes, otherwise there is little student interest and very low attendance.  To encourage participation by students using common techniques, it may be better for students to give a presentation on how they used those techniques to answer important plant pathology questions.

The summer sharing sessions began on June 9th and ended on August 17th.  Here is a list of presenters and their topics:

Nike Omolehin, Daniel Debona and Dr. Han, “2‐D Gel electrophoresis with IPG strips: an invaluable discovery in proteomics”

Rebecca Sweany, “Large-­scale production of Aspergillus flavus conidia for field inoculations”
Ally Lunos, “Assess 2.0 software can digitally measure fungal colony size”

Mary Helen Ferguson, “Inoculating a xylem‐limited pathogen into a woody plant”

Jingyu Peng, “Phylogenetic study with Linux HPC: free, fast and powerful”

Manjula Kularathna, “Sampling and extraction of plant parasitic nematodes”

Eduardo Chagas, “How to apply treatments to soybean leaves in vitro while not disrupting the water column in the leaves”

Ton Khankhum and Cesar Escalante, “Modified method for viral dsRNA extraction”

Marija Zivanovic, “Primer design for PCR and cloning”

Thanks to all of the students who presented and attended the sessions!!!  Especially thanks to Ally Lunos for organizing the Summer Sharing Technical Sessions.  We learned a lot and are better for it!

Nike Omolehin teaching Alejandra Jimenez how to rehydrate IPG stripes for proteomics.  Pictured with Jorge Reyes and Cesear Escalante.
Nike Omolehin teaching Alejandra Jimenez how to rehydrate IPG stripes for proteomics. Pictured with Jorge Reyes and Cesear Escalante.
Ally Lunos demonstrating Assess to measure colony size.
Ally Lunos demonstrating Assess to measure colony size.
Eduardo Chagas explaining the water column in plant vascular tissue.
Eduardo Chagas explaining the water column in plant vascular tissue.
Rebecca Sweany helps Alejandra Jimenez and other students suspend conidia.
Rebecca Sweany helping Alejandra Jimenez and other students suspend conidia.