Two students from State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota (SCF) have received full scholarships to attend and present their research at the Florida Society of Environmental Analysts (FSEA) conference at the Sand Key Resort in Clearwater May 23-25. The scholarships include travel, hotel, meals and registration for the conference.
Jessica Dobbs and Seth Hale won scholarships to present their research: “Fighting Fire with Fire in the Uprising of Antibiotic Resistance: Extracting Secondary Metabolites from Marine Bacterium, Zooshikella sp., for Antibiotic Isolation and Purification.” Their project is part of the Small World Initiative housed at Yale University that SCF has partnered on for the past five years.
This is the third consecutive year SCF students have won scholarships to attend and present at the FSEA conference based on the research they have produced. The conference offers the students opportunities to meet other researchers, as well as potential employers.
“It speaks to the quality of the work our students produce that they keep getting invited to this conference,” said Eric Warrick, assistant professor, natural science at SCF. “It is a great opportunity for the students to make connections with people who are hiring.”
Dobbs, who graduated this month, is already doing lab work for Lakewood-Amedex Inc., a private biopharmaceutical company focused on finding treatments for infectious diseases. Hale, who also graduated this month, is transferring to New College in the fall where he plans to continue his research as he works toward a degree in biochemistry.
The two students found two different strains of isolates from the Zooshikella sp. Their professors are working with the students on cloning vectors and hope to discover an antibiotic gene.
For more information on the Biotechnology Program at SCF, contact Matt Thomas, associate professor, natural science, at ThomasM1@SCF.edu or 941-752-5624.