{"id":39705,"date":"2011-05-12T14:41:33","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T18:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=39705"},"modified":"2011-07-20T15:28:49","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T19:28:49","slug":"graduate-school-commencement-speaker-a-scientific-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/05\/graduate-school-commencement-speaker-a-scientific-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate School Commencement Speaker: A Scientific Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kristina<\/a>
Kristina Kapinas (Photo provided by Kristina Kapinas)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The UConn Health Center\u2019s 2011\u00a0Graduate School<\/a> commencement speaker is already well involved in the next scholarly phase of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in science, particularly biology,\u201d says Kristina Kapinas, who defended her biomedical sciences Ph.D. thesis in October. Since November she has been a postdoctoral fellow at UMass Worcester. \u201cScience is fun because you\u2019re always doing something new and trying to solve a problem, sort of like solving a puzzle. I like puzzles. There\u2019s never a clear path, so you get to come up with your own ideas and theories to test.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a Ph.D. student at the UConn Health Center, Kapinas studied the role of ribonucleic acid in bone, specifically, how a particular microRNA promotes the maturation of osteoblasts. She\u2019s published two papers and is close to submitting a third. She also has submitted a review article that\u2019s bee accepted for publication later this year.<\/p>\n

She credits her adviser, assistant professor of medicine\u00a0Anne Delany<\/a>, with teaching her how to design experiments properly, write scientifically, manage people and projects in the lab, and think like a scientist.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t realize how much you didn\u2019t learn in undergrad until you work in a lab and are independent,\u201d Kapinas says. \u201cShe prepared me in ways that I never imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kapinas, born and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., with a dual degree in biochemistry\/biophysics and biology. Her postdoctoral work focuses on the molecular mechanisms that drive human embryonic stem cell differentiation and how specific transcription factors contribute to the progression of mesothelioma.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I do research is so that we can better understand an organ or a disease so that others can use that information to develop better treatment or prevention options,\u201d Kapinas says. \u201cI like basic research and academia seems more suited to that, versus drug development at a biotech or pharmaceutical company. After my postdoc I would like to continue my studies in an academic environment as a principal investigator with my own lab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kapinas says she plans to use her commencement speech to tell her classmates to be open-minded, persistent and patient, qualities that she says helped dramatically shape her research experience at the Health Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have specific examples from the lab to share about each of these qualities, mostly funny,\u201d Kapinas says. \u201cI want to point out my mistakes and learning experiences so that people can look at themselves and be willing to change and learn, because only good can come out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UConn Health Center\u2019s 2011\u00a0Graduate School commencement speaker is already well involved in the next scholarly phase of her life. \u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in science, particularly biology,\u201d says Kristina Kapinas, who defended her biomedical sciences Ph.D. thesis in October. Since November she has been a postdoctoral fellow at UMass Worcester. \u201cScience is fun because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2074],"class_list":["post-39705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-22 16:33:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39705"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40819,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39705\/revisions\/40819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39705"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=39705"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=39705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}