{"id":73366,"date":"2013-02-11T09:31:43","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T14:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=73366"},"modified":"2015-10-02T14:52:12","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T18:52:12","slug":"uconn-student-wins-national-goldwater-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/02\/uconn-student-wins-national-goldwater-scholarship\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Student Wins National Goldwater Scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Anna<\/a>
Anna Green is a recipient of the 2012 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for outstanding young scientists. (Daniel Buttrey\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Molecular and cell biology major Anna Green, of Storrs, Conn., won the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship during her junior year at UConn. The prestigious scholarship grants monetary awards toward the completion of the recipient\u2019s undergraduate degree.<\/p>\n

Green studies bioinformatics with Peter Gogarten, professor of molecular and cell biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, researching genetic evolution among specific types of bacteria. These bacteria display a novel form of evolution in which they swap genes, known as horizontal transfer. This phenomenon has wide-ranging implications for how bacteria \u2013 and potentially other species \u2013 evolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is like molecular detective work,\u201d she explains. \u201cWhen you look at humans, you can use the fossil record to help you understand what genetic sequences used to look like.\u201d But with bacteria, she says, which aren\u2019t preserved like fossils, understanding their genetics is much harder.<\/p>\n

Green\u2019s project focuses on a particular genus of heat-tolerant bacteria. Using computational techniques in combination with laboratory experiments, she wants to know how these bacteria evolved to grow at such a high temperature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope these studies will lead us to a better fundamental understanding of the way bacteria evolve,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Green hopes to move on to Ph.D. studies in systems biology and genomics after graduating, and continue to do research and teach at a university. In general, “systems biology” is a field that integrates computational, quantitative, and experimental methods in the hopes of uncovering fundamental principles in biological phenomena, such as multi-cellular development, evolution, and gene regulation, Green explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven’t chosen a graduate school yet,\u201d she said, noting that the deadline for making a decision is April 15. \u201cAround that time I should also be hearing about a graduate fellowship that I applied for with the NSF [National Science Foundation].\u201d<\/p>\n

This past summer, Green interned at the Harvard Center for Systems Biology studying the dynamics of gene regulatory networks in yeast. It is hoped that this research will further our understanding of the dynamics and function of biological circuits, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as the science goes, I am still analyzing the results from our experiments, so I don’t have definitive conclusions yet,\u2019 Green said. \u201cThat’s the last part of the data analysis for my thesis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Named for Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, the Foundation supports the training of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Molecular and cell biology major Anna Green, of Storrs, Conn., won the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship during her junior year at UConn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2076,2458,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[63],"class_list":["post-73366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clas","category-research","category-undergraduates","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 06:28:15","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\/73366","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\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73366"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104926,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73366\/revisions\/104926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73366"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=73366"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=73366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}