ASU Biology Students Win Grants

Haley Hale, a senior biology major from Brackettville, has been awarded $400 for her project titled “Conservation of a Rare Cactus, Echinocereus chisoensis.”  Her research mentor is Dr. Bonnie Amos, ASU professor of biology.

Senior Mary Jones, a biology major from Wall, has been awarded $400 for her project titled “A Re-examination and Morphological Comparison of the Helminthoglyptid Fossil Land Snails Helix and Lysinoe (Gastropoda: Pulmonata) from Presidio and Brewster Counties of West Texas.”  Her research mentor is Dr. Ned Strenth, ASU professor of biology.

San Angelo native Alexis Mobley, a senior biochemistry major, has been awarded $525 for her project titled “Isolation, Sequence, and Characterization of p53 mRNA in Various Bat Species.”  Her research mentor is ASU biology professor Dr. Loren Ammerman.

Each of the students will present their research results at the Tri-Beta South Central Regional Meeting in April at the Oklahoma University Biological Field Station, and at the Tri-Beta National Meeting in June in Erie, Penn.

Additionally, graduate students Erin Adams of Newark, Del., and Tom Horsley of Georgetown, Mass., have each been awarded $1,000 in Head of the River Ranch Research funds for their ongoing master’s thesis projects.

The Beta Beta Beta organization emphasizes undergraduate research and scholarship in the biological sciences.  Its national office is located at the University of North Alabama in Florence.  ASU’s Epsilon Sigma chapter was formed in 1970 and has been named the top chapter in the U.S. a record seven times.

For more information, call Dr. Crosby Jones, professor of biology, at 325-486-6642.