Abstract Submission Guidelines

All abstracts must be approved by your research mentor before submission. Please follow the instructions carefully.

Please see How to Apply for deadlines.

Formatting

A sample abstract is available at the end of this document.

Header

  • Title – The entire title is written in bold and the first letter of each word is capitalized except
    prepositions and conjunctions. Only scientific names are written in italics with just the first letter of the
    genus capitalized.
  • Presenters – The first person/s listed is/are the student(s) presenting. Presenters' names are underlined.
  • Authors – If the authors are from more than one department/institution, then a superscript number
    follows the surname of each author to identify the department/institution each author is associated
    with, do not underline superscript.
  • Department and institution affiliations – List the complete name of department, full name of
    institution, and city, state, and zip code for each institution. Please note that the corresponding
    superscript precedes each department’s name.

Abstract Body

  1. Insert the text previously approved by your faculty research mentor. Your abstract should summarize the study's hypothesis, methods used, results, and conclusion(s).
  2. Scientific names are written in italics with just the first letter of the genus Capitalized.
  3. Limited to 2,500 characters, not including spaces.
  4. DO NOT include the title and/or author(s) in the abstract block.

Grant Support

Acknowledge the granting agency and grant number which supported this research. There may be multiple sources of funding in your mentor's lab. Please make sure to list all sources of funding associated with this project.

Important Notes

  • Any undergraduate or graduate CNSM student or student in an affiliated program can be an author.
  • Students (as a group) may jointly present a poster, as long as it is indicated on the online registration
    form.
  • Work must be proofread prior to submission. Jensen SAS Center staff will not be responsible for editing
    abstracts.
  • Any incomplete or incorrectly formatted abstract(s) will not be accepted; please follow the
    accompanying sample abstract.

Abstract Selection

The following are the abstract selection criteria from ABRCMS (Annual Biomedical Research Conference for
Minority Students). You should follow these guidelines when writing your abstract.

Accepted abstracts must contain:

  1. At least two authors in the author block.
  2. Hypothesis or statement about the problem under investigation.
  3. Statement of the experimental methods/methodology used.
  4. Essential results provided in summary form (even if preliminary).
  5. Conclusion.

Abstracts missing any of the items above will not be accepted.

Sample Abstract with Correct Formatting

 

Agr Typing and Bacterial Interference in Staphylococcus aureus.

Sarah A. Benson1, Jesse S. Wright, Ph.D.2, and Richard P. Novick, M.D.2
1Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 90840 and
2Skirball Institute for Biomolecular Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016.

Regulation of virulence factor expression in the pathogen, Staphylococcus aureus, is coordinated by the agr (accessory gene regulation) operon. The agr locus codes for the components necessary for quorum sensing. The Agr system triggers the expression of pathogenicity factors when the cell density is high in response to the accumulation of a self-secreted autoinducing peptide (AIP). Due to interspecies variation at the agr locus, each strain secretes an AIP that self-activates but completely inhibits Agr activation in heterologous strains. Most non-aureus species produce AIPs that generally inhibit Agr activation in S. aureus, leading to a novel type of bacterial interference. To date, four different Agr groups have been identified in S. aureus, with intriguing relationships between Agr type and disease pathogenesis. To further our studies along these lines, we have developed a simple assay to determine the Agr type of new S. aureus isolates and to test for AIP-specific, cross-inhibition between staphylococcal species. This functional assay depends on the ability of AIP producing strains to activate or inhibit an Agr-specific luciferase or GFP reporter. A collection of clinical S. aureus isolates was examined to verify the assay and to explore any functional relationships between Agr type and pathotype. Most of the S. aureus strains secreted a substance that activated one and only one of the four S. aureus-group-specific tester strains, suggesting that a single functional AIP is secreted by most clinical isolates. Moreover, multiple isolates from the same patient were almost always the same Agr type. Agr type, hemolytic activity, and clinical manifestations were compared. The simplicity of these assays will facilitate future studies to understand the role of Agr biotypes in pathogenesis and explore the phenomenon of agr-based bacterial interference between
"Staphylococci".

This project is supported in part by National Institutes of General Medical Science Grant GM050089-11.