NEW YORK -- "The [du Vigneaud] symposium was the first chance I have had to present this particular project to a nonspecialist audience, thus forcing me to think clearly about how the work can best be communicated and how it fits into the larger picture of biomedical science as a whole," said Michael Seidman, a fourth-year M.D./Ph.D. student in the Department of Pathology at the Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, receiving an Award of Excellence at the school's annual student showcase of science.

Emerging from their laboratories on May 3, Seidman and other students in the Graduate School received their first taste of professional life at the Vincent du Vigneaud Symposium.

Every year since 1981, the symposium has devoted a day for students to present their research in front of colleagues and faculty. This year's symposium drew researchers from Weill Cornell's Graduate School, Cornell's Ithaca campus and Rockefeller Research Laboratories at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

The symposium honors the Nobel laureate and head of the Department of Biochemistry at the medical college from 1938 to 1967.

David Hajjar, dean of the Graduate School, noted that the symposium is a grand tradition at Weill Cornell, offering graduating students not only a forum to share their work with colleagues, but also a vital experience in leadership and professionalism, as well as the chance to build recognition and confidence.

"We are very proud that this symposium is organized by the student body," Hajjar said. "The du Vigneaud is an important event for the Graduate School not just because of the student research, but because the students alone give presentations in poster and large-group oral presentations. This is what they will be doing for the rest of their careers."

The portrait gallery of Rockefeller Research Labs was brightened with 84 posters. Of these, 17 were from first-year students, and 17 -- in a notable example of cross-campus collaboration -- were from students on the Ithaca campus, mainly engineers and nanobiotechnology researchers. Eleven students gave oral presentations (tradition dictates that a student can make only one du Vigneaud Symposium presentation). Faculty from the Graduate School judged the presentations and posters.

Arthur Kornberg, the Pfeiffer Merner Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at Stanford University's School of Medicine, delivered the keynote address on enzymology.

At a reception at Griffis Faculty Club at WCMC, Hajjar announced the day's awards in three categories. Seidman received his award for work in identifying molecules used by white blood cells to migrate toward sites of inflammation. "We hope to eventually identify strategies to either block inflammation, as in autoimmune disorders, or stimulate it, to fight off infection or cancer," he said. "We have evidence that several of our interventions could already be applied to treating inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, and we hope to discover many more applications in the future."

Kristin Burns, a student in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics on the Ithaca campus, also gathered a du Vigneaud Award of Excellence for researching the role of certain pathogens in making vitamin B6, based on her knowledge of how vitamins are synthesized. "People have different perspectives on your research that force you to look at certain aspects you never considered previously," Burns said. "You come back with ideas and insights to re-motivate you."

Barry Kappel, a fourth-year student in the Department of Pharmacology, picked up a du Vigneaud prize for his investigation of therapies to remove specific T-cells -- an alternative to complete T-cell depletion -- to minimize risk for infection in patients with autoimmune disorders. (T cells, one of the five kinds of white blood cells, or leukocytes, are so named because they mature in the thymus.)

"More than anything else, the symposium serves as a time to take a breather, reflect on and gather my work from the past year, put it together and show it to my peers," Kappel said. "It has served as a benchmark, as each year I have set goals to meet by the following year's symposium. I am proud to be a part of it."