Pharmacy student captures top prize at BioME Student Showcase

Katalin Goslin (Pharmacy, 22) has been selected as the winner for her presentation at the BioME Student Showcase, a life science research competition for high school and college students held recently in Portland and sponsored by the Bioscience Association of Maine.

Goslin’s presentation explored an alternate route for delivering monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to the central nervous system (CNS).

CNS disorders are the world’s leading cause of disability. For the most effective therapeutic outcomes, it is required that the drugs distribute and produce their pharmacological effect directly within the CNS. In recent years, mAbs have gained increasing success against many tumors. However, there is a very low success rate for CNS therapeutics because of the inability of the drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB).

During her presentation, Goslin discussed a way to by-pass the BBB.

The judges were impressed with Goslin’s presentation style and her confidence in answering the questions. In addition to being selected for first place in the competition, Goslin was awarded $2,000.