Rider University's Amanda Walker Awarded Research Scholarships

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Amanda Walker is pictured second from left.

LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ (05/26/2011)(readMedia)-- Amanda Walker of Brick, N.J., a senior Behavioral Neuroscience major, was recently named as one of the five student recipients of Rider University's Undergraduate Research Scholars Award (URSA).

Each year, the URSA Committee presents $5,000 research scholarships to Rider students in the colleges of Business Administration; Liberal Arts, Education, and Sciences; Continuing Studies and the Westminster College of the Arts.

Under the advisement of Dr. James Riggs, professor of Biology and Dr. Kelly Bidle, professor of Biology, Walker will spend the 2011-12 academic year working on The Relationship of Intestinal Microbiota Composition to Immune Function in Wild-type and Immune Molecule Knockout Mouse Strains. Within the vertebrate gut lives a multitude of symbiotic bacteria that perform countless functions for their host in exchange for a stable environment to inhabit. Over the last several years, increasing data suggest that this gut microbiome plays a key role in immune function. Combining previous research with this new area of interest, Walker will examine the relationship between immune function and the vertebrate microbiome by investigating the characteristics of a normal microbiome as well as the effect of altered immune function on its composition.