It's become an annual tradition.

On September 22nd, the NIH PREP sites in Northern California convened for a day of science via scholars' speed talks, facility tours, meeting potential PhD major professors, and grad program information exchange. UC Davis hosted again and enjoyed a delightful day with PREP scholars and colleagues from UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and a brand spanking new program at UCSF.

Tours included a stop at the zebrafish facility, where Professor Bruce Draper showed everyone the GloNad project: Bruce and Professor Sean Burgess sought to develop a rapid screen for environmental chemicals that might affect human fetal development. They incorporated red or green fluorescent proteins into female or male reproductive structures of zebrafish, respectively, which allows them to use the short development time and translucent bodies of zebrafish to quickly assess abnormal sex ratios in zebrafish exposed to potential toxicants.

PREP scholars also toured the UC Davis facility for light microscopy, where Dr. Thomas Wilkop provided a very engaging introduction to the capabilities of equipment in the College of Biological Sciences, and the Biological Electron Microscopy Facility (BioEM) facility in the College of Biological Sciences, thanks to Professors James Letts and María Maldonado, and Dr. Fei Guo.

And, of course, we ate and drank and chatted and laughed and ate some more.

Thank you to the faculty, staff, and grad students who assisted with various components of the visit, and to the PREP scholars and colleagues from Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and UCSF who joined us for the day.