Oakland University's Eye Research Institute (ERI) recently awarded seven $3,000 summer research fellowships to OU undergraduate students. The program provides students with a unique opportunity to conduct independent research on vision and blinding eye diseases under the guidance of ERI faculty.

Students competing for the fellowships had to submit an application form, brief resume, copy of a current transcript, one letter of reference and a one-page narrative.

This year's summer fellowship winners are:

• Aisha Chaudhry, biology major, of Rochester Hills will be researching the "Role of plasmin in retinal ganglion cell death."
   
• Jenae Johnson, biology major, of Ortonville will be researching "Yeast two-hybrid random peptide/bioinformatics screen for mapping protein interactions of retinal disease proteins."
  
• Dennis O'Connor, biology major, of Ortonville will be researching "Light and electron microscopic characterization of developing photoreceptor-RPE interactions."
   
• Sara Pelliccia, biology major, of Troy will be researching "Use of RT-PCR to search for the CYP1A1 cytochrome P450 gene in cultured human lens epithelial cells."
   
• Jessica Runco, biochemistry major, of Bloomfield Hills will be researching "A morphological study of in vivo hyperoxic damage to retinas of pigmented mice."
   
• Afreen Siddiqui, biology major, or Sterling Heights will be researching "Yeast two-hybrid system for trapping proteins binding to autoactivated receptor tyrosine kinase dimmers."
   
• Kristen Tebo, biology/physics major, of Walloon Lake will be researching "Immunoaffinity purification and tryptic mapping of an ocular tetraspanin."