May 1, 2009

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Betty M. Booker, a doctoral student in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has been named a UNCF (United Negro College Fund)-Merck Graduate Science Research Dissertation Fellow for 2009. The fellowship is awarded to 12 Ph.D. candidates in the United States. The fellowship award is $52,000 and includes a $42,000 stipend and a $10,000 research grant.

Booker's research, under the mentorship of Patrick Higgins, Ph.D., UAB professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics, involves deciphering the role of chromosome dynamics in salmonella typhimurium and e-coli during fastidious growth. The award-winning research proposal submitted to Merck focused on the role of highly transcribed genes on chromosome structure in salmonella typhimurium. Her findings will be presented at the 2009 UNCF-Merck Fellows conference and the Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages meeting at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Her previous research involved studies at Johns Hopkins University and Thomas Jefferson University.

Booker, from Sacramento, Calif., received a bachelor's degree in biology from Grambling State University in 2003. Her awards and honors include the National Science Foundation (NSF) GK-12 doctoral fellowship (2004-2005), American Society for Microbiology Fellows (2007), Gordon Research Conference-Chromosome Dynamics Travel Award (2007), Biotechnology Institute (BIO) Minority Fellows (2008), National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Diseases-INRO Fellows (2009), and a NIH-IRACDA Postdoctoral Fellows at University of California, San Francisco (2009).

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