Progress 2018: Education & Sports

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Minot Daily News SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2018 MinotDailyNews.com • Facebook • Twitter

Education & Sports A group of disc golfers throw at a basket during the Polaris Park Tournament in June of 2017 at Polaris Park in Minot.

Submitted photo

A sport anyone can enjoy Minot Disc Golf provides another reason to get outside and be active

The Minot Disc Golf group is one that has been around longer than many realize, but has recently been revitalized and reorBy ganized for the area. There ASHTON GERARD have been flyers recent Staff Writer founder Vince Azzarello agerard @minot has found that date back dailynews.com to 1999.

Since then, disc golf in Minot has come and gone, but Azzarello took a special interest in joining a disc golf group almost three years ago. Seeing there were no active groups in Minot, he took it upon himself to recreate the disc golf brand. “A friend of mine and I decided that we wanted to get it started back up again,” Azzarello said. “We didn’t know the most about disc golf but we went up to Polaris Park a lot and played a lot of disc golf.” After deciding to start the group, Azzarello sent out a survey via social media asking about the satisfaction of disc golf in Minot, the condition of Polaris Park and how often people travel to play disc golf. See DISC — Page 3

Undergraduate research in MSU Biology Minot State University uses the logo “Be Seen, Be Heard” and that philosophy has carried over to the opportunities that its students receive for hands-on experience in their fields of interest. In the biology department, students often have the opportunity to work in the lab with their instructors, to participate in research or present at science conferences. Students such as biology major Sydney Houlton, who works as a lab assistant to assistant biology professor Zeni Shabani, say that the experience will be of great help in their future careers, whether they go on to graduate school or to medical school or work in another field. Shabani is studying genetic risks for methamphetamine use, in partnership with Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Ore. “We work with a mouse model system,” said Shabani, who has a few students working with him in the lab each semester. It is the job of students like Houlton to assist in the lab protocols, to help gather and analyze data, to aid in designing experiments and to maintain the lab. Houlton has been working with Shabani for the past four years and

By ANDREA JOHNSON

Staff Writer ajohnson @minot dailynews.com

has been published in a peer-reviewed journal with other researchers. They also present at a conference held at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. Student research at Minot State is funded in part through the North Dakota IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Institutional Development Award. “It has been a fantastic opportunity for me to gain work experience,” said Houlton. Shabani said that a gene present on the tenth chromosome in a mouse harbors some of the same genetic risk factors for meth as a gene that is also present in humans. The studies that are conducted on the lab mice might eventually help researchers to develop a medicinal drug that can be used in treatment of humans who are addicted to methamphetamine and prone to relapse back into use of the drugs. Since many addicts are prone to relapse, a drug that helps them to stay clean would have tremendous See MSU — Page 3

Sydney Houlton, a biology major at Minot State who works with assistant biology professor Zeni Shabani, shows off a lab mouse that is used in Shabaniʼs research into genes that make people more susceptible to meth addiction. Andrea Johnson/MDN


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