Cape Central, Saxony Lutheran graduates showcase research at State Capitol for Mizzou's Undergraduate Research Day

University of Missouri seniors Emma McDougal and Sydney Turner were two of 10 Mizzou students selected to participate in the 2025 University of Missouri System Undergraduate Research Day on Thursday, March 15, at the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City.

The annual Undergraduate Research Day event provides students with a chance to share “innovative research projects” on topics such as agriculture, biology, chemistry, communication, engineering and health with Missouri’s elected officials.

“It was really great to be able to communicate with representatives and senators, not only from the Southeast Missouri region, but from around the state as well,” McDougal said. “I always love getting to talk to the general public about what I'm working on. I think there's a lot of value in sharing the scientific developments of today, so it's really exciting to hear how people can connect with the work that you're doing.”

McDougal, a chemical engineering major from Cape Girardeau, presented her research on cancer-treating drugs.

McDougal synthesizes peptide amphiphiles (PA) by combining a segment of a protein that is “specific to hematological cancers — or blood cancers like — leukemia and lymphoma” with lipids, or fats. When the PAs are put into a body, or a water-based system, it creates peptide amplifier micelles — vehicles that can protect the protein, or therapeutic peptide, to allow it to “more readily enter cells.”

“We can also target these peptide amphiphile micelles so that they're only impacting cancerous cells and they're not hurting the good and healthy cells in your body,” McDougal said. “We found that by changing the lipid component in these peptide amphiphile micelles, we can control properties of these vehicles, like their shape, their size and, most importantly, their cytotoxicity, or their ability to kill cancer cells in a controlled environment.”

McDougal said her work is heavily supported by federal and state funding, and expressed the importance of having the chance to educate legislators on the potential impact of her research.

“Getting to show our legislators, who appropriate the budgets for these things, the work that they're helping to fund and the possible impacts that this funding will have is really, really important to me,” McDougal said. “Having an opportunity to be a voice for my research and to help show folks why what we're doing it's important and how we can add value to the community through academic research is a really exciting opportunity.”

Turner, of Jackson, is a speech, language and hearing science major whose research explores gesturing — specifically with the hands — during virtual communication such as Zoom meetings.

Turner’s research compared the relationship between the visibility of someone during a Zoom call to the number of gestures a speaker makes. To determine this, Turner showed six different cartoon clips to participants and asked them to retell what they saw to another participant. While the speaker was talking, Turner adjusted the camera of the listener to show their torso or head and also turned the camera off. The speaker either had their camera on or off.

“What we found was that they produced more gestures when their camera was on and the person that was listening could see them,” Turner said.  “They produced a similar amount of gestures when their listener’s head was visible or the camera was off. Basically, the results just showed the importance of the speaker being visible to the listeners, and that they produced some gestures in that condition.”

Turner said the research stemmed from the increase in Zoom or other video conference calls and a desire to compare how people communicate through those mediums to in-person communication.

McDougal, a graduate of Cape Central High School, and Turner, a Saxony Lutheran High School graduate, will both receive their degrees in May and plan to continue their education. McDougal plans to pursue a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and Turner looks to receive a master’s in speech language pathology, although neither is sure of what school they want to attend.