MS student Alexandra Paer (MBBE) was recently honored with an award from the C-MAIKI #mahimicrobe2018 graduate competition. The Center for Microbiome Analysis through Island Knowledge and Investigation (C-MAIKI) provided this award to UH graduate students who most eloquently pitched an innovative research proposal to help increase scientific literacy in microbiome research and foster transdisciplinary research collaborations that have microbes at their core. Alexandra was awarded $1,000 to set up an experimental system to test the relationship between GSK3b inhibition, corn silk ingestion, and the microbiome in Alzheimer’s-like mouse-model systems. As an awardee, Alexandra will present her work at the C-MĀIKI symposium on May 9, 2019, and will also submit a progress report on her work, which will be made publicly available on the C-MĀIKI website and highlighted on the @c_maiki Instagram feed.