Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virgina -Spencer

This summer, I spent seven weeks in Charlottesville, Virginia working in a biochemistry and molecular genetics lab focusing on cancer research.  It was a fantastic learning experience.  I consider myself very fortunate to have had this opportunity.  I lived with family in the area and it was because of their connections that I had this opportunity to work in a very successful lab at the University of Virginia.

What I enjoyed most about the internship was learning how to actually do things that I had learned about in school.  It's one thing to learn about Northern Blotting, it's another to harvest your own cells, prepare the samples, run a gel, and develop your very own blots.  That is what I liked most.  The experience further cemented processes I have learned about but it also made it much more interesting to me.  I am way more interested in Molecular Biology now than I was when I took the class, for example.

In the lab, I worked with a post doc who helped me considerably.  He was working on studying TIP60, and indirect cancer suppressant.  I worked side by side with him and conducted my own experiments regarding a similar protein--a cousin to TIP60--called hMOF.  I found it very beneficial to run my own hypothesis and my own experiments.  I was able to watch a mentor conduct similar experiments, and then I was able to apply it to my own work.

Another benefit for me was simply being able to observe people work.  I am currently trying to really discover what I want to do in life, and I think that can be a very hard decision.  It was invaluable to me to watch first-hand what researchers actually do--what their daily routine is like.  I was able to talk to PhD students and medical school students.  I talked a lot with my supervisor and the lab manager regarding careers.  This interaction was probably the most valuable of the whole experience.

In short, my experience was fantastic and helped me in multiple ways.

For more information visit  http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/education/phd/gpo/srip/home-page.

Austin, Texas: Summer Undergraduate Research Program at MD Anderson Cancer Center -Steven

This summer I had the privilege of spending 10 weeks working in Austin, Texas in a birth defects research laboratory.

The internship is funded by a grant jointly awarded to the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Texas at Austin to encourage research in the biomedical sciences. I worked in the Finnell Birth Defects Research Laboratory located in the Dell Pediatric Research Institute on the University of Texas at Austin campus.

I worked with two post-doctoral fellows and the principal investigator, Dr. Richard H. Finnell on the characterization of the LMO6 Knockout Mouse Model. We found that C57BL/6 LMO6 knockout mice on folate deficient diets presents with some cases of microphthalmia.

As part of the internship we attend a weekly lunch lecture series developed by campus postdoctoral fellows to introduce basic scientific topics such as Molecular Carcinogenesis, animal models, molecular biology, flow cytometry and emerging analytic techniques.

About every other week there was a field trip of some sort. These included touring the Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine on the Bastrop campus, visiting the main MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, an ice cream social, and several other get togethers.

During the last week of the internship I presented the results of my summer research in one of the weekly lab meetings in the Finnell Lab. On the last day of the internship each intern presented a talk describing his or her research results as part of the SURP Scientific Symposium.

It was a wonderful opportunity to learn and be able to complete a research project through an internship hosted by a prestigious research university and a prestigious hospital. MD Anderson Cancer Center has been ranked the #1 cancer hospital in the country for the past six years¹ and University of Texas at Austin was ranked No. 30 on a list of the best 100 universities in the world².

I would recommend this internship to anyone interested in biomedical sciences research.

Analyzing embryo cells using the Operetta

Mouse dissection and embryo collection

Finnell Birth Defects Research Laboratory
Summer 2012

For more information on this internship:
Visit: http://sciencepark.mdanderson.org/outreach/students/undergrad/
View this year's SURP Brochure.

Salt Lake City, Utah: Bioscience Summer Undergraduate Research Program at the University of Utah -Caitlin

I had the opportunity to come to the University of Utah and work in a research lab for 10 weeks. This program has been an incredible experience. Upon our acceptance to the program, we were asked to submit a list of 5-10 university labs that we would like to be a part of and then the program directors did the best they could to match us up with our top choices. We could choose from any biology, molecular biology and biological chemistry, or neuroscience labs.

Our group under Delicate Arch in Moab National Park

I had the opportunity to work in Dr. J. Michael McIntosh's lab. He is a part of the Conus group at the University of Utah. My lab uses alpha conotoxins derived from marine Conus snails to study neurotransmitter receptors. I worked on nicotinic Acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). In Parkinson's disease, neurons that produce dopamine die. These neurons, however, also express some nAChRs. Discovering which specific subtype of nAChRs are expressed has been hampered by the conotoxins' apparent inability to discriminate between very similar receptor subtypes. My project was to test a panel of conotoxins on two similar subtypes that are thought to be lost in Parkinson's and see which toxins, if any, could discriminate between the two. I found that many of the conotoxins could, in fact, discriminate--which was very exciting!

Rafting down the Colorado River in Moab 

This internship was an incredible opportunity. I was able to work in a fantastic lab and learn a lot about the specific methods they use and about research in general. Because I was there for ten weeks, I actually got to know my mentor and some of the other people I worked with in the lab.

Outside of research, the internship itself provided some incredible opportunities. We attended seminars on how to apply for graduate school and what to expect from most graduate programs. We learned how to present our research both in a formal presentation and a poster session. We learned how to make a poster, how to write an abstract and how to write a personal statement. We had the opportunity to apply for a national research conference that will take place later this year. A few of us wanted to shadow some doctors at the hospital at the University of Utah and the directors were more than willing to help us set it up.

In addition, this internship is FUN! We took a weekend and went to Moab, we explored Antelope island and learned about the significance and history of the Great Salt Lake, we took a day trip to Park City and we were able to participate in many of the fun summer activities Salt Lake City has to offer.

I would highly recommend this internship to anyone who is looking to go to graduate school in biological research.

For more information: http://www.biology.utah.edu/undergraduate/research/surp.php

Riding the Ski Lift in Park City

Hiking in the Mountains above Salt Lake City

For more information visit: http://www.bioscience.utah.edu/.