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New Program Turns Kids into Budding Cancer Researchers
Ioana Patringenaru | June 8, 2009
Preuss student Vanessa Pacheco works with a microscope during a visit at the Burnham Institute last summer.
Ten seniors at The Preuss School will get a chance to conduct hands-on cancer research this summer on the UC San Diego campus. It’s all part of a new grant from the National Cancer Institute. The program is a partnership between UCSD, Preuss and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research.
The goal is ultimately to increase the number of under-represented students who choose to study science both as undergraduates and graduate students, said Dr. Lawrence Alfred, director of the Continuing Umbrella for Research Experiences program at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center. “We addressing the whole issue of under-represented students in research, and we’re adding to UCSD’s success with these students,” Alfred said.
In addition to six weeks in a UCSD lab this summer, students will spend their spring break working full time at the Burnham Institute. They also will be encouraged to come back to Burnham in their spare time during the school year. Students might get to work on worms and flies, or purifying proteins and peering into a microscope. In addition to conducting simple, hands-on experiments, they will also attend lab meetings.
Preuss student Romyn Sabatchi conducts a hands-on experiment at the Burnham Institute last summer.
“It’s really good for our kids,” said Anne Artz, the science department chair at Preuss. “They see that what’s happening at school can actually apply.”
The program targets high school rising stars who have excelled in science, said Artz. Students were really excited about their one-week stint at Burnham this March and would have liked to do more hands-on work, she said. “It was a little like going to Disneyland and not being able to go on the rides,” she explained. One student already has been putting in time in a Burnham lab Fridays and Saturdays, Artz said. He and his classmates will gain strong research skills, which they will be able to take to the college campus of their choice, she added. “They’re really excited,” she said.
Students all have at least a 3.0 grade-point average, are from under-represented groups, or come from low-income families and would be first generation college-going students, in accordance to National Institutes of Health guidelines. If they choose to attend UCSD after they graduate from high school, they are linked up with a similar program for college freshmen and sophomores and an emerging technologies program for juniors and seniors, which are under the same umbrella, known as CURE. These two additional programs allow students to conduct research in one of the Moores UCSD Cancer Center labs, as well as at Burnham.
A Preuss student looks at a microscope slide.
It’s important to get students excited about science and research early on, said Guy Salvesen, Burnham’s director of scientific training. “The earlier you reach them, the more likely you are to capture their minds and interest,” he said. The program will demonstrate how exciting research and discovery are, he added. It will have succeeded if both the quantity and the quality of students applying to undergraduate and graduate science research programs increases, Salvesen said.
The CURE program targeting college freshmen and sophomores, which is in its eighth year, has a demonstrated track record, said Alfred. After the program’s first year, 83 percent of students stayed in a science track. Of the CURE students who earned a bachelor’s degree, 73 percent are enrolled in or have completed degrees in graduate school, medicine, nursing or pharmacology.
Each CURE program is financed by a grant providing $75,000 a year over five years from the National Cancer Institute.
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