A handful of students from historic Hampton University had a memorable past two months at UNMC. They worked with several UNMC researchers and mentors in a prostate cancer research program led by principal investigator Ram Mahato, Ph.D., chair of pharmaceutical sciences in the College of Pharmacy.
Dr. Mahato’s program was the recipient of the 2014-15 Collaborative Undergraduate Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Student Summer Training Program Award. It brought five Hampton students to campus for multi-disciplinary research, coursework, seminars, workshops and extended mentoring.
Hampton is a storied university. (For information on Hampton’s history, click here.) But coming to UNMC was an eye-opener, said third-year Pharm.D. students Leslie Harden and Duc (pronounced “duke”) Ha.
“It’s definitely different when you walk onto a college campus that is a medical center all by itself,” Harden said. The facilities floored them.
They also explored new horizons in research. Ha is now looking into the possibility of a research internship. Harden is taking a patient-centered approach to pharmacy, but this experience, she said, has shown her the relevance of research to patient care.
Generations of men in her family have had one of the cancers she studied this summer: “Seeing it from this perspective,” she said, “is exciting.”
Harden and Ha were joined by fellow Hampton students Sequoyah Bennet and Brian Jennings, biology pre-med majors, and Rachel Walker, a second-year Pharm.D. student.
They are working with mentors, both at UNMC and at Hampton, toward publishing the research they worked on this summer.
The Hampton students spent what downtime they had exploring the city. And, some have asked about possibly doing a clinical pharmacy rotation here.
UNMC’s Surinder Batra, Ph.D., Kaustubh Datta, Ph.D., Jered Garrison, Ph.D., and Subodh Lele, M.D., also served as research mentors.
The Hampton students praised the program’s director, Dr. Mahato: “He definitely gives you the constructive criticism you need,” Harden said. “But in a kind voice.”
Said Dr. Mahato, “The program provides one-on-one guidance to these student researchers with an intent to continue collaboration after the program has ended.”
That’s the best part, Ha said: “We will go back to Hampton, but this doesn’t have to stop.”
It was certainly a delight to have these five students with our program this summer. Wishing them the best in their future plans with research.