In May, six Virginia scholars packed their bags and traveled 1,000-plus miles to spend 12 weeks in a UNMC lab. The undergraduates are the first to participate in the unique Virginia-Nebraska Alliance, an academic and research partnership between UNMC, Virginia Commonwealth University, five Historically Black Colleges and Universities and a leading Virginia community college.
Today, you’ll meet our final Virginia-Nebraska Alliance scholar, Lydia Mbocha. Learn more about her, in her words.
Lydia Mbocha
Virginia Tech junior (spent past two years at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College)
Engineering and math major
While I was raised in Kenya, I was born in the United States during the time my mom was attending college. I did some of my schooling in an all-girls Catholic school in Kenya. I also furthered my education for a short while in England.
During high school I participated in a lot of community service projects where we would volunteer to clean yards or people’s homes. During holidays I would go on service trips to a local orphanage and help feed the children. These experiences inspired in me the desire to help others and make a difference.
My goal is to graduate with a degree in chemical engineering – with a concentration in biomedical engineering and focus on genetics.
I’m a people person and love to solve problems.
I can best apply my talents to solving genetic problems and in that way help others.
(In biomedical engineering) you have to show ingenuity in development and manufacturing, which mainly requires you to solve a given problem that has never been solved before.
My mother, Rose Mbocha, is a very driven person. Education is something that she believes in. She raised us to pursue education and to always do our best.
Science itself is a challenge, as well as being consistent. 1 + 1 is 2 no matter what country you are in. I find satisfaction in figuring things out and science gives me that.
The health sciences are part of everyday life. Everyone has a heart, everyone has kidneys and lungs, and you can help people.
This is my first visit to UNMC. I had the choice of applying for this or an internship in nuclear engineering, but my organic chemistry professor advised me that I would learn more from a research internship.
I am working in the lab of Dr. Carol Casey, the principal investigator looking into the effects of alcohol on the liver. I am extracting cells from rat livers to find out at what point you can inhibit the effects of alcohol on the liver.
In a healthy liver there are these receptors that digest cellular fibronectin outside of the liver through a process called endocytosis. For some reason alcohol kills off these receptors and therefore the liver doesn’t process the cellular fibronectins. They begin producing a protein that causes damage to the liver more commonly known as cyhrrosis.
I have a really amazing PI. Dr. Casey is super brilliant and will go out of her way to do things for you. She’s taken us out to eat at a Mexican restaurant, she’s brought us Thai food and she’s even taken us glass blowing.
Interview by Lisa Spellman, UNMC public affairs