Jonathan Johnson, 20, is a junior majoring in biology and pre-medicine with a minor in chemistry at Dillard University in New Orleans, La. Johnson has been a summer intern in the lab of Michael Hollingsworth, Ph.D., whose research focus is on pancreatic cancer. Learn more about him, in his words.
Before I came to UNMC I was just interested in getting a medical degree and becoming a doctor. But after this experience and being exposed to the research I am definitely interested in getting both a M.D. and Ph.D. I would love to come back to UNMC for graduate school and continue to work with Dr. Hollingsworth. He’s an excellent P.I.
I’ve always liked science and medicine. My mom is a dialysis nurse and I am a people person. I just want to help people and see them be relieved of their pain, whether that is physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.
My sister-in-law passed away last year from breast cancer. She was only 38 years old. If I could I would like to continue to do research on pancreatic cancer, but breast cancer is definitely at the top of the list too.
As a summer intern, I have had the opportunity to learn and perform experiments of that of a graduate student. I was able to conduct experiments that were centered around learning about the MUC1 gene and how it relates to pancreatic cancer. The overall focus of my project was to analyze what role MUC1 has in the rate at which pancreatic tumor cells grow. We were able to clone the luciferase into a pMIG retroviral vector and transduce three different pancreatic cell lines.
The objective of this project was to be able to inject these cells into the pancreas of mice and be able to follow the metastasis and growth of the tumor throughout the specimen using an imaging system named the Xenogen imaging system. The researchers hope that in the future they will be able to test different drugs using the Xenogen technology to track the growth or inhibited growth of the cells. I’m glad I was able to play a role in this important work that will hopefully lead to finding a cure for pancreatic cancer.