Eleven undergraduate students have spent their summer working and learning in our department’s laboratories.
Five students in UNMC’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) were placed in our department’s laboratories. They are Sumanas Maram, in Dr. Rakesh Singh’s lab; Sofia Acosta and Katarina Larsen (an MD/PhD SURP student), Dr. Leo da Silva Augusto; Sam Acosta Castellanos, Dr. Scot Ouellette; and Xander Kochen, Dr. Jana Broadhurst.
SURP provides opportunities for undergrads to become hands-on members of research teams, expand their scientific knowledge and skills, and learn more about career options in the laboratory sciences. Each student receives a stipend and works for 10 weeks on a lab project, attends weekly seminar series, and has the opportunity to present results in a poster session at the end of the summer. The laboratory experience enhances students’ competitiveness for later admission to graduate programs at UNMC.
Drs. Caroline Ng and Leonardo da Silva Augusto are our department co-directors of the program.
Faculty members in the department also participate in the Nebraska IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (NE-INBRE) program. INBRE aims to stimulate and develop biomedical research capacity at institutions of higher education in Nebraska. Its primary objective at the undergraduate level has been to provide and expand research opportunities for students and create a pipeline of students to enter into biomedical research and other health professions.
Six INBRE students who have been working in department labs this summer are Rafael Azpeitia, with Dr. Stacey Gilk; Madeline Witchger, with Dr. Paul Fey; Ian Susa, with Dr. Vinai Thomas; Caroline Slama, with Dr. Ken Bayles; Jenna Box, with Dr. Tammy Kielian; and Nikolas Schrock, with Dr. Singh.
Witchger and Slama said the INBRE program is giving them valuable research experience they need to apply to graduate school. Witchger, a junior studying biochemistry at Creighton University, said she hasn’t been able to log much lab time before. “During the school year I do it like once a week for a couple hours, and this is like every day full time, this what you’re doing.”
Slama, a junior studying biological systems engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said: “And you get to meet people who are also passionate about similar things, which is cool. It’s a great networking thing. I think that’s also the whole point. Because you need reference letters, you need to meet people. You have to show your work ethic to someone.”
She said laboratory staff members have been invaluable. “I don’t know where I’d be without Jennifer Endres, who works in Dr. Bayles’ lab on Staphylococcus aureus. I feel like I’d be really lost.”
Witchger said she has been working with Dr. Fey and with Dr. Luke Handke, also focused on Staphylococcus aureus.
Sofia Acosta, a junior at UNO studying molecular biology, has been working in Dr. da Silva Augusto’s lab, performing parasite research for her SURP experience. “It’s been great. I think it’s challenged me but also opened my eyes to different career fields, which has been really incredible just to see how all the different parts of the back end of the institution fit together to create change. Getting to challenge myself and learning new lab techniques, and just how to think more like a researcher.”
Acosta, who hopes to go to medical school and also pursue a master’s degree in public health, sees SURP as a great opportunity to explore research as a possible career. “I’ve done computational research, but I’ve never done bench research, so getting that experience has been really cool. I’m seeing if I want to fold that into my career path.”
Katarina Larsen, the MD/PhD SURP student, studies ACS biochemistry at Augustana University, where she will be a sophomore this fall. She also has been working in Dr. Augusto’s lab on Toxoplasma gondii research.
“It’s been incredible. I knew I wanted to do research, so being able to be in a lab that really does a lot of basic techniques and taught me really well how to do said techniques has been amazing,” she said.SU