Fairly than lob a volleyball over a web on the seashore, chemistry majors Ivy Par and Sydney Inexperienced desire to spend their summer time in a analysis lab attempting to find the reason for most cancers.
The 2 work beneath the watchful eye of principal investigator, Jamie Towle-Weicksel, affiliate professor of chemistry. The room is small and airless, crammed with vials and check tubes.
“Ivy and Sydney are exploring an enzyme concerned in repairing broken DNA,” explains Towle-Weicksel. “When the DNA in a cell is broken, the cell recruits enzymes to repair the injury. If the injury isn’t repaired correctly it could actually result in life-threatening sicknesses like most cancers. We’ve discovered mutations within the enzyme concerned within the restore of broken DNA in sufferers with melanoma. We’re exploring the exercise of those mutations on a molecular degree.”
This sort of work is Inexperienced’s comfortable place. “I like it,” she says. “I really like studying scientific papers and determining what experiment we’re going to do subsequent. Positive, I’d like to be on the seashore. However for me that is the tip recreation.”
As for Par, it’s all about studying new issues. “Studying new issues is enjoyable for me. Once you’re doing analysis, you get to strive new experiments, work out the place you went unsuitable and the place you need to focus subsequent. Presently, I’m studying a scientific paper in order that I can experiment with its protocol in our lab.”
At age 19, Par is RIC’s first RI-INBRE Particular Fellow. This can be a distinctive fellowship designed to advertise underrepresented college students in biomedical sciences.
Par graduated fifth in her class from Tolman Excessive College and simply accomplished her freshman yr at RIC. She’s a RIC Faculty Honors pupil, secretary of RIC’s Bodily Sciences Membership and performs tennis and swims for the RIC Anchor groups.
As for Inexperienced, that is her third summer time in Towle-Weicksel’s lab. The 21-year-old senior is vice chairman of the Bodily Sciences Membership, a tutor for the Bodily Sciences Division, a Departmental Honors pupil and a Hope scholar.
“I began out as a biology main, meaning to go the M.D. route,” Inexperienced says, however that was earlier than Inexperienced was requested by Towle-Weicksel to work in her lab.
“I didn’t even know analysis was a factor till I began working in her lab,” Inexperienced says. “I wound up switching my main from biology to chemistry. Biology is extra about residing issues – it’s on the macro scale. Chemistry is every part smaller – the micro scale. I discover that far more attention-grabbing.”
Final yr, Inexperienced was invited to current her analysis in Boston at The Protein Society’s Annual Symposium, a global convention on biochemistry. This yr she is likely one of the authors of a paper printed by Towle-Weicksel within the American Chemical Society’s “Biochemistry” journal. Most just lately, she offered a poster presentation in D.C. on the Nationwide IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Analysis Excellence Convention.
Inexperienced says of Towle-Weicksel, “She’s finished a lot for me. She’s given me alternatives I by no means would have had.”
“I don’t know to repay her for my fellowship,” provides Par. “She was the one who advised I apply for it. It’s one thing that may result in so many extra alternatives.”
Each Inexperienced and Par advise new college students to say “sure” to as many alternatives as they will.
“After I got here to RIC, I used to be a bio main able to switch to a special college after my first yr,” Inexperienced says. “I’m leaving as a chemistry main who has printed and offered at conferences. Staying at RIC was the very best choice I made. It’s been superb.”
