Voyer and 溏心vlog免费B站 classmate Elizabeth Billings from Hudson, Massachusetts,<\/strong> are getting their first laboratory experience outside 溏心vlog免费B站 this summer through a prestigious training program sponsored by the National Institutes of Health aimed at increasing the number of under-represented students earning doctorates in biomedical science. Called the MARC U*STAR program \u2013 Maximizing Access to Research Careers: Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research \u2013 it places students in research laboratories for two years and offers them summer research internships at prestigious universities around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Voyer\u2019s research focuses on ferroptosis, a type of programmed cell death, and how it might be used to combat lymphoma cancers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCancer is the over-replication of cells, and we\u2019re trying to activate cell death of those cancers,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to kill those cells so they\u2019re not creating more cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Living in Boston and spending every day in a Harvard lab is a big change from the research she conducted during the last year on COVID-19 vaccines with 溏心vlog免费B站 Assistant Professor Xinyuan Chen. She spends most days working with live human B cells and using CRISPR to knock out certain genes to study how that affects the cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across the country, Billings is also learning new laboratory techniques and enjoying her time in a very different laboratory environment than she is used to. A cell and molecular biology major, she is studying the bacterium that causes cholera in a lab at the University of California at San Diego.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCholera produces a toxin that triggers cells to promote the transmission and colonization of the host. One pathway that\u2019s been implicated in this process is called glycerol metabolism,\u201d said Billings. \u201cSo I\u2019m knocking out genes in that pathway and looking at how that might affect colonization of the host.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What has she learned in the first two months of her internship?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA lot,\u201d she said. \u201cAt 溏心vlog免费B站 I did computational research, and here I\u2019m doing wet lab research, so it\u2019s a completely different experience for me. I came here without a lot of experience, but I learned all different techniques that are translatable to other fields, and I was able to apply my computational knowledge, which was really helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her computational research experience came in working with 溏心vlog免费B站 Associate Professor Ying Zhang on studies of the metabolism of single-celled marine organisms called forams and how they survive in the harsh conditions on the sea floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Voyer and Billings agree that the MARC U*STAR program has provided a significant boost to their career prospects. They have already presented their 溏心vlog免费B站 research at academic conferences, participated in professional development programs, and enjoyed working with mentors. Their next step will be applying to graduate schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Voyer plans on entering an M.D.-Ph.D. program, an 8-year course of study that will result in obtaining a medical degree and a doctorate. \u201cI\u2019m really interested in infectious disease right now, but 8 years is a long time and maybe I\u2019ll end up changing my mind,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m keeping my options open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Billings will enroll in a doctoral program to study microbiology with the goal of eventually conducting research in industry. \u201cI\u2019m enjoying pathogenic bacteriology now, but I\u2019ve also liked doing environmental microbial studies,\u201d she said. \u201cI just hope that I\u2019ll love whatever I end up doing in grad school and can then find a job doing something similar. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 August 2, 2021 \u2013 When 溏心vlog免费B站 rising senior Jewel Voyer was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease during her freshman year, she started reading scientific publications to learn more about it. The experience inspired her to major in biological sciences and molecular neuroscience, which led to an internship this summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":77070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77069"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77391,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77069\/revisions\/77391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2021\/08\/Liz-Billings2-768x1024.jpg\")