The nine juniors in the Science Research Program (SRP) have secured mentors for their lab work this summer. With the help of SRP Director Deron Chang, these students are working to establish connections with a mentor whose field of research they wish to pursue.

Summer research is the second of three distinct components of SRP. The first consists of three terms of training in scientific inquiry and experimentation during the junior year. Students spend the summer between their junior and senior years working in a research lab with a scientist or doctor. Upon completion of the summer project, the program culminates in a journal article, modeled after a professional publication.

The transition from the classroom to the summer lab can be challenging. Securing a place to work during the summer begins when students identify scientists who work close to home. The students study journal articles, publications of recent experiments, from the labs they have targeted. Because the journal articles are often complicated, students e-mail the authors with questions about the topic. An author who responds immediately is usually a good person to pursue for a summer internship. Chang calls this process “popping the question.” Students shoot to secure positions by the end of winter term.

This year’s SRP students are covering a wide breadth of material. Michael Lai will be working in a research center in Taiwan, Academia Sinica, under the mentorship of Dr. Tai-Huang Huang, studying HDGF (hepatoma-derived growth factor) and its implications for DNA replication, cell division, and cancer.

Stephanie Choi will study Lou Gehrig’s disease and possible treatment at the University of Iowa with Dr. John Englehardt.

Adi Rajagopalan will be working at the Biomass Conversion Research Lab at Michigan State University, where he worked last summer, with Professor Bruce Dale, Dr. Balan Venkatesh, and graduate student Shishir Chunolawat. He will study “how to convert biomass to a new clean form of energy” by examining fossil fuels.

Nikhith Naidu will study Lupus autoimmune, a condition in which the immune system attacks its own cells, with Joe Craft, M.D. in the Yale Craft Lab.

Maddie Broder will also be working at Yale University, on cell lineage in the Vaccarino Lab at Child Studies Center with Dr. Flora Vaccarino, mother of Sofia Gearty ’09 and also SRP senior Lauren Provini ’08’s mentor.

At Yale University with Dr. Arnsten, Chloe Gettinger will pursue her study of the prefrontal cortex, how its breakdown causes mental problems, and its functions in memory.

Ridhima Guniganti will spend the summer in the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, where her uncle works as a neuroligist, with Dr. Damir Janigro, studying the condition of epilepsy and possible drug treatments.

Suril Kantaria will spend his time with Dr. Pramod Srivastava at the University of Connecticut’s Health Center in Farmington, CT where he will study heat shock proteins in eliciting response for cancer vaccination research.

Eric Scharzenbach will be working in the Massachusetts General Hospital at the MassGeneral Institue for Neurodegenerative Disease in Boston, MA with Dr. Michael A. Schwarzschild to research treatments and preventative measures for Parkinson's disease.

The students will be working an average of eight to ten weeks, about five to six days a week, eight to ten hours a day. This leaves little time for other activity, a sacrifice for which junior year has well prepared the students.