Dear Fran–Once again I was
humbled by the sheer
creative brilliance and
energy that abounded at
Poster Day–the annual
display of research by NIH
summer students. These kids
are awesome! It’s Aug. 3,
and I’m having a great time!
Wish you were here!
Celia
Postcard 1–Type B Insulin Resistance; Preceptor: Elif Arioglu, NIDDK
Melissa Bell, on the right, a 2nd-year medical student at the University of Oklahoma, talks about her diabetes research with LaShawn Drew, acting director of the NIH Academy. Bell said the thing that surprised her most about research here was all the rare diabetes-related syndromes she encountered. She wants to continue studying insulin resistance and says she would love to come back to NIH.
Postcard 2–The Use of TCR Rearrangement Excision Circles (TRECs) as an Indicator of Immune Reconstitution in HIV-infected Patients Receiving HAART Therapy; Preceptor: Mark Dybul, NIDDK
Joshua Vásquez, an undergraduate in his junior year at the University of Wisconsin, was really excited about his research on a possible method for measuring reconstitution of the immune system in HIV patients. This guy has known since junior high that he wants to study HIV. . . .Plans to get an MD-Ph.D and will be back next summer. In this shot he’s talking to Arlyn Garcia-Perez, assistant director of the Office of Intramural Research. Vásquez was in the Undergraduate Scholarship Program. He says two great things about NIH were the accessibility of scientists here–everyone was happy to talk to him–and the close proximity of basic and clinical research. In addition to his basic research with Mark Dybul, he was able to do some other clinically oriented work with Michael Polis.
Postcard 3–Effect of Nitric Oxide Inhalation on Response to Vascular Injury; Preceptor: Richard O. Cannon III, NHLBI
Sharleen St-Surin, on the left, from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., is going into her second year of medical school. St-Surin’s work with Mark Gladwin of the CC and Betsy Nabel and others in NHLBI looked at NO gas as a treatment to reduce neointimal proliferation after vascular injury. This injury response may play a role in early restenosis after angioplasty or stent placement to open up atherosclerotic arteries. St-Surin found that NO after two weeks of inhalation was effectively taken up and transported via Fe2+ in hemoglobin over the two-week experiment with a mouse model. As usual, one summer wasn’t enough to get all the data, but others will continue the work . . . and St-Surin says she hopes to come back to NIH after she passes her boards. In this shot, St-Surin talks to Deborah Cohen of the Office of Education. Cohen played a lead role in organizing Poster Day.