Three of the 25 UCLA 11th Annual Science Poster Day dean’s prize winners share their stories about discovering their own research projects and where they hope their experiences at UCLA will lead them in the future.
Lauren Sanchez’s passion for studying the reproductive system burgeoned after three years of laboratory experience, leading to the birth of her dean’s prize-winning research project.
Sanchez, a fourth-year molecular, cellular and developmental biology student, studies the role of progesterone receptors in uterus cells, a hormone associated with menstrual cycles and pregnancy.
Her research suggests that progesterone receptors reduce inflammation, the body’s response to foreign bodies, which could be one of the reasons why post-menopausal women have an increased incidence of autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases, she said.
Sanchez has worked on this project throughout her UCLA career.
“I felt very fortunate to be chosen for the dean’s prize,” Sanchez said. “I felt redeemed after working (on my research project) for three years.”
Sanchez wanted to get involved with research during her first year, but because of her inexperience, it was not easy for her to find a professor who would let her work in a laboratory, she said.
But Luisa Iruela-Arispe, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, was willing to give Sanchez a chance.
Sanchez began assisting a postdoctoral student on her project, which transformed into Sanchez’s own research. By being independent, she began to function as a mid-level graduate research student, said Josephine Enciso, a junior faculty member in the department of pediatrics in the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
Sanchez hopes to study reproductive health, gynecology or endocrinology as she further pursues her research career in medical school.
Michael Yim, a fourth-year neuroscience student, often sees mice strangely lying down, hyperextending their tails or abnormally hopping around.
Yim’s research investigating these seizures in laboratory mice ““ caused by the insertion of the Huntington’s disease gene, a rare neurodegenerative disease, into the mouse genome ““ was the project that won him a dean’s prize.
Yim investigated the role of a certain gene pattern repeat that causes Huntington’s disease in laboratory mice.
He observed prolonged seizures in mutant mice as the repeat length increased, he said.
Yim’s project was a success, but he did not always know that research was in his path.
In fact, it was during his third year at UCLA that Yim began to actively seek out opportunities offered on campus.
After contacting Michael S. Levine, his current project’s principal investigator and a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Yim was able to get started and carve out his own project as an extension of another researcher’s project.
“He has done a fine job. I think he’s come a long way in doing research and he’s actually got publishable findings,” Levine said.
As a result of his research, Yim said he became more ambitious about his career goals and wants to take time off after graduation to work in his laboratory and volunteer in a hospital clinic. He said he plans to attend medical school in fall 2009.
“I want to do something along the lines of neurology. I think this research got me interested in neurodegenerative diseases,” Yim said.
Sally Ahad put in days, nights and weekends to find the chemicals necessary to stain certain brain areas of a flatworm for study.
Ahad, a fourth-year molecular, cellular and developmental biology student, created a project studying flatworm stem cells for her project that earned her a dean’s prize.
“I spent weekends, nights (and) days just trying to get a protocol to start my project. So I was, practically speaking, a workaholic,” Ahad said.
Ahad’s research, which began last summer, investigates a stem cell called a neoblast and its contribution to post-embryonic tissue growth.
This primitive cell system is likely the precursor of stem cells in present-day animals, she said.
Ahad said she became intrigued by the research topics of her principal investigator, Volker Hartenstein, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology.
Hartenstein was the professor of Ahad’s developmental biology class last spring. After the completion of his class, she asked him for a research position in his laboratory.
Though Hartenstein’s research focused on fruit flies, Ahad found out she could study stem cells using flatworms.
She was actually the first researcher in this laboratory to start a special stem cell-marking technique for flatworms, Hartenstein said.
After gaining research experience and developing her own independent project, Ahad’s said she feels more prepared for her future goals.
Ahad said she is taking the Medical College Admission Test this summer and applying to medical schools for the fall of 2009. After medical school, she is interested in practicing cosmetic dermatology, a path she said was paved by her UCLA experiences.
“It was a great to be part of this big event on campus. But to actually win it, it was like I said, icing on the cake,” Ahad said.