Molecular biology program grants stipends for summer research

Each summer, the molecular biology department offers a nine-week program for students with a lab-based thesis, giving them a chance to conduct a good portion of their research before the start of senior year.

The program is not mandatory but is open to all rising seniors who are completing a lab-based thesis. However, the participation rate is very high because the majority of students in the department do lab-based theses, which require a lot of time in the lab.

Elena Chiarchiaro, manager of student services for the molecular biology department, said that it is very rare for students who have a lab-based thesis to choose not to participate. They “feel that it’s almost necessary,” Chiarchiaro said.

“Experimental research develops a certain momentum,” Mark Rose, the director of undergraduate studies and a representative for the department, said. “Once you set up, you can collect data routinely over time and that takes less effort, but sometimes it takes a lot of time to get started. So the opportunity to be here over the summer can help develop the momentum that sustains students over the fall semester.”

Even though the molecular biology department and the Program in Quantitative and Computational Biology organize the summer research program, it is open to a number of other students as well. Students majoring in departments such as chemistry, physics, and psychology who are conducting thesis research in biology labs can participate, as can freshmen and sophomores considering majoring in molecular biology and students from outside the University.

However, non-University students and potential majors must apply for spots. Students from other schools are housed in the dormitories and are reimbursed for travel expenses, but University students must provide their own housing and transportation. All participants receive a $4,000 stipend.

The program is supported by grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and several other organizations, such as the Genentech Foundation and the New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research.

“We have the funds to pay our students a large enough stipend to get by. It’s like they have a job,” Chiarchiaro said.

By encouraging students from other schools to apply, Rose said, the department hopes to bring in underrepresented minorities as well as students from small colleges who might not otherwise have access to research facilities like those of the University.

“We also encourage them to apply to graduate school here, so it’s a recruitment tool too,” Chiarchiaro said.

During the program, students mostly work independently on their thesis research. However, they also attend weekly lab meetings and journal clubs and could also be involved in other specific lab projects unrelated to their theses.

The program offers a number of opportunities for students outside of their immediate labs, including weekly discussion groups of academic papers and projects with a post-doctoral instructor and seminars in which faculty members are invited to talk about their research. At the end of the program, students have the opportunity to present their results to the whole department — faculty, peers, graduate students and post-docs in a large-scale poster session.

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To help students with career choices, the program hosts a forum in which faculty members from different specialties within the department talk to the students over lunch. In addition, a career symposium brings undergraduate alumni who have jobs outside of academia or medicine to campus.

“We bring in people who work on Wall Street, in public policy and for the government: people who have different, alternative careers that their science degree has put them into,” Chiarchiaro said. “The majority of our students go on to medical school. But we’re trying to show them there are other things they can do with their degree.”

According to the molecular biology department website, over 70 percent of participants in the summer research program have since pursued an M.D., a Ph.D. or both.

Students who want to go on to graduate school attend a discussion about the details of filling out a graduate application on graduate school night. The program offers GRE classes during the summer for interested students.

Chiarchiaro said the department also offers events unrelated to lab work for students throughout the summer to “keep them active in something other than science.”

Molecular biology students at the University who have stayed on campus over the summer of their junior year to work on their thesis recognized the benefits of having the time and the funds to do research through this program.

“The greatest benefit of the MOL summer program is that it provides a consistent, accessible and generous source of funding so that students are able to stay on campus without having to work other jobs or worry that they will be using their savings to fund their own research,” Daniel Barson ’12, who participated in the program this past summer, said in an email.

Barson’s thesis involved recording the activity of a population of neurons, using two-photon scanning microscopy and a modified rabies virus to trace monosynaptic connections between neurons. He said he spent a large part of this past summer learning these experimental techniques.

Since rising juniors in the department could also apply to the program, Dennis London ’14 said that he hopes to participate in the program this coming summer. London explained that he would like to get an early immersion in the unique research environment, and “also because getting internships at other schools is always hard.”

Prospective MOL majors also expressed enthusiasm about upcoming opportunities to do research over the summer and said that they were not worried about possibly missing out on job or internship opportunities.

Joseph Park ’15, a prospective major, said that he appreciates the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with research.

“I think participating in the summer research program is an integral part of being in the MOL department because it’s one thing to learn about the techniques in lecture and another to actually use them in a lab,” he said.

Sophie Giguere ’15, another prospective major, also said she probably will participate in the program the summer before senior year and that she hopes to do something similar next summer.

“Since I’m planning on making a career of research, this is exactly what I want and need,” Giguere said. “My decision to be a MOL major hinges on the fact that I will be exposed to just such opportunities.”