Biomedical Beat Blog – National Institute of General Medical Sciences
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In a previous post, we highlighted two NIGMS-funded winners of the 2018 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM 
). For January’s National Mentoring Month, we tell you about other awardees: J.K. Haynes, Virginia Shepherd, and Maria da Graça H. Vicente.
Continue reading “NIGMS Grantees Receive National STEM Mentoring Award”
Brain injuries, cancer, infections, and wound healing are some of the complex and pressing health concerns we face today. Understanding the basic science behind these diseases and biological processes is the key to developing new treatments and improving patient outcomes. Physician scientists—medical doctors who also conduct laboratory research—are essential to turning knowledge gained in the lab into innovative treatments, surgical advances, and new diagnostic tools.
In this blog, we highlight the work and impact of three surgeon scientists funded by NIGMS at different stages in their careers: Dr. Nicole Gibran (current grantee), Dr. Rebecca Minter (former grantee), and Dr. Carrie Sims (former grantee). Their work, despite the historical underrepresentation of women in the physician scientist training community, has led to revolutionary surgical treatments, new therapeutics, better screening, and improved quality of life for patients.
Continue reading “How Three Physician Scientists Are Taking Strides to Improve Our Health”
Job: 4th-year general surgical resident, Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey
Grew up in: Manhattan
When not at work, he’s: Programming, coding, thinking about artificial intelligence, and machine learning
Hobbies: Writing/producing electronic music, weightlifting
Ten years ago, Chris McCulloh planned to enter medical school and fulfill his dream of becoming a surgeon. Instead, just months before he was to start med school, he ended up a patient. A freak accident—slipping on a hardwood floor, flying backwards, and landing neck-first on the edge of a glass coffee table—left him with both legs paralyzed at age 28. Undaunted, he deferred entering medical school for a year, undergoing surgery and spending months in rehab.
McCulloh has since finished medical school and recently completed a 2-year pediatric surgery research fellowship at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He is now two-thirds of the way through his surgical residency at the Morristown (New Jersey) Medical Center, thanks to the assistance of a specialized wheelchair that allows him to stand nearly to his 6-foot-3 height and helps him perform five to six surgeries a day.
He’s received plenty of attention for being a surgeon with a disability. Along with several print media stories, he was interviewed in 2013 for CBS’ “The Doctors,” and in 2017, ABC’s “20/20” included McCulloh in an episode on physicians with disabilities. But it’s not the wheelchair that distinguishes McCulloh, says Gail Besner, a pediatric surgeon and researcher who hired McCulloh as a postdoctoral fellow. Rather, it’s his enthusiasm, natural research skills, and exceptional surgical prowess that make him special. Besner sees no reason why he won’t reach his goal of landing a highly competitive pediatric surgical residency. “I think he’s capable of doing anything he puts his mind to,” she says.
Continue reading “Surgeon Chris McCulloh Stands Up to Disability”
Six NIGMS grantees are among this year’s winners of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). The award was established by the White House in 1995. This year, it went to 27 individuals and 14 organizations.
PAESMEM recipients were honored during a 3-day event in Washington, D.C. The event featured a gala presentation ceremony and a White House tour. In addition, each winner received a $10,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, which manages PAESMEM on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The event also included the first-ever White House State-Federal STEM Education Summit. During the summit, awardees joined leaders in education and workforce development from across the nation, including U.S. territories and several Native American tribes, to discuss trends and future priorities in STEM education. The discussions will inform the development of the next Federal STEM Education 5-Year Strategic Plan, which must be updated every 5 years according to the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010.
Educators often struggle to teach teens about sexual and reproductive health. Hexacago Health Academy (HHA) , an education program from the University of Chicago, leverages the fun activity of gameplay to impart these lessons to young people from Chicago’s South Side community. Funded by the Student Education Partnership Award (SEPA), part of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), in 2015, HHA assists teachers in their goal of helping teen students gain awareness and control over their health and also learn about careers in STEM and health fields.
Genesis of HHA
HHA was cofounded by Melissa Gilliam , a University of Chicago professor of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Pediatrics and founder of the Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry & Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health (Ci3) . During a 2013 summer program with high school students, Gilliam and Patrick Jagoda , associate professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies, and cofounder of Ci3’s Game Changer Chicago Design Lab, introduced the students to their STEM-based alternate reality game called The Source, in which a young woman crowdsources player help to solve a mystery that her father has created for her.
From their experience with The Source, Gilliam and Jagoda quickly learned that students not only wanted to play games but to design them too. What followed was the Game Changer Lab’s creation of the Hexacago game board, as well as the launch of HHA, a SEPA-funded project that the lab oversees.
Hexacago Game Board
At the core of HHA is the Hexacago game board, which displays the city of Chicago, along with Lake Michigan, a train line running through the city, and neighborhoods gridded into a hexagonal pattern.
HHA students not only play games designed from the Hexacago board template, but also design their own games from it that are intended to inspire behavior change in health-related situations and improve academic performance.
In this way, HHA is much more than just game design and play. “Students have no idea that what they’re doing is learning. In their minds, they’re really focused on designing games,” says Gilliam. “That’s the idea behind Hexacago Health Academy: helping people acquire deep knowledge of science and health issues by putting on the hat of a game designer.” Moreover, through the process of gameplay and design, students practice all the rich skills that result from teamwork, including collaborative learning, leadership, and communication.
Continue reading “Teens Explore Science and Health through Game Design”
MARC U-STAR Scholars Jasmine Brown and Naomi Mburu were among 32 Americans to recently receive the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University in England. Rhodes Scholars are chosen for their academic and research achievements, as well as their commitment to others and leadership potential.
As current MARC U-STAR Scholars, Brown and Mburu are part of an NIGMS research training program for undergraduate junior and senior honor students. MARC is designed to increase the number of people from groups underrepresented in biomedical sciences by preparing students for high-caliber, doctorate-level training.
Here’s more about these two distinguished women:
Jasmine Brown, 21
Brown, of Hillsborough, New Jersey, is a senior at Washington University in St. Louis and works as a research assistant at the Washington University School of Medicine. There, she studies genes that are protective against mental defects that result from West Nile-induced brain inflammation. After she receives her bachelor’s degree in biology, she plans to earn a doctorate degree in neuroscience as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.
In addition to her current training as a MARC Scholar, Brown has spent her summers as an undergraduate research assistant, engaging in the study of these other notable subjects:
“What I love about science is that it gives me tools to generate answers and to improve human health. It’s a fun process for me, but also a satisfying one because I can make an impact,” Brown said in a statement.
Equally important to her studies, Brown is a champion for other underrepresented students in the sciences. After her own experience as the target of prejudice, Brown started the Minority Association of Rising Scientists (MARS) to support underrepresented students participating in research and inform faculty members about implicit bias. With the help of the National Science Foundation, Brown is working to expand MARS nationwide.
Brown has given back to the community in other ways. She was a member of The Synapse Project, which prepares high school students for a neuroscience competition called Brain Bee. She was also a 2014-2015 candidate for Mx. WashU, an organization that raises money for a children’s program called City Faces.
Naomi Mburu, 21
Credit: Marlayna Desmond for UMBC.
Naomi Mburu, of Ellicott City, Maryland, is the daughter of Kenyan immigrants and the first student in the history of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) to receive the Rhodes Scholarship. The senior in chemical engineering plans to complete a doctorate in engineering science and to research heat transfer applications for nuclear fusion reactors.
“I believe the Rhodes Scholarship will allow me to foster a stronger community amongst my fellow scholars because we will all be attending the same institution,” Mburu said in a statement.
Mburu is currently working with Gymama Slaughter, UMBC associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, to develop a machine that ensures human organs remain healthy as they await transplant .
During her recent summer internship with Intel, Mburu developed an interactive model to estimate the cost of coatings applied to equipment. Her work helped improve pricing negotiations and established additional cost estimates for other chemical processes.
Her other areas of research have included:
Mburu’s aspirations involve not just science but education advocacy. Her passion for STEM education and increasing diversity in STEM fields led to her current involvement as a MARC trainee, where she’s learned to communicate her desire to make a global impact through her science research and her efforts to remove barriers to education equality.
In her free time, Mburu has helped K-12 students with their homework during her time at UMBC. She continues to mentor youth and helps high school girls on STEM-related research projects.
One of NIGMS’ primary goals is to provide support to train the next generation of biomedical research scientists. In pursuit of this goal, NIGMS aims to enhance the diversity of the scientific workforce and develop research capacities throughout the country. NIGMS-administered training programs at the undergraduate level provide support for trainees underrepresented in the biomedical sciences to develop skills to successfully transition into doctoral programs. Three unique NIGMS-administered undergraduate-focused programs are highlighted below.
Although BUILD, MARC, and RISE offer a variety of activities at more than 100 supported institutions during the school year—including laboratory research opportunities, faculty mentoring, seminars, and workshops—the programs also provide training experiences throughout the summer. The slideshow below gives a quick peek into what several students participating in MARC, RISE, and BUILD activities did over the summer.
Click on an image below to launch slideshow.
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Lori Gildehaus loves her job because she’s almost always doing something different. Some days, she leads professional development sessions for undergraduate students at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF). Other days, she’s weathered down in isolated communities along Alaska’s coast while leading community science and outreach events. These activities are just a few of her many responsibilities. Gildehaus is a laboratory research and teaching technician for UAF’s Biomedical Learning and Student Training (BLaST) program.
UAF’s BLaST program is one of 10 sites across the country in the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative. As a component of the NIH Diversity Program Consortium, BUILD aims to find the best ways to engage and retain students from diverse backgrounds in biomedical research. Each BUILD site is as unique as the community it serves. UAF’s BLaST program embraces Alaska Native culture and the unique landscape that its students, faculty, and staff call home.
UAF attracts students from across Alaska, making for a diverse student body. BLaST serves not only UAF but also seven other campuses throughout Alaska, ranging from IỊisaġvik College in Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow) at the northern tip of the state, to the University of Alaska Southeast in Sitka, more than 1,000 miles away. In any area that large, it would be difficult to organize community science outreach and foster connections between institutions. But in Alaska, there aren’t even roads connecting most rural campuses to Fairbanks.
Bridging gaps
Gildehaus and BLaST’s four other laboratory research and teaching technicians help bridge these gaps and bring science to local communities. They also serve as intermediaries between undergraduate students doing research and their professors. For undergraduates, talking to professors can be intimidating, and navigating the university landscape can be overwhelming. One of Gildehaus’ responsibilities is providing guidance to students.
“We want undergraduates to have a really good opportunity to explore their interests and have a good experience on their research projects,” Gildehaus says.
Gildehaus has a broad background, including biological sciences, human anatomy and physiology, science outreach, and mentoring. This experience helps her develop BLaST’s mentoring component. BLaST uses a tiered mentoring approach to provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to share experiences and participate in mentoring.
Gildehaus has planned three mentoring workshops for fall 2017. One of these workshops, organized with assistance from the National Research Mentoring Network 
, will focus on culturally aware mentoring. Another will teach attendees how to navigate conversations, share stories, and increase awareness and understanding of Alaska Native and other cultures.
Bringing science outside the lab
BLaST’s diverse group of students includes many people who reside in rural areas and live a subsistence lifestyle. Traditional lab work schedules and science education can often seem disconnected from these communities. To better engage students, BLaST implements the One Health Approach, which emphasizes the interconnectedness between human, animal, and environmental health by promoting ways to expand interdisciplinary collaborations to attain optimal health for all. The program helps students recognize that there are opportunities to be involved in biomedical research in their communities, such as researching the natural vegetation of the Alaskan tundra, studying marine mammals, or finding cures for illnesses. Continue reading “Having a BLaST in Alaska … and Beyond”
This is the fourth post in a new series highlighting NIGMS’ efforts toward developing a robust, diverse and well-trained scientific workforce.
Marina Z. Nakhla
Hometown: West Los Angeles, California
Blogs For: Ottobock “Life in Motion,” a forum for the amputee community, where she’s covered topics ranging from medical insurance to dating.
Influential Book: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Favorite TV Show: Grey’s Anatomy
Languages: English and Arabic
Unusual Fact: Gets a new pair of legs every year or two
When Marina Z. Nakhla was just a toddler, she lost both of her legs. Now 22 and a graduate student at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), she has hurdled obstacles most of us never face.
Nakhla conducts research to better understand the decrease in mental abilities experienced by people with brain diseases. She is a scholar in CSUN’s Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) Program. This training program aims to enrich and diversify the pool of future biomedical researchers. Her long-term goal is to earn a Ph.D., to work as a clinical psychologist and to continue conducting research in neuropsychology. Along the way, she aspires to be a leader to her peers and an advocate for underrepresented people, particularly those with disabilities.
I first learned about Nakhla from an email message titled “CSUN RISE Student.” The acronym, pronounced “see [the] sun rise,” is an apt motto for a program that prepares students for a bright future in science. I believe it also encapsulates Nakhla’s positive, forward-looking mindset, despite the obstacles she has faced. Here’s her story:
Q: What got you interested in science?
A: Growing up, I was always drawn to science. I enjoyed learning how things work. I first became interested in psychology after reading The Catcher in the Rye in high school. I was so intrigued by Holden Caulfield’s thought processes and experiences of alienation and depression, despite the fact that he came from a wealthy family and went to a good school.
Why are some people more prone to experiencing depression? Why are some peoples’ thought processes so different than others? What factors contribute to resiliency? How can we help these people? These questions also made me think about the significant adversities that I had personally experienced. My desire to know more about the brain, as well as my personal experiences, instilled my passion to make a difference in others’ lives through science. Continue reading “RISE-ing Above: Embracing Physical Disability in the Lab”
This is the third post in a new series highlighting NIGMS’ efforts toward developing a robust, diverse and well-trained scientific workforce.
It’s not every day that you’ll hear someone say, “I learned more about parasites, and I thought, ‘This is so cool!’” But it’s also not every day that you’ll meet an undergraduate researcher like 21-year-old Priscilla Del Valle.
BUILD and the Diversity Program Consortium
The Diversity Program Consortium (DPC) aims to enhance diversity in the biomedical research workforce through improved recruitment, training and mentoring nationwide. It comprises three integrated programs—Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD), which implements activities at student, faculty and institutional levels; the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN), which provides mentoring and career development opportunities for scientists at all levels; and the Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC), which is responsible for evaluating and coordinating DPC activities.
Ten undergraduate institutions across the United States have received BUILD grants, and together, they serve a diverse population. Each BUILD site has developed a unique program intended to engage and prepare students for success in the biomedical sciences and maximize opportunities for research training and faculty development. BUILD programs include everything from curricular redesign, lab renovations, faculty training and research grants, to student career development, mentoring and research-intensive summer programs.
Del Valle’s interest in studying infectious diseases and parasites is motivating her to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. focusing on immunology and pathogenic microorganisms. Currently, Del Valle is a junior at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP)’s BUILDing SCHOLARS Center. BUILDing SCHOLARS, which stands for “Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity Southwest Consortium of Health-Oriented Education Leaders and Research Scholars,” focuses on providing undergraduate students interested in the biomedical sciences with academic, financial and professional development opportunities. Del Valle is one of the first cohort of students selected to take part in this training opportunity.
BUILD scholars receive individual support through this training model, and Del Valle says she likes “the way that they [BUILDing SCHOLARS] take care of us and the workshops and opportunities that we have.”
Born in El Paso, Texas, Del Valle moved to Saltillo, Mexico, where she spent most of her childhood. Shortly after graduating from high school, she returned to El Paso to start undergraduate courses at El Paso Community College (EPCC), to pursue an M.D. Del Valle explains that in Mexico, unlike in the United States, careers in medical research are not really emphasized in the student community or in society, so she did not have firsthand experience with research.
Del Valle discovered her passion for research when she was assigned a project on malaria as part of an EPCC course. She was fascinated by the parasite that causes malaria. “It impressed me how something so little could infect a person so harshly,” she says. Continue reading “Bit by the Research Bug: Priscilla’s Growth as a Scientist”
