U-M, Perrigo name 2007 undergraduate research fellows
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The Life Sciences Institute (LSI) of the University of Michigan and the Perrigo Company, a pharmaceutical and nutritional products manufacturer based in Allegan, Michigan, have awarded summer fellowships to five undergraduate students from the University of Michigan and Albion College.
The awards were made under the Perrigo Undergraduate Fellowship Program, a summer internship series at the LSI for undergraduate science students. The program is supported by the Perrigo Company, the LSI, and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
Each student is assigned to a laboratory in the Life Sciences Institute for hands-on experience with world-class researchers and will be considered for internships with Perrigo in the future. Fellows receive a stipend plus housing and travel allowances for 10 weeks over the summer. Most applicants are undergraduate students in chemistry, biology, biochemistry, pharmacy, or engineering and related fields. To qualify, the students must be enrolled in a college or university.
The 2007 Perrigo/LSI Fellows are:
Andrew King is a rising sophomore at the U-M from Rochester Hills, Michigan. Working with Sylvie Garneau-Tsodikova, he is working on understanding and exploiting the nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) assembly lines with the goal of ultimately producing the means to combinatorially biosynthesize novel biologically active compounds.
Robin Guo is a rising senior in Biomedical Engineering at U-M from Arcadia, California. This summer Robin is working in David Sherman’s lab on Cryptophycins, a class of peptolidic molecules (cyclized and peptide-derived molecule with ester bonds) isolated from cyanobacteria (namely Nostoc sp. ATCC 53789 and Nostoc sp. GSV 224) that exhibit anti-cancer activity. Specifically, Cryptophycin 1 from this class of molecules, is a potent tubulin destabilizing agent that arrests tumor cells at the G1-M phase and prevents cell division.
Samina Bhumbra is about to begin her third year at the U-M majoring in neuroscience. She is spending this summer working at the laboratory of Gabby Rudenko studying the structure of the protein neurexin, which is known to be important in forming synapses in the brain. During the fellowship, Samina will be learning how to grow, purify, and crystallize the neurexin L2(8)_L3 in order to identify its structure.
Joong Yub Kim is originally from Seoul, Korea, and currently a rising sophomore at U-M. This summer, he joins John Kim’s lab, to systematically analyze the binding of lin-4 micro RNA (miRNA) to its target lin-14 messenger RNA (mRNA) in nematode worm C. elegans. The findings from this project will provide an improved understanding on how the miRNAs interact with their target mRNAs and play their roles as post-transcriptional gene expression regulators.
Greg Bever is a Biology major at Albion College from Linwood, Michigan who will be entering his junior year in the fall. Greg is working in Dr. David Ginsburg's lab this summer investigating the collagen binding sites of the von Willebrand factor, a protein in the body's blood vessels that contributes to clotting. Information on these sites could lead to treatment breakthroughs for numerous cardiovascular problems.
Joey Laratta, originally from Montville, New Jersey, is presently studying the Biological Sciences en route to a Bachelor of Science degree in April of 2008 at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. Joey’s future plans include continuing research on Sacchaaromyces cerevisiae and attending a medical college beginning in the fall of 2008. This summer, Joey will work with Lois S. Weisman, exploring the protein-protein interactions with the yeast myosin V cargo binding domain, its linker proteins, and organellar cargo. Myosin V is conserved throughout eukaryotes and notably in humans, it is critical to brain function. Thus, his compelling research on yeast can lead to discovering the pathway of diseases or neurological problems which have yet to be identified.
Links
Perrigo Company
LSI/Perrigo Undergraduate Fellowship Program
