{"id":3550,"date":"2023-01-03T21:52:11","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T21:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medschool.prd.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/?p=3550"},"modified":"2023-01-03T21:52:11","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T21:52:11","slug":"investment-in-undergraduates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/investment-in-undergraduates\/","title":{"rendered":"Investment in Undergraduates"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
MSTP student Jailyn Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI got to be there and see it in person,\u201d says Melanie Perez, a senior at Florida International University, describing her experience in the 2022 Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) Summer Research Program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

The nine-week program for college undergraduates interested in the MD\/PhD career track is an extension of VUSM\u2019s MSTP.<\/p>\n

Perez was one of 32 college students who participated in four different research programs for aspiring physician-scientists hosted this summer by VUSM. They conducted research projects, received mentoring, and some of them, including Perez, shadowed clinicians as they provided patient care.<\/p>\n

\u201cUndergraduate research programs are critical for feeding scientists and physician-scientists into career paths and diversifying the future physician-scientist workforce,\u201d said MSTP director Christopher Williams, MD, PhD.<\/p>\n

Perez worked in the lab of Heather Pua, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology who in 2019 received a National Institutes of Health Director\u2019s New Innovator Award for her research on a new form of cell signaling involving ribonucleic acids (RNAs) in allergic airway inflammation.<\/p>\n

In August the students presented their research projects in oral talks and poster sessions at an end-of-summer research symposium.<\/p>\n

Perez, who presented a poster summarizing her research, said she thoroughly enjoyed her research experience, and has become even more convinced that the physician-scientist path is right for her. \u201cI just want to be able to contribute, to solve a piece of the puzzle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jailyn Smith, a participant in the 2021 MSTP Summer Research Program, returned to VUSM this fall as a first-year medical student in the MSTP.<\/p>\n

Last summer, as a rising senior at North Carolina Central University in Durham, she worked in the laboratory of Rachelle Johnson, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine, whose research focuses on metastatic breast cancer and tumor cell dormancy in the bone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed it so much that I wanted to come back,\u201d Smith said. After graduating early from college, she joined the Johnson lab as a research assistant for a semester before starting medical school.<\/p>\n

Smith said she chose to come to Vanderbilt for medical school because of its highly collaborative culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew \u2026 it would allow me to fulfill my dream of\u00a0becoming a physician-scientist, while also emphasizing my mental and emotional health,\u201d she said. \u201cI am forever grateful for the opportunity to be part of the MSTP Summer Research Program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cI got to be there and see it in person,\u201d says Melanie Perez, a senior at Florida International University, describing her experience in the 2022 Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) Summer Research Program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. The nine-week program for college undergraduates interested in the MD\/PhD career track is an extension…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[45,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vm-fall-2022","category-vm-related-content"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcDnub-Vg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3552,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3550\/revisions\/3552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbilt-medicine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}