South Florida High School Interns Put Research Into Practice at Miller School of Medicine
During an eight-week internship at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 15 South Florida high school students worked alongside researchers and explored genetics, Alzheimer’s disease and other questions in biomedical science.
Eight weeks of biomedical research gave 15 South Florida high school juniors a firsthand look at the rewards and realities of working in a lab.
For Katherine Quijada and Juan Diego Leanez, that meant learning early that experiments don’t always go as planned. They were among 15 students participating in the JJ Vance Memorial Summer Internship in Biological and Computational Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics (HIHG).
Quijada, a Miami Senior High School student, and Leanez, a student at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, studied genetic variants associated with neurodevelopmental disorders and how they affect the function of a protein that regulates other genes.
“Our first attempt completely failed at transfecting cells. We had to start the experiment from scratch,” Quijada said.
How Does the JJ Vance Internship Prepare Students for Research?
The hands-on program encourages curiosity and teamwork while showing students the importance of science and research and what researchers do every day.
“One of the important lessons we all learn in research is that failure is OK,” said Jeffery Vance M.D., Ph.D., professor of human genetics at the Miller School and director of the Center for Genomic Education and Outreach at the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics. Dr. Vance created the program with his wife, Margaret Pericak-Vance, Ph.D., director of the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics. “As one of our former interns pointed out, experiments in school are usually designed to work. He realized that he learned more when they didn’t.”
The eight-week JJ Vance Memorial Summer Internship in Biological and Computational Sciences, designed for rising high school seniors, expanded from 12 students this year, with participants selected from 140 applicants across Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The interns worked alongside scientists, physicians and faculty mentors, contributing to ongoing research while learning laboratory and computational techniques.
“We want students to experience what science is like, what research is like and that they can accomplish this,” said Dr. Vance. “We want to share the excitement for research and science.”
Domenica Arias Rosell, a student at José Martí MAST 6-12 Academy, studied proteins in human blood serum, examining which components may be harmful to brain cells when the blood-brain barrier weakens. She also learned laboratory techniques she had never used before.
“I learned to do PCR, run different types of gels, interpret data,” Arias said.
High School Students Research Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease was among the most frequently studied topics this summer, with interns looking at the disease from different angles, including genetics, ancestry, potential biomarkers and neighborhood conditions.
Immaculata-La Salle High School student Arturo Cartaya de la Rosa studied how exposome exposure is associated with Alzheimer’s risk, with future studies coupled with individual’s genomic risk.
Dana Horowitz of Michael M. Krop Senior High School, Siena Sachdeva of Franklin Academy Charter School and Christina Acuña of Archbishop Coleman Carroll High School, approached Alzheimer’s from a genetic perspective. They focused on APOE, a gene associated with the disease, and how genetic differences between people of African and European ancestry may affect its activity.
The students examined regions of DNA surrounding APOE to identify which ones may influence the gene’s activity.
“If we know what sites can contribute, in the future we can inhibit sites and control APOE expression,” Horowitz said.
Other interns explored a potentially protective variant of the ABCA7 gene, cryptic proteins as possible biomarkers for Alzheimer’s and the role of microglia (immune cells in the brain).
The summer’s research included long-read sequencing, which allows scientists to examine longer stretches of DNA and better understand the complexities of the human genome.
How Does the Program Support Future Scientists?
On August 7, the interns presented their work to family, friends and mentors at a celebratory luncheon marking the end of the eight-week program.
In addition to research experience, students receive career guidance and build mentoring relationships that can help shape their academic paths.
“We continue to mentor the interns as they go on to their careers. I just got an email from an intern in the class of 2012 today,” said Dr. Vance.
Of the almost 200 students who have been JJ Vance interns, 99% have gone on to college, with the vast majority continuing in science fields (STEM).
The Vances first established the internship at Duke University in memory of their son, JJ, who died in 1998 at age 14 from thrombotic storm, a rare clotting disorder. The program continued in 2009 after they moved to Miami. It is currently funded through a grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health.
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Tags: Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Jeffery Vance, Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics, Dr. Margaret Pericak-Vance, genetics, John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, medical education, student research