More than 150 High School and Undergrad Students Welcomed to Campus as Summer Interns
High school, undergraduate and medical students from Louisiana to California spent
their summer on LSU Health’s campus, gaining valuable hands-on research experience,
education, mentorship, and a jump-start to health careers, with many working as paid
interns.
The students are hosted through several programs overseen by different departments and units. Regardless of which program they come through, the students learn techniques used in health sciences laboratories, gain research study skills, and get one-on-one training from faculty in designing and conducting experiments. They also receive professional development and career preparation through weekly program seminars and training in presentation skills, including how to prepare a presentation for a scientific meeting.
The summer internships introduced hundreds of students to science careers and opportunities available through the LSU School of Medicine. After completion, many participants go on to present their research at medical or scientific conferences, have their research published in medical or scientific journals, be accepted by medical and graduate schools, and gain employment in STEM fields.
The Office of Diversity and Community Engagement oversees the School’s longest running
summer internship program, which dates back to at least 1984. The Summer Science Program
is a five-week program for Louisiana high school students to experience an academically
enriching environment and participate in educational and motivational activities.
Students are exposed to biomedical research and have hands-on experience in medicine,
nursing, dentistry, allied health, and other health fields.
Earlier in the summer, some of the students in the Summer Science Program had the
opportunity to work with Daryl Lofaso, PhD in the School of Medicine skills lab. They
learned how to take vital signs and assess results. The Summer Science Program is
coordinated by Geri Davis.
Dr. Fern Tsien has overseen the Summer Research Internship Program for high school, undergraduate, and medical students since its inception in 2003, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. The Science Youth Initiative (SYI) program operates all year, bringing science directly to elementary and middle schools, and maintaining contact and keeping students excited about science throughout high school. Each spring, high school, undergraduate, and medical student applicants are selected for an 8-week, paid internship. Since the summer program began, more than 70 high school students, 450 undergraduate students, and 600 medical students have participated. Many of the program alumni are current medical students, graduate students, residents, or working in a biomedical field. In 2023 alone, more than 40 high school and undergraduate students, and more than 100 medical students conducted research. The medical students will present their projects on October 23rd at the Medical Research Symposium.
Additional students intern through the LSU Health-Brown Foundation High School Internship
Program led by Dr. Kelly Sherman, Research Experiences for Undergraduates led by Dr.
Tsien, as well as the Summer Undergraduate Neuroscience (SUN) Program led by Dr. Nicolas
Bazan.
The SUN Program began in 1994 and is funded through NIH grants. To date, more than 700 SUN program alumni have become successful scientists and doctors, both in Louisiana and over the world.
Starting in 2023, Dr. Angela McLean also hosted students through a partnership with
the Louisiana Department of Health for COVID-19 related projects. Dr. McLean also
oversees the Prematriculation program for incoming freshman medical students, a four-week
academic program designed to facilitate students’ academic, environmental, and emotional
adjustment to medical school. The Prematriculation program consists of basic science
lectures and classes in time management; test taking; and study, note taking, and
memorization skills. Also in 2023, a new program under the leadership of Dr. Charles
Wood brought in students under the LCRC umbrella and in partnership with Tulane and
Xavier.
Additional medical student opportunities include the nationally funded Robert A. Winn
Diversity in Clinical Trials: Clinical Investigator Pathway Program (Winn CIPP) for
underrepresented minorities to engage in research, led by Dr. Lucio Miele, and an
NIH-funded program led by Dr. Patricia Molina and Dr. Scott Edwards on alcohol research.
The Center for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice, under the direction
of Dr. Tina Gunaldo, hosted a four-week Building Health Teams program. The virtual
program educates high school and college pre-health learners about the training and
roles of various health professions.
The experiments and research these students do help advance research to solve some of society’s most serious health issues.
This year’s research projects included one investigating house dust mite allergens
suggesting for the first time that a compound discovered in the Bazan lab in the Neuroscience
Center of Excellence may serve as a therapeutic target for allergens in the future.
Others looked at the effects of alcohol, how cancer spreads, potential new treatments
for stroke, and how SARS-CoV-2 variants evade the immune system. Another project showed
that abnormal expansion of repeated DNA sequences in Huntington’s Disease is most
prevalent in the cerebral cortex, suggesting it as a therapeutic target to either
slow down the DNA expansions or halt them altogether.
The students presented their research findings at the close of the summer.
To watch a video about the students and their internships, click here.