Summer Undergraduate Research Program - Fred Hutchinson ...

Extra Personal Statement #6
I love that science gives me the opportunity to pursue endless possibilities, to question
the knowledge of today, and to find solutions for tomorrow. Beginning my freshman
year of college, I took every opportunity to surround myself with biology.
I started my freshman summer at the University of Texas Austin, where I performed a
statistical study examining whether co-morbidities and self-reported symptom
assessments could predict outcome in gastrointestinal (GI) patients who had undergone
chemoradiation. The study concluded that GI cancers vary symptomatically according to
site and that if the patient's symptoms were adequately managed, their outcome and
quality of life was significantly better. Here I learned to construct meaningful results
from large bodies of data. The following summer I returned to the University of Texas to
conduct a study testing the efficacy of a slew of nitric oxide pro-drugs on breast epithelial
cell lines. I also dedicated time to studying the drugs' mechanism and cancer cell
migration via angiogenesis. This experience was pivotal in my career as I learned
standard laboratory practices and received my first exposure to working independently in
a lab. I had originally chosen these programs simply to follow my interest in cancer, but
later learned to see that cancer is a superb model of disease.
I spent the next two years of college working as a part-time assistant in a laboratory at
Texas A&M. Aside from maintaining the tab and aiding in other studies, I started my
own experiments on the counter effects of a transcription factor (Y Box-binding protein-
1, YB-1) on upregulated promoter (Matrix Metalloproteinase-1) activity caused by low
levels of arsenic in a cervical cancer cell line. These experiments were the first of our
knowledge that showed YB-1 to have a counter effect on upregulated genes. I enjoyed
returning to study the environmental causes of cancer, but a class led me to become
increasingly fascinated with the connections between psychology and biology.
To explore this newfound interest, I traveled to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
my junior summer to study psychoneuroimmunology. There I examined neural-immune
interactions in rodent models following a live bacterial immune challenge. Our findings
produced a paper (Smith, J.D, Smith, V., Smith, H., Smith, M. (2007). XXXX XXXXX XX
XXXXX XXXXXXX XXXX. J Neuroscience) that was submitted for publication in
February and will hopefully shed light on brain cytokine production. It was my first in
vivo study, and I found the experience enthralling due to its application to understanding
human immunological interactions.
Studying cancer biology remains a top interest for me because the information we gain
can be readily applied to the study of other diseases. In addition, I am intrigued by the
relationship between genetic and environmental factors, how we can at least have some
control over the latter. Similarly, psychoneuroimmunology excites me with the
understanding that all physiological systems interact at some level, that a person's affect
can modify not only their neural structure, but also their ability to manage disease. I also
hold interests in virology, specifically how a virus can disrupt the homeostasis of a
systemi thus leading to tumorigenesis. I believe my record demonstrates my ability to
adapt to different avenues of research. I am particularly interested in two labs associated
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