One researcher resolved the structure of a new membrane protein using cutting-edge microscopy techniques. Another mapped previously unknown relationships between microRNA and the developing nervous system.
It might sound like just another day in the research labs at Harvard Medical School, except that the scientists making these discoveries hadn’t even started college.
Every summer since 1996, a cohort of some of the most promising young students come to HMS to participate in the Basic Science Partnership internship program. The internship is one aspect of the BSP that HMS professor of cell biology David Van Vactor has developed with HMS students to enhance K-12 education, including hands-on science summer camp programs HMS Kids and Science Savvy, which were designed to share the fun and excitement of science with a broad audience, all with the goal of providing outlets for young students who are serious about science.
“We want to elevate the trajectory of science education to help launch the innovators of the future,” Van Vactor said. “If you give someone who has that spark of curiosity a eureka moment—when you know something that no one else on the whole planet knows—it can open a pathway to a lifetime of discovery.”
The BSP summer internship program puts young students into labs on campus and pairs them with graduate student and post-doctoral mentors. While most of the interns are from the Boston area and around New England, interns have come from as far away as El Paso, Texas.
The interns are mentored by HMS faculty and research staff in the one of several basic science departments. Each works in a specific lab for the duration of the eight- to ten-week fellowship, becoming assimilated into the routines and culture of lab life.
All of the interns in the program meet once a week for a lunch seminar with an HMS graduate student or undergraduate research fellow to discuss their projects, which they eventually present to the other interns and faculty involved in the program. In addition to working on their own research, they have the opportunity to discuss science careers with role models at many stages of training and to get a feel for what the day-to-day life of a scientist is like.
These interactions—both formal and informal—are a key part of the program.
“Science is driven by collaboration: Whether it's at the lab bench, or at lab meetings, or seminars, the exchange of information makes everyone better and exposes one to new perspectives of doing things that one might not have thought of before,” said Barry Huang, currently a senior at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School.
Huang worked with research fellow Laura Pontano Vaites in the laboratory of Wade Harper, the Bert and Natalie Vallee Professor of Molecular Pathology and head of the Department of Cell Biology.
Pontano Vaites noted that her work with the BSP fellows has also benefitted her own work as a scientist and educator. “Mentoring a student in the BSP program taught me how to break down complex biology in a way that the students could understand. This also helps to remind us, as trained scientists, of the big picture or reason why we are performing biomedical research,” she said.
Omar Zaki, a graduate of South Kingstown High School in Rhode Island who is now a freshman at Yale University, worked with HMS post-doctoral fellow Kelly Kim in the lab of HMS professor of cell biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Thomas Walz.
This summer, Zaki studied the form and function of fatty structures in the cellular machinery. “Working directly with world leaders in the field made me realize that taking risks and not sticking to very conventional methods is something very important to becoming a successful scientist,” Zaki said.
On her fellowship, Anna Lachenauer, now a freshman at Harvard College, investigated the genetics of neuromuscular junction function, working in the Van Vactor lab to determine the direct targets of specific microRNAs during nerve development.
“One of the greatest strengths of the BSP program is its ability to expose its students to a wide range of opportunities and people,” Lachenauer said, noting that it is important for young students to understand the wide range of possibilities that are available to them in the scientific world.
Post-doctoral fellow Elizabeth McNeil, who served as Lachenauer’s mentor, pointed out that working with young scientists like the BSP fellows can also diversify the perspectives of more senior researchers.
“Students have the ability to examine scientific questions in a new and fresh way, giving me a chance to reassess and explain why I am looking at something in a particular way,” she said. “This forces me to grow and sometimes discover new and different ways to test my scientific questions.”
“You have to have an amazing imagination to be a scientist,” said Van Vactor. “To think about things that you don’t know in a way that you can test through experiments, you really have to step over that dark horizon line at the edge of knowledge.”
“We face an uncertain future with many profound challenges that will require inspired scientific thinking to navigate,” Van Vactor said.
This program is funded by the McKenzie Family Charitable Trust and the Biogen-Idec Foundation.
