Summer Research Programs for UW Medical Students

The UW Cardiovascular Research Center Summer Research Opportunities Program places UW medical students between years I and II into cardiovascular sciences laboratory settings. This program offers a stipend for a minimum 8 weeks to a maximum of 12 weeks for medical student interns. Jonathan Makielski, MD, Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) and Director of the UW Cardiovascular Research Center Training Program, coordinates this activity. Medical students apply through the Herman Shapiro Research Program (see UW School of Medicine and Public Health web site http://www.med.wisc.edu/education/md/student_research/).

The program is designed to provide students with an appreciation for the nature of scientific research and develop skills in data collection, analysis, and presentation of results to the medical community. Typically, research projects are more advanced than those undertaken by medical students in their undergraduate years. Proposed projects have a central hypothesis or research goal, with experiments that are designed to test the hypothesis through the collection of quantifiable data.

Students in this program have an opportunity to submit abstracts for poster or oral presentations at the UW Medical School Fall Research Day, as well as the UW Cardiovascular Research Center’s annual Scientific Poster Fair held in December.

2008 Activities

During the summer of 2008, the UW Cardiovascular Research Center is sponsoring seven medical students in cardiovascular research laboratories:

• Ryan Baxter, collaborating with Pamela Kling, MD, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, on “Discerning the Causes and Consequences of Iron-Deficiency in Infancy (ZnPPn Sub-Project).”

• Melinda Chen, collaborating with Pamela Kling, MD, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, on “Discerning the Causes and Consequences of Iron-Deficiency in Infancy (ZnPPn Sub-Project).”

• Michael DeVita, collaborating with William Shrage, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Kinesiology, on “Exercise in obesity: Endothelial and sympathetic control of limb blood flow.”

• Moltu Guy, collaborating with Jeffery Walker, Professor, Physiology, on “Post-Translational Modifications of Cardiac Troponin I in Heart Disease.”

• Brian Hong, collaborating with Amish Raval, MD, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine, on “Wisconsin Occluded Artery Databank.”

• Ryan Schmidt, collaborating with Jeffery Walker, Professor, Physiology, on “G-Protein Coupled Receptor Heterodimerization Evaluated by Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer.”

• Jozef Lazar, collaborating with Jeffery Walker, Professor, Physiology, on “A High Throughput Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer Assay for Characterizing the Pharmacology of Endothelin A:B Receptor Heterodimers.”

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