ResearcHStart

Welcome. Hello. Thank you for joining us this evening. We're really excited to tell you about our researcHStart program. My name is Megan McKenna, I'm the director for education, training, and evaluation at UChicago's Comprehensive Cancer Center. And I'm joined with two of my colleagues from UChicago, our assistant director for cancer education Dr. Rosie Huggins and our program manager in all things, pathway programs, Ms. Sheldon Mackey. I am also the director for the researcHStart program, which means that I get to coordinate with site teams across all five of our research institutions to run this amazing program.

So the plan tonight is for me to give a really quick overview of the core program components. I'm going to try my best to make that really short because I'm really excited to share that we have almost a dozen alumni from the program who've agreed to come back and talk about their experience. And I think for all of you considering applying to researcHStart, there are absolutely the best resource for you to ask questions, to learn more about what your other time in the program was like, what they're taking away from the program, and advice that they have for you as applicants. So I twill leave as much time as possible for you to hear from them.

So if you are an alumni sitting on this call, we will promote you after-- my little spiel will promote you to panelists. And so just be a little bit patient as we work on that process. So researcHStart is a multi-site program which we think is really cool. We coordinate the program through the University of Chicago, but we also place students with the cancer centers at the University of Illinois, Chicago, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University, and Rush University. So what that means is that this program provides opportunities to students at all the top research institutions, cancer research institutions in the state of Illinois, which we think is really exciting.

I'll talk a little bit in a couple of slides about how you would apply to each of these individual sites. The purpose of this program is to excite young people who have an interest in science, technology, engineering, and medicine about the truly awesome range of opportunities for careers in the cancer research field. In addition to getting you excited about these careers, we want to make sure that you have access to the knowledge and the skills and the social networks that you need to move forward in these careers and be really successful.

And we also aim pretty big an overarching goal for this program is to make sure that we're building a diverse and a really highly skilled cancer workforce to advance scientific knowledge and to help all people live longer, healthier lives. The core component of the program is to give you as high school students this immersive research experience in one of our cancer research labs. So what this means is; for eight weeks in the summer, you will become a member of a cancer research team. We will talk with you throughout the application process to get a sense of what your interests are and the kind of research experience that you think you might like to have for the summer, and we'll use that information to place you in a lab.

So you might be with another researcHStart student, most of you will be placed individually in a lab at one of our five institutions and you will work in that lab for about 35 to 40 hours a week. That means making progress on an independent research project that's related to the work of the lab, it also means going to lab meetings, maybe sharing at a lab meeting, it means attending journal clubs where you're working with your lab to understand the scientific literature. Any other kind of activity or component that's part of the research that team does, you will participate in as a member of that team.

One of the cool things about taking part in a program like this at the top cancer research institutions in the state of Illinois is that we do a broad range of cancer research. So that means research across all different types of disease sites for cancer. So breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, but it also means applying a lot of different methodologies and technologies and scientific methods to understand cancer, how it impacts patient health, and how we can get better outcomes across our communities.

So I was going to ask Rosie, you might have already seen these categories. This is a rough approximation of how we describe the different types of cancer researcHStart. This is on the application because we want you to start thinking about the kind of research that you might be interested in. And to help you do that, I'm going to ask Rosie just to go through and give a brief description of these different categories just to give you a sense of what they're like and what might be the best fit for you. Dr. Huggins.

So we subdivide it into these six different categories. Like Meghan said it's not precise a lot of the research you'll be doing overlaps across these different subdivisions of cancer research. And one overarching thing we like to keep in mind is health disparities and health equity and how we [INAUDIBLE] the molecular mechanisms of cancer. And that's what you think of when you think of cancer biology. So what you cover in your biology classes at your schools, looking at pathways within cancer, specific proteins maybe, a lot of that stuff potentially identifying new things to target with drugs in cancer.

With clinical and experimental therapeutics, that's more seeing how patients respond to different treatments, trying to develop new ways to predict how patients will respond, tracking patients. So one student last year worked with their lab to track patients utilizing a new technology to track symptoms as they went through chemotherapy. That's one example of research that falls into the clinical research side of things. Computational cancer biology, that's going to be more genomics and bioinformatics. So looking to identify mutations across patient genomes that could potentially be associated with higher cancer risk.

Cancer imaging; that's going to be looking at the different methods of imaging we use to detect and diagnose cancer. So that could be MRI often, and that overlaps a little bit with our medical physics program at University of Chicago. Cancer bioengineering; so that's thinking about the design of new products and tools that can be used to treat cancer. So you might think of nanoparticles, which are just tiny, tiny little particles that we can associate with drugs to target drug treatments better. And that's something that's been in development in recent years.

And then lastly is cancer prevention and control. And that's thinking about the overall picture of things that contribute to cancer risk and cancer outcomes in different patient populations. So things like environmental factors, genetics your biology, bio-behavioral choices, psychology, socioeconomic factors. And so that's cancer prevention and control. And again all of these can overlap but just to keep each of those in mind as you are applying to let us know what you're most interested in. So we can keep that in mind as we place people in labs.

Awesome, thank you. Sometimes we have applicants come through and they already have something that they're really excited about and they know exactly how to rank these or how to communicate the kind of research experience that they want. We also have a lot of people who apply like, I have no idea, I just want to start somewhere, and that's OK too. It's just the more information that you can give us. It's just a little bit easier for us to make that Mentor Match. Also something that we will for sure talk about with you in the interview phase of the application process. So if you have questions or if you want to talk some ideas through, that's the time to do it.

The last part I want to make about this is that your research for the summer, your independent research project is going to be related to mostly one, maybe two of these areas. But throughout the summer. We work really hard to make sure that you have exposure to all of them. So for example, every week we'll have a faculty lecture series, we'll try to bring in faculty who talk about their research, who are doing work in each of these fields. You'll be hearing about each other's research over the course of the summer, you'll be interacting with other people in the scientific community who are doing different types of research.

So a big goal for the summer is to get you as much exposure as possible across these fields so that when you're taking the next step, you do have a pretty good idea of what you're most interested in and how you'd like to proceed. We throw you into your research team the first or second week of the program. But fear not there is a whole lot of support for you to make that transition and to make that jump. Each of you will have your own mentor team. So that will be comprised of a program leadership both the central leadership for the research program which includes everyone that you see here, but also the leadership team at the site to which you're assigned and participating in.

In your lab, you'll also have a PI, that's a principal investigator. So essentially the boss of the lab, that's the person who runs the lab, who's setting the course, the type of research that you're doing, thinking about the overall research program. In addition to that person that's usually a faculty at your University, you'll also have graduate students or post-doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows who already have their graduate degrees, who are working as part of that lab. Maybe some undergraduate students, also permanent staff of the lab who are part of that team. So these are all people who will be available to you to help guide your daily activities and instruct you with the techniques, protocols, and things that you'll need to do your research.

In addition to that, you'll have most sites people who are participating in other programs, who could serve as peer mentors to you and certainly the broader peer network that's part of the research team. And I think that's all I needed to say about that. As a compliment to your research experience, we provide some targeted skill and career development activities. This will look a little bit different at every site in terms of the timing of that, how that schedule during the week and also some of the content of those workshops.

But the overall goal is to give you some targeted instruction in terms of non-research skills, more career development side of things, also research skills outside of the laboratory. So workshops could include reading a scientific paper, doing a scientific literature search, networking for career exploration, how to communicate your science or communicate your experience on applications for college, even applying to college and searching for colleges, those types of things. So pretty varied we try to go for breadth with these development workshops, and again they'll look a little different across sites but you should expect maybe like 3 to 5 hours every week would be dedicated to these kinds of activities.

You will spend the most time with your cohort at the site to which you're assigned, but we really try to take advantage of the fact that this is a multi-institutional program. So for most of you applying, you are thinking about college. If you are a junior, you're starting to think about college. Hopefully you will think of some of these institutions that are part of this program as on your college list and institutions that you might like to attend as an undergraduate. You are senior, maybe you already know where you're going to college, but building this kind of network across these institutions could be really valuable to you moving forward.

So we want to make sure that you feel part of this larger network and part of this larger scientific community. And also that you feel part of a bigger program, so that you're building relationships with your peers across the sites. To do that, we typically have three all site activities over the course of the summer. The first one usually happens during that first week, during that orientation week. We'll go to one of the sites for some kind of team building activity. In the middle of the summer, we try to get together at a different site, so that we can engage in some kind of community outreach activity or service activity, and then at the end of the summer, we'll have an all site symposium. This year that will be hosted at Northwestern University.

Everyone will have a chance to present their work, most of you in the form of a scientific poster. We have representatives from the scientific communities of all five sites come, your parents, some people invite teachers. It really just a huge celebration of the work that you've done this summer and your accomplishments over the course of those eight weeks. So those are at least three opportunities for you to engage with your peers in the program, with the site leaders from the program, and also get to see at least three institutions that are hosting people through researcHStart.

Some additional details about the program. This is more nitty gritty program dates for 2024 are June 10th through August 2nd. It's an eight week program, we expect you to be there for the full eight weeks. We allow you two days off for extreme circumstances, but you can't take a week off to go to vacation or to do another program. We're pretty strict about that. So eight weeks in the summer, June 10th through August 2nd. You are eligible if you are a high school junior or senior now. So at the time of application, and you must be at least 16 years of age by the start of the program, so you need to turn 16 before June 10th.

We do not have requirements about citizenship, we do not have requirements about residency, you do not have to be an Illinois resident, but we do not provide support for housing or transportation through this program. It's not a residential program. So please only apply to the program sites for which you can arrange for your own housing and transportation. You don't pay us, we pay you for this program. This is in part to make sure that this is broadly accessible. So to account for some opportunity costs for doing a program of this type instead of getting a summer job. Also paying for transportation to these campuses and other costs that you might incur as a participant.

So you get $3,000. This is distributed in three installments over the course of the summer and it's tied to your completion of program requirements. And again, just only apply to the program site for which you can make your accommodations for housing and travel. And I'm going to talk about this application I think. For application procedures; you should first go to the researcHStart website, and I'll have a slide that has that information for you. The researcHStart website to review the applicant information packet, so that's a PDF that you can download.

That gives you all the answers, it gives you the details about the program for this coming summer, and it also tells you exactly what we're going to ask you on the application form. So when you go to the online application form, you should just be able to fill in the blanks. That form is due on midnight on January 22nd, that's a Monday. You also have two letters of recommendation, one of those must be from a teacher, so someone who's familiar with your academic performance, your performance in class.

Please choose the second recommender wisely. It could be a coach, it could be an employer, it could be someone else who has worked with you on a student group or maybe a church group, something like that. Please do not pick a close family member. We know your parents love you but we don't know what to make of a recommendation from them in terms of how you would perform in a professional setting or a program of this type. So please choose your recommenders wisely. For full consideration, we ask that those recommendation forms also be submitted by midnight on January 22nd.

Second round applicants will be invited for an in-person interview with program leadership at the site that they're being considered for. So the way that this works with the sites is that the applications come through us centrally, so everyone fills out application and they all come to us. On that application you will be asked to rank the sites that you're interested in. So again, only the sites that you can arrange for your own transportation and housing. You can put those in your preferred order. If you mark a site as a site that you will consider, that application will go to that site. So you could mark all five sites, your application will go to all five sites, they'll get reviewed all five places.

And each site processes those applications independently and each site will pick their own list of interviewees. So it is possible that you will have an interview at more than one site. If you get an interview at a site, that is the site that's considering you. So it's not that you would be invited for a site at Northwestern and then you could still make it into UChicago if that makes sense. So those interviews will happen in February. We will let by March 1st whether you've been admitted into the program and then you have about two weeks to let us know if you would accept that offer of admission. Rosie and Michelle, I'm I missing anything yet?

I don't think so, there's some questions that are specific to applying and things.

Do you want me to go through them right now? I think we should before we bring our alumni in, does that sound OK?

I'm wondering if maybe-- I wonder if I could-- I'm going to stop sharing because I can see questions. Michelle, how about if I go through some of these more logistical questions while you promote alumni, does that work?

That would be great.

OK, awesome. Some of these are pretty easy. So age minimum is 16. That is mostly because of restrictions that we have for people actually being in these laboratories that there are risks involved, there are exposure to some things, so we just want to make sure that the rules are that you have to be 16. Can switch between these subtopics during the program if they decide their current topic is not what they expected. The reason is we begin this matching process with mentors in March, months before the program starts. It is a huge onboarding process to get students approved for an individual lab.

It takes a lot of effort and time for a mentor to develop a project for the student. So once you are in that lab, it is really, really, really difficult to switch you. Also, it's only an eight week program, so this moves very quickly and it's actually really hard to get a project to the point where you can present it at a symposium in just eight weeks. So I would say that if this is not a project that is especially thrilling to you, this is an opportunity for you to gain some skills in that area, to learn from that, to take the opportunity to expose yourself to other faculty or to learn about other areas and then prioritize that for your next experience. Hello alumni.

I would also just add like Megan said, this is also an opportunity to learn what you do and don't like doing. So if you think you want to do bioinformatics, then you're in a bioinformatics lab and you realize you don't like it, then you still learn that and you're only doing it for eight weeks. So it's valuable.

It is. You are currently a sophomore, you are not yet eligible for the program. Someone is asking about a sophomore right now be rising junior at the time they started the program. You must be a junior or senior now when you apply. Do students have the goal of writing a paper by the end of the summer? You will not get to a point with your research where you are writing a manuscript for publication.

UIC, I know with our students works to have them write a paper by the end of the summer, but it's not the manuscript level. It's more just to make sure that they have experience with scientific writing. I can say for UChicago, is so busy, we struggle just to get the poster done, so we don't focus a lot on writing, but everyone will get a chance to practice at science communication and can both recommend.

I will say because I was in a lab and now I'm in this position but we had at least one summer student end up on a paper that was published. So the writing wasn't done during the summer, but if your research is related to a paper that's going to be published, then you would be probably included on it. I mean if you did work for it you, should be included on it.

That can't happen. That is not the norm.

Not guaranteed. But it has happened.

Super exciting when it does. OK, acceptance rate for the program and roughly how many people apply. We will accept 30 students across the five sites, that's about six students per site. Last year I think we had about 260 applicants. So I think the application rate hovers around 10% every year. Can both recommenders be from a teacher? Absolutely. Is the submission of the recommendation letter due on January 22nd or is there a grace period? We process these applications really quickly. So if you have a recommender that absolutely can't get it on the 22nd, you can let us know that they've submitted a bit late and we will try to integrate that. But we do go pretty quickly.

How many applicants does the program receive on average? I would say it's between 250 and 300. Lots of people want to know how many people apply. Two teachers, six per site, 30 total. Is it vital that applicants have prior experience with lab environment or have done activities closely related to the program? Not from an admission's perspective, but that is a question that I think we should ask our alumni in just a second. Does it matter if I'm a junior or senior for the preference of getting accepted. No, not at all. Oh someone just says Sean. Will this recording be available for participants to listen to at a later date? Absolutely. And then the email link, maybe Michelle if you could put that in the chat, that would be great.

Why am I raising my own hand?

I don't know.

Sorry.

All right, awesome. I think that's all nitty gritty, I am so excited.

I just want to make sure I have all the alumni that are here, because I asked and if I missed anybody, and there's one raised hand and I don't know who that is. Sorry. And what did you ask me to do Megan, I'm sorry?

I was thinking about the link for the website and email for questions.

Yeah I can do that.

Awesome. OK. Look at all these beautiful faces, this is amazing. Welcome back, everyone. I am so excited to see you and thank you for taking the time tonight to talk to our applicants. So there are a lot of you and I want to make sure that we give time for questions. But I think that it is really informative for applicants to hear you talk about your research projects, just because you sound brilliant but also to give them a sense of the variety that's available across sites.

And I think we have Chicago. We have Northwestern, Tyler? OK, couple Northwestern. I know we have UIC. OK and then how about Rush? UIUC? OK, awesome, I think we got everybody. All right, so I'm going to call you out and this is your elevator pitch, which I know you know because we practice it. Eshan, we're going to start with you because you've got fans in the audience so we'll start there.

Sure. So I'm Eshan. I worked in GoLab at Northwestern. And my work was primarily bioinformatics. So it was mostly dry lab, not really the traditional pipetting that you think of. So I had an independent project and essentially I had three patients. Each of them had a renal cell carcinoma, which is a type of kidney tumor, and that kind of migrated to their brain, so we had biopsies from both the brain tumors and the kidney tumors.

And basically my project was to use third generation nanopore RNA seq to analyze the transcriptome of each of the tumors, basically what genes were expressed in each cell. And from there, I basically was like OK I have all this data about what genes are expressed, so how can I figure out which biological processes are changed in the brain metastasis versus the primary tumor and then that led me to figure out patterns and figure out new targets for new cancer therapies. So that's basically my project.

Awesome, thank you. Aya you have your hand raised, would you like to go next?

Wait sorry I can't-- I don't know why I can't see my own video, I don't know how to turn it on right now. But I mean I can talk with my project.

Go for it.

I'm going to try to work on that.

OK. So I'm a senior right now in Champaign, Illinois and I was at the UIUC site and I was in a material science and engineering lab. So essentially our lab was looking at cancer immunotherapies and how we can enhance the immune response in these therapies that are supposed to be more selective and lead to less killing off other types of cells in the process. And so essentially--

I'm sorry.

Hi, so basically-- what was the last thing I said?

Killing off cells.

So basically I was developing hydrogels that instead of modifying, adding other compounds like adjuvants and things like that would enhance the immune response, it was about modifying the mechanical properties of the gel, things like stiffness and pore size and optimizing that to recruit certain types of immune cells and in doing that, we basically had to inject these gels into mice. And then we extracted samples and we ran flow cytometry and saw certain types of immune cells were more stimulated by different gel types.

Thank you. I told you they sound brilliant. Maya.

Hi. So my research I worked in the Geiger lab with the University of Chicago, so my research looked a little different because I did it the summer after COVID, so we were completely online. So ours was more of like statistics analysis. So what I did was we were working on breast cancer risk calculations and using mammograms instead of MRIs to get more accurate risk analysis because mammograms are typically the standard treatment for women just to get screened and then MRIs are a lot more expensive. So make that more accessible for people, so I spent a lot of my time using a program that the lab gave me to do analysis of different mammograms and then I had a partner in the program who was working with MRIs and we worked together to use textural features from mammograms and then perform statistics on it, compare it to the MRIs, and then make conclusions from that about how people determine their overall breast cancer risk from that.

Thank you. Tyler.

Hello. So my name is Tyler. I participated in the 2022 cohort. So I'm currently a freshman at UChicago. My project revolved around investigating differential health impacts in sexual and gender minority populations. So we had a longitudinal study of individuals that we wanted to study and we had them answer questions, just like interview questions for qualitative and quantitative data. We also took blood plasma samples and blood pressure. So my work did a lot of wet lab analysis.

We did a lot of Eliza Assays in order to ascertain whether individuals had COVID, whether individuals had certain levels of pro-inflammatory markers within their blood. And then we also ran that through a statistical model with the other data that we collected in the analysis in order to see if certain environmental factors contributed to detrimental health effects. In these sexual and gender minority populations, we wanted to see on the translational level or on the societal level what sorts of environmental features may specifically pertain to minority populations that may cause them to have worse health outcomes later in life.

Thank you. Joel.

Hello. So I was in the 2023 cohort at Northwestern University in Dr. Claire and Dr. Khan's Lab and my project involved ER negative breast cancer. There's the idea that gene expression would be a prominent marker in this estrogen receptor negative breast cancer, which generally has less treatments available and not many of the treatments that are available target metabolism which this lab focuses completely on lipid metabolism. They theorize that by introducing a PHGDH inhibitor.

They would eventually be able to reduce the changes in gene expression, and there's a project that by introducing a H3K4Me3 inhibitor or essentially inhibiting histone methylation, that you would be able to reduce the changes in gene expression. So I spent the eight weeks just running a few experiments with the PHGDH inhibitor and the histone methylation inhibitor and then analyzing the data with my genes. At the end, I was able to find the conclusion that it did work which speaks volumes to the future research in lipid metabolism and how we can use that in histone or in ER negative breast cancer treatments.

Thank you Joel. Savindi.

Hi, I'm Savindi. I worked in the Prashanth Lab at UIUC here in Urbana-Champaign. And we looked at hypoxic ignition breast cancer cells, and we were looking at long non-coding RNAs that were induced under hypoxia which is basically low oxygen levels. And we were looking at cancer metabolism and how certain long non-coding RNAs might have some sort of role in cancer metabolism. So I was working in a lab, a wet lab pipetting reagents and stuff working with bacteria and cell lines.

And we did a lactate assay, looking at lactate production after hypoxic treatment of cancer cell lines to see how much more lactate acid is produced after we induce expression of certain long non-coding RNAs. And so we could see whether certain long non-coding RNAs could have a role in cancer metabolism, what could be oncogenic and what isn't oncogenic. And from there, MyLab could take those more oncogenic long non-coding RNAs to study later. So was more in that finding what are the long non-coding RNAs process.

Analucia.

Hi. So I was part of the 2023 cohort in the University of Chicago. I worked with Dr. Yang Chen and Dr. Yang Too. So my research was on nutrients effects on capsules, which are cancer associated fibroblasts cells within a tumor microenvironment. We wanted to see if there was a specific nutrient that would inhibit tumor growth. So I created spheroids which are three dimensional tumors and whether or not there was a specific nutrient that was reducing this tumor growth and, there was histidine. But we also did many other things. I centrifuged cells, I froze cells, I helped also my mentor with small projects. So it was just a various amount of things that I just did.

Thank you. Anne.

Hi. So I was part of the 2023 cohort and I worked in the Geiger lab at UChicago. And so my project was focused on triple negative breast cancer, which is very difficult to treat because it can present in a lot of different ways. Especially if you want to give someone immunotherapy for instance, you need to know which immune cells that were in the tumor. And to do this, there are two different kinds of imaging techniques that you can use and one is very time and cost effective but doesn't give great information, versus the other is extremely expensive and time consuming but can allow for the identification of specific immune cells.

So my project was focused on coding correlation matrices in Python to see if we can identify immune cells using the less precise imaging technique, just by wavelengths that are inherent to it. So I actually had to learn how to code in Python first, I didn't know how to code. So I did that and we discovered that there may be some correlations that suggest that you could potentially identify b-cells and/or macrophages which isn't a complete tumor microenvironment but is definitely helpful if you want to reduce time and cost of imaging.

Thanks Anne. Alexis.

Hi. I'm Alexis. I worked in the Beta lab at the University of Chicago. And I worked mostly in a wet lab environment. And so my lab focuses on histo-tripsy which is an ultrasound therapeutic. And so I worked on developing a chronic blood clot model in order to test this therapeutic on cancer patients. And so what I did was I was making a benchtop acute blood clot model because we realized that this is not a good model for older blood clots that cancer patients may develop. And I was making in-vitro chronic blood clots and we started with a surgical sealant to seal and we made these blood clots with porcine blood and we tried to predict how they would react in the femoral vein of a pig because it is very similar to that of a human. And so we developed these blood clots in order to guide the labs future research.

Thank you, Alexis. Daniel, who you may recognize from his epic performance in the sack bag race.

Hello. I'm a senior currently and my project focused on the pathology of certain-- we were looking at the pathology of certain cells or sorry, certain cells in the muscle. Looking at their genes and I ran simulations on I think it was Python and using databases from other areas. This was a dry lab, so on the computer I ran different tests to see which types of mutations in the cell would cause it to be more cancerous and in the end I created a 3D model that showed the areas that are the most dangerous if mutated and that can cause cancer.

Thanks Daniel. Emaan.

Hi, everyone. I'm part of the class of 2023 at researcHStart. So I worked specifically at Northwestern University with Dr. Backman and my mentor Emily. And my project was heavily wet lab based, so I was really at the computer except for drawing ROIs, but that was still fun. So my aim was to identify whether the use of two different treatments had resulted in greater cell lethality and I focused on colon carcinoma cells or just colon cancer in general. And this concept is basically referred to as synergistic lethality, so that's what I was observing. And the protein that I focused on was SMC2, which is structural maintenance chromosome two.

And to conduct my research, I used CRISPR-Cas9 technology which is a form of biotech. And this allowed me to edit out a specific part of the protein, which is SMC2 found in the condensin complex. And I also combined that with chemotherapy, specifically oxaliplatin which is the most effective chemotherapeutic agent for colon cancer. And to really just see if there was any difference made, I used the CPWS microscope, which is partially spectroscopic microscopy that Dr. Backman actually even created, so that was really cool. I used this because I could really focus in on the chromatin structure which actually cannot be observed using a regular light microscope, is one of the only or just one of the only microscopes that can really observe chromatin structure. And my lab focused on chromatin structure.

So after conducting cell treatment and just cell culture, I would use CPWS to see if synergistic lethality occurred by observing chromatin structure. So that was my project and as far as results, we did see slight increase in cell lethality, but it wasn't really significant to the point where we would really focus in on it. Though it did raise concerns for the other part of the condensin complex which is SMC4 which actually has very little research done on it. So if I were to continue this research, I would really focus on the other part of the condensin complex. And in regards to this relation between chromatin and the SMC proteins, we found that without SMC2 or just the removal of SMC2 which CRISPR really helped with, chromatin structure would be highly dysregulated. And that would just impact not only just cancer cells but just your normal healthy cells. So that was my project.

Thank you. Chantal.

Hi. I'm Chantal. I did researcHStart over the summer. This summer at UIC specifically at the Wang lab which they're a wet lab and they specifically focus on integrative and RNA biology. What I did, I worked closely with the graduate student. He was my mentor and he pretty much guided me all the way through. And my project was focused around using CRISPR technology to target cisplatin resistant genes which cisplatin is a common drug used in chemotherapy. So essentially what we were doing is we were finding genes which we found under a lot on My lab's website and tried knocking them out using CRISPR which is a gene editing technology. And with my results, we weren't able to finish it because we are only given eight weeks, but I'd still say it was a wonderful experience. And I got to learn a lot about just how being in the lab works.

Awesome. Thank you. Please go ahead and put your questions in the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen there for our panelists. I just wanted to start with-- if I were sitting in this audience thinking about applying to this program, I would be pretty intimidated after hearing from all of you. Just hearing you talk about the research, the words that you're using, the skills that you just said that you've applied to this work and going back to one of the first questions that we had, could you talk a little bit about where you were at the start of this program, how much research experience you had, and how prepared you were, what you would need to be prepared for an experience of this kind to be successful. And that would be open to anybody.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

You can go ahead.

OK. So my lab was very dry lab. I mostly coded with R, it's a programming language that I had never used before. So before researcHStart, I had done a few research projects on my own but not with an actual faculty member. So that was mostly using Python. But using R was completely different, I had to learn the entire language, but I definitely had really great members to guide me through. So I started from ground zero basically.

And then it was only in the last few days where I really got to use my interest in biology to actually make meaningful conclusions from what I found throughout all of the coding process. So I think you really don't need any skills before going into the project, you just need an interest and you need to have that passion to keep learning and that drive because that's really what's going to get you through and it's going to allow you to learn a lot of different skills that can be applicable in later research opportunities.

I also wanted to quickly add on saying that I had no experience especially because I was a rising high school senior. I had no experience with working in a lab or just let alone ever going to a lab ever in my life. So I would highly recommend or encourage everyone even if you're applying and having gone into researcHStart. Just conducting literature research is so significant. I had no knowledge of whether that's-- I focused in on the chromatin structure or just the condensin complex. I didn't know anything about that because my bio classes never really covered that as much.

And just conducting literature research by, for example, if your lab has or any person of interest has ever published any research, it's so important that you go through it, annotate anything. It's honestly really fun to if you really put your mind into it. It's fun finding out all these advancements in medicine alone or just research. So definitely focusing in on literature research for the first two or three weeks really helped me understand what I was doing and why I was doing what I was conducting in the lab every day.

I would say, I mean I came in with a little bit of research experience, but I think the things no matter where you're starting, you're going to have to adapt and learn new things. I feel that coming into this program you're not really expected to know a lot about your topic or have a lot of experience in general, it's really about showing initiative and really being not afraid to ask questions. I feel like that's the scariest thing is, I don't want to sound dumb. I don't want to look all these people who you think are so amazing and smart because we all have gotten to get into this program, but it's really just about having the space to grow and allowing yourself to be a beginner and start somewhere and just ask lots of questions and bother people until you learn things and not be afraid to figure it out.

Anybody else? So we can move on to some of the questions that we've got going on the Q&A.

I think can add one thing about the research that you end up doing. I am someone who's interested in biomedical engineering, but ended up in a lab that was more focused on cancer biology. So a nice thing about this program is that you can explore other sides of cancer and medical research. And I think just allowing yourself to explore different interests and learning how the research process works and not getting too intimidated by a topic you might know nothing about or not have any experience in, I think that's more of a blessing than a curse. You get to learn more and it's really nice to just grow and learn from incredible people at your lab and also with the people in your cohort, they're also incredible brilliant people. It's a great experience.

I definitely second that.

All right, great. Let's start with the Q&A. So we have a question from Sarah. Does each site offer all six of the lab categories, research categories?

I think I could answer that one quickly. So we're talking molecular mechanisms or cancer imaging or whatever. I would say, for the most part that, yes, all five sites would have somebody at that institution doing that kind of work. There are certain strengths at each institution. UIUC for sure engineering is a massive strength at that institution, UIC I think does really phenomenal work with population based research, those kinds of things. But if you are interested in particular area, it is very likely that we would be able to find you somebody at whatever site.

And also to comment on that really quick. It was actually really cool the very first day of the program here at UIUC last year or this year, 2023. Just the first day we literally got together, we met everyone in our cohort, and then we walked everyone to their lab and so we all walked around campus together and it was super cool just to see, oh my, I didn't realize that all of this was here, all of these different diverse topics. We went to the RGB, which is the Institute for genomic biology which is this center on campus, and then we went to Edward E Madigan building which is a biotechnology. We went to all the different research places and you see this diverse research and then I was in engineering and so it was just going around and seeing how diverse it is. I think it was pretty spread out.

That's great. So another great question; how did a day look like in the program?

I can talk about this a little bit. So for me, I would get to my lab around 9 every morning and I would sit down and I'd get some work done and I maybe have a conversation too with my lab supervisor because I worked with her more closely than my mentor. And then over lunch, sometimes we'd have debrief group, actually my debrief group was with Rosie. And so I would go to that for lunch and we would talk about-- it was often what we were talking about how to do with our presentations and just advice for that. But it was also really great to hear how everyone else's research was going.

And then I'd go back to the lab and do some more work. And then something that I got to do that was really cool was, I was in medical physics in the Department of Radiology. So there were these like weekly seminars that once a week I would go to and it'd be like a lecture about some kind of medical imaging modality. So I'd get to sit through that which was always super cool. And then I'd head back and continue on my project. And then Wednesday afternoons were programming for us. But it's just you get a lot of work done and then you go to all sorts of cool things throughout your day.

Mine was really pretty similar to that. I would spend most of my time with my mentor. I would get there maybe around 8 or 9, a little earlier sometimes, but she didn't really mind. I would get in the lab and I would also read. I would start off by reading so I had an idea of maybe of what we were doing. And then she would just take me around, show me different things we were doing. In the beginning, I was shadowing her for the most part, but then towards the middle, and the end, she would leave me by myself in some areas. Obviously there was somebody else there, but I was doing most of the work myself.

During lunch, sometimes I would eat with her, we would go get sushi, which was something that came really popular for us and we actually really enjoyed that time because we just got to know each other. I really liked MyLab and sometimes I would also have lunch with the other people from my cohort and it was actually really nice because we talked about our research and things like that. And then after that, I would just return to my lab and then just work on the different projects or sometimes I would also help her with reading because she also had smaller projects on the side. But overall, I feel like it was just such a great experience.

Anyone else?

Adding on, each institution has their own programming as well. So Northwestern on Wednesdays we had a lunch together right after we had a tech workshop. So we were working on a separate bioinformatics project. So we were learning more of the coding skills, the dry lab skills that people who were in wet labs didn't really experience. And then we also had faculty seminars so people would come and speak to us about their work, a lot of different surgeons, but also people involved in global health. So we had a variety of different perspectives that definitely allowed us to understand cancer research in a more interdisciplinary way.

So mostly my day started off at 8:00 in the morning and for the 2023 cohort at UChicago, some of us would normally meet up in the bookstore and so we would keep that social interaction and we would just be people and also share our research and how it's going. And then we would normally start at 9 in the morning in our labs. And I think every day was a different experience because some days I would be in my white coat all day, and some days I would just be reading all day.

But I think it's a really good experience to be with medical students, undergrads, and grad students. And you are held at the same standard and so I really do think that it's a really fun experience to be able to interact with all these people. And also like Anne said, we can take advantage of all these courses that they are offering and even these debrief groups they also allow us to improve in our research and support each other. So we have a really good support system in this program.

All right. Let's move on to the next one. This is more of an application question. Will only two recommendation letters be accepted or will we be able to have more recommendation letters from different credible sources?

Do not send us more than we ask for. Just two.

Thank you. This is another great question, what is the biggest takeaway from your experience?

I would say you need to believe in yourself because my research failed after the first two weeks, and so if you're not OK with failure, that's going to completely destroy you. But you just have to be ready to get back up and get back to work.

I would agree with that. And I would also say asking questions. This is something that I did so much and MyLab actually was so welcoming and they actually loved those questions. At some points, they were just very impressed and something that they did give me, they gave me a notebook to have all my calculations or different things in there. And it's something that really helped me because sometimes when I was doing a certain process and then I forgot a step, I would just look back and it would just all come back. So I feel like writing down your notes and asking questions, it's really nice.

For me I would-- oh sorry, you can go ahead.

All right, thanks. I would say that definitely adding on to that point on asking questions and communicating with your mentors also helps you find out about opportunities in the field that they're interested in. So for example, in my lab, my mentor knew about a specific sexual and gender minority conference that was going around in Chicago at that time, so I was able to attend. And because my PIs was involved in organizing that event, I was able to go to that scientific conference and volunteer for free.

And so I was able to get to know that position and was able to attend because you have a lot of freedom in the program. Throughout the day, if you're not doing bench work or lab work or attending required programming, you're allowed to do whatever you want to do. So I was able to attend that session throughout the three days that it was going on, and that opportunity would not have occurred to me if I didn't have the courage to speak up and ask about what opportunities are available. So not only questions about finding out what's going on within the lab, but also what's going on outside the lab as well was really helpful for me in that process.

For me I would definitely say that I've never wanted to pursue cancer research specifically more than ever. I've always emphasized that to other people that I talk to now after the experience. And then also in addition, just looking at it from the academic aspect, I never knew how big cancer really was in people's lives. It's more than just the biological implications of the disease on the human body. It's more of the effects of something like cancer on the body after post treatment. And that's not just our physical health, but that's our mental health too.

And then addressing crisis such as the opioid crisis, which is pretty prominent within communities in the South sides of Chicago and even far North as within my own communities. And just addressing that during the research program specifically in MyLab held a lot of value to me, and because of that, I've not only want to pursue laboratory research for cancer, but also clinical based research. And I think I really learned a lot about what cancer really means other than just the biology of it within the human body itself.

I would also say take every opportunity to learn from things you liked and didn't like. Everything that happens, every part of your experience is valuable to you. In my lab there are a lot of things that I really enjoyed. I enjoyed a lot of the wet lab stuff, a lot of the cell culture stuff, and then also and a lot of the analyzing data as well. And then I also realized for myself that I wasn't a material science person, I liked engineering but not in that sense. And there was actually another grad student in that lab who was actually in synthetic biology which is exactly what I want to do.

And so it was you find things that you really enjoy, things that you do and then you also you get so many broad experiences so you also learn about, oh how do you feel about speaking, public speaking. How do you feel about all these other elements of your experience as a researcher that you might not or going into medicine or engineering whatever, things that you didn't expect to learn and you get all the positive and negatives and like that all teaches you about yourself.

All right, we're going to move on. So one or two of you could respond to this from our alumni. Which week number did you feel you got up to the learning curve?

I want them all to hold up fingers.

At 8 weeks.

I love that.

We'll see some 10s, I think. All right, I see six, five, six, so this is when you felt like you got your stride.

That's a good one. See it's all different, I mean, mainly in the middle but it takes a bit, it takes--

How steep was the learning curve for you all?

Vertical.

I love that, I love that.

Which is OK.

It's OK because everybody's different. Everybody's different. You're all coming in from a different parts and different backgrounds so that's wonderful. All right, do we have projects focused on anatomy or physiology or is it all just bio? Rosie.

So I mean, I think not gross anatomy in terms of just identifying structures or anything. I'm trying to remember there was one student a while back who was able to go to part of a dissection I think, or something. This is before COVID, it was a long time ago.

I think you're right.

I can't remember who it was, but so there are some things like that but is more leaning towards the biological research side of things I would say.

Some physics, we have had people with chemistry labs, biochemistry.

All right, I'm going to keep going. So what courses did you take the best prepared you for this program?

I took bio before IB Bio and IB chemistry, but something that I did that I say would prepared me for this was that I emailed my PI and told him, hey I'm joining the program, do you have any research papers that I can read to prepare myself. And that was something that did help me as well as just-- but also he also didn't really expect me to know much, so I did use my bio, but it wasn't like I had to be very, very prepared.

Adding on to that-- oh sorry.

You can go, you can go on.

OK. Thank you. Adding on to that. Most of the time, the classes that you take don't really prepare you for what you end up researching. I mean, for some people, that is the case, but most of the time when you join a lab, you're starting almost at zero. Basic biology is probably going to get you, but a lot of the literature that your professor or your mentor is going to give you is going to help you a lot with understanding what are you researching, what are you trying to look at and understand. So it's just having that interest to learn and that's how you get far. Not what do you already know at the start. You're going from here to here, not going here, if that makes sense.

I would probably build onto that and just say that the content of what you're learning in school does not matter as much as the skills that you build up in taking hard rigorous classes. So my best advice is to challenge yourself and to make sure that you're taking the hardest class load that you can manage. And I would say that advice also goes beyond high school as well. In college, if you want to do research, usually there's opportunities to do it whether it's in your major or not.

And it does not matter if you have experience in the topic, it matters if you have the skill set to be able to navigate through challenges and to be able to get used to a new atmosphere and a new sphere of knowledge. So I feel like getting a sense of those skills and just being willing to feel like you have the space to fail and try again and be resilient, I think that's more important than what you're learning and the knowledge that you currently have.

Great. All right, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Sorry.

All right, go ahead.

Really quick. Working up to reading papers, academic papers really can be a lot mentally just to be working through that. And I think some sites do how to read papers and get used to that, I think our site did that. But if you're also feeling overwhelmed by-- I think for me actually it was really nice because I took a microbiology class, a bio class that I had about immunology.

But just if you're just trying to learn about the basic topics and you have no experience, you can even just find YouTube videos that introduce you to the topics, you can work up to those papers. And then you can sit with those papers and have some of that very basic background knowledge or it could be books or just credible sources and then you can go into the more dense reading feeling a little bit more prepared.

Thank you. All right. I'm going to combine a couple of questions because I think they're all together. So the first one is, do students ever work together in the program? The second one is; what does programming look like? And the third one is what are the hours of the day, do they vary, and do you ever bring work home or is it strictly on-site? It's more programming slash do we all work together.

I can talk about ours. So I was pretty much 9 to 5 every day and that was just something that was nice to have a routine and also it is a big learning curve. So you're going to want to have all that time in the lab. And then what programming looks like? So for UChicago, I think it was Wednesday afternoons. We would all get together, we'd have some lectures, and we did community centered projects together. So it's like the majority of your time is in the lab but you do have programming interspersed throughout the week.

So my hours were normally 9 to 4, but sometimes I would be there from 9 to 6 and this is because my experiments were in intervals of three hours and so it just depends on what you're doing on that day.

Adding on to that, it really depends on what you need to do that day. Sometimes you're in the lab for most of the day if you have a lot of experiments to do or sometimes I didn't have any experiments to do because my cells were incubating for that day. So I ended up reading at home or at the library on campus. So it really depends on what's happening in the lab, at least for a wet lab. I can't really speak on dry labs, but it's very flexible day.

For dry lab. My research went with me it was in my computer, so I could really just choose my hours whenever I wanted to. But I tended to go to the lab around 9:30 to 5 every weekday and then if I was running a program or if I was really interested in figuring something out, and sometimes I would work on it at home. I think especially towards the middle of it when I started getting the hang of I was working at home whenever I had free time because I was pretty interested. And even now sometimes I go back to the project because it's ongoing. I think research is a little different from what you learn in high school in that you're not learning established knowledge, you're creating new knowledge. So there's always a next step.

I would like to also add. Someone asked about how much of your work is independent?

Mine was entirely independent. I think I just asked questions if I need help on coding.

So I would like to point out a difference between working independently and working alone. Just because you are self-directed does not mean that you're not allowed to self-advocate for yourself and to ask questions and to communicate with your mentors, that's extremely important. So by independently, I think we mean you have to be self-directed and you have to have the wherewithal to know, oh I need to have x, y, and z. I need to set up a schedule for myself, it's not necessarily that you're going through this process alone.

For sure. You also have mentors that are assigned to you, so if you have any questions, you can always ask them and honestly they want you to ask them questions.

All right, we do have some application process questions. So this is for our group. So I'm going to go through them. What are you looking for in a personal statement in the application process? And then there's another one, what in your applications-- oh I'm sorry, this is probably for you guys. Although I think we can answer this too. What in your application sets you apart from the pool from applicants? That could be a little bit of a double question here. What would make someone competitive, a competitive applicant?

OK, so I did say that every site runs their admissions review separately. I think I speak for all sites generally. So I would say the most important thing that we care about is your enthusiasm for this program and being really clear about what you're hoping to gain from it. So we do not particularly care about your GPA, we don't particularly care about the courses that you took. Those are some tools that we use to place you in a lab and to understand how much support you'll need throughout the summer.

The most important thing for us is that you've taken the time to think about why you want to spend your summer doing intensive cancer research. So for some of you, you have a very clear idea of what you want to do and how this is going to get you there and research is part of this and you're going to do this. And so you can do this in college and that's great or you have a really big commitment to cancer. For whatever reason, we have a lot of applicants that have a very personal connection to cancer unfortunately.

But this is something that's really motivating to them. That's why they want to be a part of this program. We also have applicants who are like, I don't know what I want to do. This sounds cool, I just want to have the opportunity to actually do this, to be in this environment and have this experience and that's what's going to help me. All of that is fine. We just need to know from you how you're going to benefit from this program. And how you're going to benefit from this program in ways that you haven't been exposed to otherwise.

So if you are someone who is already coming in with research experience, you already spent last summer working in a research lab, you're going to have to really convince us that this is going to be additional benefit to you somehow that you can't get elsewhere. If you were someone who's never had research experience, that's great, that's really who this program is designed for. So I would say this number one thing that we're looking for, a couple of pitfalls to avoid when you're answering these application essays and they're pretty short they're pretty straightforward. The first pitfall-- oh but I had this on the tip of my head like it is yesterday.

I can jump in if--

Go for it. I teed you up and then I lost my mind.

Don't just restate the program highlights to us, that's a big thing that we see sometimes is we want to know what you will gain from this and how this program will help you. We already know what the program is because we run it. So you don't need to tell us you're excited for the seminars, you are looking forward to being in a lab those things. Tell us why those things are important to you to help you with where you want to be. I also saw a question I think about if you need biology classes ahead of being in the program. And we know that the different high schools arrange the biology, chemistry, physics sequence differently, so that's not a thing that will limit you from being able to get into this because we know that that is the case.

Also just real quick, I mean, we've had a couple questions about the interviews and about applications. I mean, we want to really get to know you. And I mean, you aren't all about your curriculum and what you do in school, you're a lot about what you do outside of school, what your other interests are. I mean we do take that into consideration too. I mean clubs you're in or your other interests.

So we want to just learn about and how this program would really enhance what you want to possibly do in the future. So, I mean, don't feel like I only need biology classes or I only need this, I mean we want to make sure we really get to know you and what you can really get out of this. So don't have to have this and this, yes that's great, but we just want to make sure that you're going to get a really good experience.

Any of our alumni you're remembering back to how you approached those application essays or the application itself or their interview, do you have advice for people or things that you would have done differently or probably not because you all got in but reflecting on this?

Feel like I can speak to this one, so I think one thing that set my application apart was my dad had cancer, and so I, his doctor, was at University of Chicago. And he was actually one of the people who was influential in the program and did give a seminar throughout the summer. So I think if you have connections, definitely leverage them. Even if it's just emailing one of the alums after the call and asking them more about their experience, I think networking is not something I would have known what to do or how to do it when I was a junior and senior in high school.

So I think it's a very terrifying thing, but I think any connections you have if you can leverage them somehow or just if it's-- both Ann and I were in the Geiger lab, you've heard that name drop twice. If you can find someone in the Geiger lab and reach out to them, ask them about their experiences, and you can name drop that. I think everyone is passionate, everyone has the same general experience. So if there's a way you can set yourself apart, that goes beyond a basic level of information, I think that's super cool. And it's more fun for Megan and Rosie to read.

So over the summer we had many opportunities to network and meet new people. And the question I got the most from these new people is; why are you here? Why are you spending your summer doing research? And I think that's the most important thing to consider when doing your application; your why.

Adding on to that, oh sorry.

No, no go ahead.

Adding on to that, the why is super important. I mean, it's hard to think about the future and you don't need to have everything planned out at all. A lot of college and high school is exploring and stuff and even research is exploring and getting new experiences. But a lot of that is part of the why. You're here to explore and see if you like research. At least that was a big thing for me. I'm interested in going into research, and research that helped me see what is that, do I actually want to go into researcHStart, oh, not researcHStart, do I actually want to go into research?

The answer is; yes. And that's a great thing. And the answer could be no too. Bad results is still result, it's not bad, it's actually good because now you know what you want to do or what you don't want to do earlier instead of wasting time in college figuring out that you don't want to do this. I think the researcHStart staff people would agree that even if you don't like research by the end of this, that's also good to figure out, it's like you're getting new experiences and that's the great thing about researcHStart.

I think that's a really great point. I mean this is like a stepping stone for everyone. I mean whether you go into this or that, I mean, we just want to make sure that you're successful wherever you end up going. So I agree with that. And as in connecting with certain labs or anything, I mean don't feel like you need to know someone right now. I mean that's OK, it's OK if you don't know anybody right now to connect with right away. I mean, as Maya said, even if you connect with one of our alumni, I mean that would be great, that would be really, really a wonderful advocate for you. Just to give you some advice if you needed any, I mean during either the application process or the interview process.

I mean either way, I mean, any of them I'm sure would be more than happy to help you, give you some advice or help you along with this process as well as any of us. I mean we are all willing to help answer any questions be there for you. So I think we're getting to-- I don't want to take tons of time left because it's already been over an hour. So let's get in through the rest of these questions because we have seven more that have been posted. So I want to make sure we get to everybody's. So the next one is; during your time in the lab, what is your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it? I'm sorry, and that would be great. I just want to get like one or two of our group because we want to get this going right Megan.

So I'll be really quick. I didn't know how to code, so I had to learn how to code. So the biggest challenge for me was figuring that out and learning to advocate for myself and ask questions, but also learning how to navigate that by yourself because you can't always be asking your mentor constantly help. So a big part of it for me was learning how to balance, looking things up on like coding websites, and also being like, hey, this is really specific and I have some help with this. So that was the biggest struggles and how I worked with it.

That's pretty much how all of college works by the way. So that's--

So the next question is, could you talk about the research interest of clinical and experimental therapeutics and the molecular mechanisms of cancer and the difference between the two of them. And Rosie, can you give us more information about the different sections that's available to us. So maybe just a little bit of a--

So again it's going to overlap. So these are just broader categories. Each lab is very different and overlaps in different ways. Clinical and experimental therapeutics is more with drugs that already exist and seeing sometimes it's repurposing drugs, sometimes it's seeing how patients respond and tracking that. Molecular is more working with cells, looking at a protein pathway, typical wet lab stuff, and can also include drug screens so there's an overlap between theirs, both can include drug screens so that's one way that they connect. Was there a second part to that question?

Yeah, and I already said it.

Well I see another one that relates the cancer prevention is going to be more of a dry lab experience than a wet lab.

And, I mean, don't feel you need to really choose shoes. I mean this is just an idea of what you're interested in. I mean, we've had students that are like, I really want to do this and then between mentors, between where you choose, I mean sometimes it doesn't always work out and they're like, hey this is the best experience ever. So don't feel you need to definitely know exactly what you want to do. I mean we just want to get an idea to be able to put you in to a lab where you would be interested in. But don't feel like this has to be the way it is. So this is from Nick, would you say you've made lasting connections with the people you've met? Nick I think that has happened. Whether that be with your mentors or friends you've made in general. This is a good question because this is what we're about well partly.

Definitely yes. I had lunch with Joel almost every day and we still talk to each other. Even though we're at different colleges right now, we still text each other, give each other updates. And also with my PI, I'm still in touch with her. I'm actually in two labs right now at school, and it's building on some of the research that we did at researcHStart. So I sometimes ask her if I can continue the project or if I can ask her for help on some coding issue or if I could have access to some data sets. So definitely that connection is still there if you leverage it.

It's the same for me. I still talk to the people in my cohort. We still text about colleges and stuff like that. And actually my PI, was the one who wrote one of my college recommendation letters and I still message him and sometimes he's like, if you need any help with anything, just let me know. My mentor the same. I feel like I just connected with them and the people in there, so it was just they helped the experience just be 100 times better.

Great, a couple, I think this goes together. Our leadership skills are important and how did you prepare for your interview for yourself? So I think this can go to both our group and as well as the alumni. So any comments?

I would say leadership is very important because you need to take initiative on your project and ask questions if you have any. And I think that is leadership. You're taking advantage of the opportunities that you have and you're leading your project.

I think of it as being a return of investment, so it's a lot of work for the PI and all of the mentors to train you and bring you up to speed, and you want to be able to contribute back to the lab. And I think that taking initiative is a very crucial part of research, and it's a good way to show that you really care about what you're doing and that you really want to advance the knowledge, and the state of research there, and that you want to help the lab.

Another way that you can just show that you're taking initiative and you're taking this seriously it's just listening, just being someone who says I will come in every day and I will listen and I will just absorb everything that's given to me and just have conversations, just having conversations with everyone you meet and just gaining those experiences. You're just showing that you are here to show up and you're making the most of it, and I think people really appreciate that you are showing that you're grateful for this experience and you're doing everything you can to make the most of it.

How did any of you prepare for your interview?

I talked to someone who was in research dept before, asked her what kind of questions did she get for advice for the interview. And one of the big things she told me was just know your why and just be yourself, show your interest, show your enthusiasm and you're drive to do the research, come into the lab and explore and that sort of thing. I mean, it's nerve wracking, that's true. I think before the interview, I tried to calm myself down and get all the nerves out and you're probably going to still be nervous during the interview. But the people there are here to just hear your story so just show your story basically.

Great answer. So one last one is, did anybody encounter any issues with the commute?

So I had a two-hour commute daily.

Why are you saying this?

And so I didn't really have any issues. But it was really just at the beginning because I'm from the suburbs and I was like how do you use the CTA bus? And so sometimes these buses would not come on time, and so you need to know what to do next if it doesn't show up.

Also I would definitely Google the location of the sites you are applying to. So at least for the Northwestern one, it's not Northwestern undergrad, it's Northwestern School of Medicine which is downtown. So you need to know how to get there, and for me I was either biking which was pretty consistent or taking the CTA which was not so consistent. But it's pretty reliable, most days, on the way back it could be a little tough.

I would specifically recommend going early on the first day just that you can find the location of your site. I arrived an hour early into Chicago because I was also in the Northwestern site. And because I also live in the suburbs, I like don't know my Cardinal directions and I walked in the wrong direction for like 20 minutes and that buffer time was really useful. So please just go early.

I'm going to butt in with the answer. We got one more question about interviews, whether they're in-person or online. That might depend on the site. I will tell you that UChicago deliberately does them in-person because we want you to have the experience of coming to campus. So you can ask yourself, is this something I want to do every day for eight weeks in the summer? So Alexis decided that two-hour commute was worth it. We think it's really important for you to have that experience and also say parking at most of these campuses is really, really, really challenging.

So there is one more about homework slash things to do out of the regular hours. Did any of you really experience that or?

I think I can talk about this. For me, I ended up doing a lot of my work in the lab, but sometimes I would have to read more literature outside of the lab, just to understand a lot of concepts because my lab was specifically more about concepts than the actual lab. The actual lab, piping reagents and working with the cell lines was actually really simple. So I ended up reading a lot.

Also the very first day and the first week, I will say that there were a lot of lab trainings I had to do. I think the first day, I just spent like-- no it was the second, well there was the orientation day. The second day I was just at home doing trainings all day. And so I think just getting through all the safety protocol stuff was important. That went outside of the normal hours I guess.

And then after that, it's just maybe a little bit and definitely especially if you have readings to do or especially during crunch time near the end where you're trying to finish your poster, you're trying to-- or if you have a presentation or whatever you're doing and getting all that stuff finished, getting your data finished, your graphs everything. That can be stressful I think. You might have homework depending on the lab, but you could also accomplish a lot during those hours during the day.

Chantal did you have your hand up?

I was just going to say that for at least the first two or three weeks, I was doing readings just to catch up on what my lab was doing because I didn't have experience in research before. So I was just doing readings after work hours and even then overall I feel like my project was really interesting and overall we're all interested in our project. So I feel like it didn't really feel like homework it was more fun to do.

Thank you. I'm going to wrap us up here. We could go on forever. A lot to say, a lot that these young people have learned. A huge accomplishment for them to get through this program and so I'm so excited to see all your faces and thank you so much for coming and sharing your experience. So just sharing this screen, once again if you have more questions that are related to the application process, here is the website and the email and that phone number will take you right to the amazing Ms. Maggie so she will be happy to help you with your application questions. Applications are due January 22nd, we look forward to hearing from you and hopefully welcoming you to our campuses this summer. So thank you all and have wonderful holiday.

Thank you.