Science students research for future

It is a Friday evening deep in the heart of South Campus, and
rather than heading into Westwood to catch the latest movie or grab
a bite to eat, biomedical researchers are reviewing academic
journal articles and designing research projects.

These scientists are the members of the Howard Hughes
Undergraduate Research Program, a group of research-oriented
undergraduate science students working toward future placement in
graduate and doctoral programs in scientific studies.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland funds the
two-year program. Admission is extremely competitive ““ only
seven or eight UCLA students are chosen each year.

For these students, the opportunity to involve themselves in
such a unique program is worth working weekends.

“The timing isn’t favorable, but I personally look
forward to it,” said Omid Hariri, a fourth-year neuroscience
student who is also working on his master’s degree through
the departmental honors program.

Created to promote critical thinking and research, the focus of
the program is not to teach through textbooks, but rather through
primary sources like research articles in academic journals. This
is an uncommon teaching method in undergraduate science, said
Michael Carey, director of both the research program and the Gene
Regulation Program in the UCLA Cancer Center.

The research program aims to teach undergraduates how to analyze
and present scientific research and literature from academic
journals, a key skill most incoming graduate students have little
experience with, Carey said.

“The beautiful thing about this program is that they make
you read primary literature. You read it and the mentors expect you
to understand it fully,” Hariri said.

In order to gain experience with academic presentations and
research, the Hughes scholars participate in myriad activities.

Scholars are part of a seminar devoted to both presentations of
the students’ research projects and also to a journal club,
which discusses academic articles from medical and scientific
publications.

The presentations are especially important.

Lily Wu, an associate professor in the urology department, says
the most important lesson the program teaches is confidence.
Students agree.

“As a graduate student, whatever kind, you always have to
start talking about your research. When we present our research, we
don’t feel like undergraduates. It really does prepare you
with all the communication you will need,” Hariri said.

“A lot of people think you don’t need communication
skills (in science), but you do. Your data is no good if no one can
understand it,” Hariri said.

The seminar is taught by Carey, Wu and John Colicelli, vice
chair of the biological chemistry department. All three participate
in the selection of new members, guide student research and provide
career advice.

Students also have individual faculty mentors, who guide their
research and help them along the way.

Hariri said the mentors can be harsh and expect a lot, but
always have the scholars’ best interests in mind.

A combination of research and career guidance gives these
scholars an edge on their competition into further programs of
study.

The program recently sent alumni to doctorate and medical
programs at Stanford, Johns Hopkins and the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.

The program’s documented success has other schools
modeling their programs after UCLA’s.

“I’ve been told that this is one of the top programs
in the country,” Carey said.

Last year, the scholars participated in the Annual Science
Poster Day, where students campus-wide made posters based on their
research projects. Six of the 14 Dean’s prizes awarded for
excellence on the posters were won by Howard Hughes Scholars.

“It’s a pretty rigorous process. Most of the
students who apply for it have to have some kind of research
background,” said Roman Deniskin, a fourth-year physiological
science student and Howard Hughes Scholar.

“In my case, I’ve been doing research since 11th
grade at UCLA. It’s pretty intense stuff,” he said.

Along with the seminar, scholars must spend at least 30 hours
performing research each week during the summer. The Hughes grant
provides for stipends for summer research.

Reflecting the competitive nature of the program, the minimum
requirements for participation are stringent, especially for
science students. Scholars must have the required 3.4 GPA, boast a
recommendation from their research mentor, and have a clear-cut
research proposal and scientific postgraduate or career goals.

Students who meet these qualifications and are admitted into the
program continue their work throughout the year. What they gain
from the experience is visible on a number of levels.

“There’s lots of interaction at meetings, and you
get to meet famous scientists. I met a Nobel prize winner
recently,” Deniskin said. “I do mostly individual work
for the program, but you share with others, tell them your
techniques, and get lots of constructive criticism.”

Deniskin’s research focus is genetics ““ he is
working on a protein known to be involved in benign tumors.

“What I’ve done is find mutations within the protein
gene itself which causes it to interact with other proteins,”
Deniskin said.

Through his research, he has recorded characteristics of the
protein that have not previously been identified.

Many scholars are published in journals, some repeatedly.
Deniskin’s research was recently published in Molecular
Microbiology.

Deniskin and other scholars break the stereotype that as a
research fellow, they stay cooped up in a lab.

“I was on the UCLA crew team,” he said. “We
used to have a volleyball player also. He’s at Yale Medical
School now.”

Carey said UCLA is planning on initiating a new minor in
research sometime in the next year that is based on the Howard
Hughes Program.

“The idea is to get more and more students involved in
research,” Carey said.

This year’s Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Program
will hold their first seminar Friday.