News Items
Our very own IMSD Scholars ( pictured above), Chrisopher Garcia and Katrina Colucci-Chang featured in the VT News under "$2.3 million NIH grant helps Virginia Tech students achieve dreams in biomedical research." Read more
National Academy of Sciences member, Dr. Scott Edwards, stopped by during his visit to VT to chat with our trainees. He is a Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Some of the advice he gave to our trainees was that "to become a good writer, develop a good reading habit." and also that "to survive the challenges of academia, it is not enough to have very high math skills: you should be able to survive the amazon (resilience is important in science)."
Shara Grant (IMSD 6th Cohort), conducted research as part of the Graduate Summer Opportunity to Advance Research (GSOAR) program.
From Shara:
"This summer, I had the blessed opportunity to perform research at the NIH in Bethesda through the Graduate Summer Opportunity to Advance Research (GSOAR). For this internship, I worked with Dr. Lauren Atlas (PI) in the Affective Neuroscience and Pain Lab (ANP) in the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). The lab uses a multi-perspective approach (i.e. autonomic psychophysiology, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)), to examine how expectations and learning influence pain and emotion, and how these factors impact clinical outcomes. I worked on a few projects including: Investigation of how autonomic indices (resting blood pressure and heart rate) and caffeine intake affect thermal pain tolerance and threshold; Effects of state and trait anxiety on learning and both physiological (skin conductance) and perceptual responses to thermal pain during a cue reversal task. The internship was truly a rewarding, enriching, and unforgettable experience. This is a great lab. I learned so much this summer and was able to network with several brilliant and inspirational people."
Dr. Gordon Laurie, Director of BTP at the University of Virginia, gave a presentation to our scholars entitled "Preparing the Next Generation of Biomedical Scientists: Novel Approaches to Diversity in Grad School." Dr. Laurie is the founder of the Biotechnology Program at UVA, where 33% of the program's currently enrolled students are from underrepresented populations. This program incorporates some unique opportunities for participating students including: a 2 to 3 month externship in industrial science, leadership development, and working with Charlottesville's Center for Open Science.