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Summer Research
There are plenty of opportunities for biology and other science students to conduct research over the summer.
Summer Science Research
Each summer, there are opportunities for Beloit College students to work with science faculty on their research or through the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program. These opportunities are either 4 weeks or 8 weeks in length. Students receive college credit and a stipend for their work. All participating students live on campus.
The Summer 2023 research opportunities are listed below. All of these projects are part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program and will run for 8 weeks from June 5 - July 28, 2023. Students will work with a faculty mentor to develop a research question and participate in the weekly 2-hr professional development seminar (1 unit of special project). Fellows will receive a stipend of $5250, to help offset the costs of summer tuition, and room and board. To review the available projects, click on the topics below. For more details, contact the principal investigator for each project directly. For general questions about the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship program, contact Dr. Tawnya Cary (caryt@beloit.edu).
Students interested in working in other STEM disciplines should check the respective discipline website or contact individual faculty members.
Projects
This project is part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program.
My research is in the area of antibiotic discovery, with the goal of discovering new molecules that could be used as antibiotics (medicines to treat bacterial infections). I collaborate with the international Tiny Earth network of scientists and students working to mitigate the antibiotic crisis. This work draws upon skills and techniques from many disciplines: organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, microbiology, biochemistry, and genetics. Students involved in this research project will be starting from previously identified bacterial isolates from soil that demonstrate antibiotic activity; experimental techniques include extracting, separating, and characterizing the chemical metabolites produced by soil bacteria.
- Project Duration: 8 weeks (06/05/23 - 07/28/23)
- Prerequisite Courses: CHEM 117: Introductory Chemistry and BIOL 208: Microbiology
- Preferred Courses: CHEM 230: Organic Chemistry
- Number of Student Positions: 3
Principal Investigator
Kristin Labby
Details and Application
Apply for this opportunityThis project is part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program.
New antibiotics have not been discovered for over 30 years and the healthcare system needs to find treatments for rogue bacteria. The best place to find new antibiotics is in the environment, since microbes produce antibiotics to protect themselves from neighboring bacteria. This study will map out strategic locations around campus and aquatic areas across Beloit to collect microbial samples and screen for antibiotic producers. The experiments will follow the Tiny Earth soil project design for the novel use of local water sources. We will collect microbes in the environment, grow bacterial cultures, screen for antibiotic production, and characterize bacteria through sequencing and metabolic tests. This is your summer opportunity to discover a solution to a major healthcare crisis.
- Focus Areas: Biology
- Project Duration: 8 weeks (06/05/23 - 07/28/23)
- Prerequisite Courses: BIOL 208: Microbiology
- Preferred Courses: N/A
- Number of Student Positions: 2
Principal Investigator
Kristina Blanke
Details and Application
Apply for this opportunityThis project is part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program.
Disease has been implicated as a contributing factor in the ongoing decline in global amphibian population sizes. In addition to disease, another factor threatening global amphibian populations is environmental contamination. A leading hypothesis to explain these declines is that environmental pollutants weaken amphibian immune function such that subsequent exposure to pathogens results in increased disease susceptibility and death. Therefore, measures of immune function provide a way to analyze how contaminant exposure may be linked to disease susceptibility. Previous research has found that polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB-126) exposure during the tadpole life stage (but not the juvenile stage alone) decreased innate and adaptive immunity in juvenile frogs following metamorphosis. However, the mechanisms underlying this life-stage specific immunotoxicity are not well understood. We will expose tadpoles to PCB-126 and employ molecular techniques like polymerase chain reaction (PCR), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and/or RNA sequencing to identify genes and proteins that might be dysregulated in response to PCB-126. The findings of this research will help elucidate the mechanisms involved in PCB-126 toxicity in tadpoles.
- Focus Areas: Biology
- Project Duration: 8 weeks (06/05/23 - 07/28/23)
- Prerequisite Courses: Any 100-level BIOL course and CHEM 117: Introductory Chemistry
- Preferred Courses: BIOL 247: Biometrics
- Number of Student Positions: 1
Principal Investigator
Tawnya Cary
Details and Application
Apply for this opportunityThis project is part of the Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Program.
Prediction of heart disease at early stages is considered to be critical to manage and control it. Several techniques in machine learning (ML) and data mining can be employed to predict the presence of heart disease. The main goal of this research is to develop a model based on traditional ML and data mining such as Decision Trees, Support Vector Machines, Artificial Neural networks and Bayesian classifiers in order to predict the presence of heart disease and to assist physicians in maximizing accuracy for identification of the heart disease severity stage. In addition, we will also employ deep learning techniques (such as CNN, DNN, and RNN), Transfer Learning (TL), Federated Learning (FL), and compare their performance with the traditional ML techniques. In this research, we will use the database sets mentioned below for more than a thousand of instances that include important clinical, physical, laboratory and historical patient data: Coronary heart disease historical data | IEEE DataPort (ieee-dataport.org) Heart Disease Dataset (Comprehensive) | IEEE DataPort (ieee-dataport.org)
- Project Duration: 8 weeks (06/05/23 - 07/28/23)
- Prerequisite Courses: CSCI 204
- Preferred Courses: N/A
- Number of Student Positions: 2
Principal Investigator
Eyad Haj Said