Internships

Carnegie's Department of Plant Biology offers students the opportunity to engage in exciting, cutting edge research in a variety of fields through our Undergraduate Summer Science Program. The program is available to students from local colleges and universities for both summer and year round research. Summer only internships are available for students from distant colleges and Universities. The Carnegie Undergraduate Science Program includes: A summer seminar series for undergraduates and an Undergraduate Student Research Symposium. During the summer, students will also meet together and prepare presentations for the Undergraduate Research Symposium held at the end of the summer. At the symposium, summer interns present posters or short talks about their research to the department.

Students interested in an internship with the Carnegie Department of Plant Biology, should contact Leonore Reiser. Applicants from Primarily Undergraduate Institutions, women, students from underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. Summer internships typically span 8-10 weeks and include a stipend to cover living expenses. To be eligible for an internship you must be able to show that you are legally eligible to work in the US.

Summer 2003

This years interns/summer researchers at Carnegie Department of Plant Biology. In addition to undergraduate researchers, two teachers from the CPIMA Research Experiences for Teachers program are engaged in research in Carnegie DPB labs.

See See pictures from the poster session

Undergraduates

Thomas Yan

Lab:The Arabidopsis Information Resource

Bio:Thomas Yan is an undergraduate student from San Jose State University pursuing a degree in Computer Science. After graduation, he plans to continue studying Computer Science at graduate school and start a career in software development.

Project: During my internship at TAIR, I will be working on various programming projects. These projects include a Java interface for accessing internal functions of the Pathway Tools software, and the conversion of web pages to Java Server Pages (JSP).

Chris Tang

Lab: Grossman Lab

Bio:Chris Tang is third year undergraduate student studying biochemistry and cellular biology at Rice University in Houston Texas. In addition to working at Carnegie, he will be preparing to take the MCAT in August. He enjoys breakdancing, playing video games, playing sports, running, and laughing at funny jokes.

Project:I am working with Chlamydamonas in the Grossman lab under Jeff Moseley and Chung-Soon Im. I will be working with Jeff on Chlamydamonas' phosphate dependency and attempting to determine various mechanisms involved in phosphate uptake. In addition, I will create some mutants of Chlamydamonas by using RNAi (RNA interference) and make the constructs with Chung-Soon. These mutants will lack the ability to produce certain proteins that affect Chlamydamonas' ability to adapt to high light.

Monica Jain

Lab:Grossman Lab

Bio:Monica Jain is a graduate student in Computer Science at California State University, Hayward. She has done her undergraduate coursework in Computer Science from San Jose State University. Besides Computer Science, she has also completed a one and a half year track in Bioinformatics from San Jose State University. Her areas of interest include algorithms, database systems, and their application in Bioinformatics.

Project:As a Summer Intern, Monica will work with the Chlamydomonas bioinformatics team in Arthur Grossman's lab, collaborating with Jeff Shrager on several important projects, including: a) Development of post-assembly finishing algorithms that use EST and BAC sequences to fill in gaps in the Chlamydomonas genomic assembly; b) Development of a database 'cross-linking' website that enables researchers with Chlamy microarray data to interact smoothly with the JGI Chlamy Genome site, and with Duke's ChlamyDB; and c) Participation in a major Chlamy unigene assembly and microarray revision, planned for July.

Samir Kapadia

Lab:Bhaya Lab

Bio:I am pleased to be at the renowned Carnegie Institution of Washington as a summer intern under the guidance of Dr.Devaki Bhaya. As a student and permanent resident of New Jersey, I find the West Coast slightly more mellow and laid back compared to the fast-paced northeast. In that place, we are always scavenging for more hours in a day. Perhaps it is just me. At any rate, I am an entering senior and a Med School hopeful for next fall. However, it was in high school that I found my hobby and what soon became my forte-Science Research. I have had the pleasure of working in many laboratories in a myriad of disciplines with extremely talented scientists in different parts of the country. However faced with some unexpected responsibilities, I have not been in research since 2000. As a result, after a long sabbatical, I am back with a vengeance! I am eagerly looking forward to making a positive contribution to Dr. Bhaya's work and learn a great deal about cyanobacteria in the process. Thus far , Dr.Bhaya and her colleagues have made an environment conducive to such growth. I thank them for this opportunity. In the fall. I look forward to rejoining some friends and scientists at the Center of Molecular Medicine and Immunology in New Jersey to work on Multiple Myleoma cancer. This, as well as part time work, and wrapping up my senior year should be an exciting end to my undergraduate years. And who knows, hopefully I will make it back to Stanford as a Med student next year. Until then, I am looking forward to a productive summer at Carnegie.

Project:From the macro standpoint, the study of interest is related to understanding phototaxis in Cyanobacteria. However, the more targeted approach in venturing into this project will begin with aiding in the construction of a neutral site vector. This vector has many uses, including the ability it insert genes of interest into a neutral site of the genome. It will also contain a regulateable promoter, a versatile multiple cloning site (MCS), and a drug cassette marker. The development of this construct has requisite steps that include: design of appropriate primers, PCR techniques, cloning and isolation of plasmid DNA, followed by confirmatory restriction enzyme analysis and sequencing of the junctions. Upon completion of this portion, certain mutant versions of the putative photoreceptor will be placed in the MCS of the vector. The effect of the mutation will be assayed using motility assays and time lapse video microscopy.

Cathy Sun

Lab:Wang Lab

Bio:Cathy is a senior at Gunn High School in Palo Alto and discovered her interest in biology after completing an AP Biology course junior year. After high school, she hopes to attend college on the East Coast and major in medicine with the hopes of becoming a doctor. Currently, she is still exploring the field of science to find an area that she enjoys the most. She is an avid runner and a member of the cross-country and track and field teams. Additionally, she is a managing editor of the school newspaper and president of Youth Community Service club (YCS).

Project:Brassinosteroids are a class of plant steroid hormones that function in multiple physiological and developmental processes in plants. As an intern in Dr. Zhi-Yong WangbThe seminars occur weekly and the symposium is held at the end of their internships.s lab, I will be studying a nuclear protein, BZR1, in the brassinosteroid signal transduction pathway. BZR1 is known to be a positive regulator of BR signaling and can activate growth in Arabidopsis. Interestingly, BZR1 also acts as a feedback inhibitor for the BR pathway by inhibiting key BR biosynthetic enzymes. The growth activation function of BZR1 is evident in the phenotype of the dark grown bzr1-1D, dominant gain-of-function, mutant. The bzr1-1D mutant shows a cell elongation phenotype on the BR biosynthesis inhibitor Brassinazole. The light grown bzr1-1D mutant has an opposite, decreased, cell elongation phenotype, which demonstrates the effects of feedback inhibition on plant growth. I will be testing the effects of feedback inhibition on plant development in the bzr1-1D mutant. First, I will attempt to rescue the bzr1-1D light grown phenotype by applying exogenous BRs to the bzr1-1D mutant grown in the light. Second, I will cross the bzr1-1D mutant into a BR overproduction mutant, das5-D, and another dominant gain-of-function mutant bes1-D. These experiments will give us a better insight into the function of BZR1 feedback inhibition in the BR pathway.

Jeremy Lee

Lab: Chris Somerville Lab

Bio:

Project:

Sarah Letson

Lab: Barton Lab

Bio:Sarah Letson is a rising second-year at the University of Chicago in Chicago, IL. When she is not traveling around the country and world finding new learning experiences for herself, she lives with her parents,17-year old brother, Brittney Spaniel, cat, and dozen chickens in Newtown, Connecticut. Sarah has not yet declared a major at the U of C, and is somewhat unsure of what she would like to concentrate in, although she has been interested in biology for quite some time and finds plants captivating. Her interests include ballet, playing her flute, and a new-found infatuation with learning her first programming language, C. Sarah spent the 2001-2 academic year in northern Germany as an exchange student and is always looking for German-speakers that allow her to keep up language skills (Also, red mal mit mir wenn du Deutsch sprichst!)!

Project:Sarah will be working in Kathy Bartonb s lab, under the supervision of Brenda Reinhart. Her project will be on the PHABULOSA and PHAVOLUTA mutations, which code for HD-Zip III proteins and, in their strongest effects, cause small, radialized, rod-shaped leaves on Arabidopsis plants. She will be screening plants from mutagenized seeds for the curly-leaf phenotype, and performing real-time PCR to find the mutants with higher levels of HD-Zip RNA, which she will use for further study, time permitting. This is Sarah's first time working in a laboratory outside of a school context, and she finds the level of dedication and knowledge among her co-workers amazing. Sarah will be here for 10 weeks this summer.

Hamideh Emrani

Lab: Barton Lab

Bio: Bio: I am a second year student in Biology at Foothill College. My plan is to enter Stanford University as a transfer student and get my Bachelors degree there. Then, I am interested in attending the Dental School of UCSF and study dentistry. I have already studied two years of dentistry in my home country, but because of the difference of educational systems, I had to restart from the beginning.

Project: At Carnegie Institute I am working under supervision of Dr. Pablo Jenik in Dr. Barton's Lab. We are working on an embryonic lethal gene called blueberry2. This gene causes Arabidopsis embryos to be stopped at their globular stage of development. Mapping this gene might be useful in finding genes responsible for the specific levels of embryonic development in Arabidopsis. We already know that it is on chromosome I. We are trying to map blueberry2 by the help of different kinds of molecular markers.

Dawnis Chow

Lab: Bhaya Lab

Bio:

Project:

Nathan Hsu

Lab: Wang Lab

Bio:

Project:

Teachers

Melanie Gee

Lab:Shauna Somerville Lab

Bio:For the past 2 years, Melanie has taught as part of the Teach for America Program, last year she taught Biology at Nash Central High School in Rocky Mount North Carolina. She is part of the CPIMA Research Experiences for Teachers program. After this summer, will be taking a break from teaching to work at Abbot Laboratories in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

Project:

Teresa Ramirez

Lab:Ehrhardt Lab

Bio:Teresa teaches Biology and Integrated Science at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Jose. Previously she worked as an intern at Syntex Pharmaceuticals in the Neurology Department Teresa is also a teacher for the San Jose Mathematics, Engineer, Science Achievement ( MESA) chapter, conducting experiments with students as part of an after school program for under-represented and low income students who are doing poorly in school. She is part of the CPIMA Research Experiences for Teachers program.

Project: