TRAINING
Training for High School Students
Hillman Academy Summer Program
Since 2019, the Aging Institute has welcomed high school students from the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Academy, an award-winning immersive summer program which engages high school students in cutting-edge research and career preparatory experiences. The program strives to provide students with hands-on research and mentorship opportunities, expose students to career and academic career pathways, and promote diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and careers.
Students in the Hillman Academy come from both the local Pittsburgh area and across the country to spend the summer being mentored by faculty members across the University of Pittsburgh. These students have regular social and educational program events with the full cohort of Hillman Academy Scholars, as well as activities specific to their site placement. The Aging Institute participates in the Hillman Academy as part of the Technology Drive X site, which includes other University of Pittsburgh and UPMC laboratories on Technology Drive.
Mentorship – Faculty members and their labs develop students’ scientific and technical skills through mentorship and exposure to on-going laboratory research. In addition to training students, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and other laboratory staff have the opportunity to practice and develop their own teaching and mentoring skills.
Tech Talks – At Technology Drive X, students attend weekly presentations by faculty and mentors about their educational background, career pathway, and current research. These talks are an opportunity for students to gain a greater understanding of STEM careers and to pose questions to faculty and staff in the field.
Work-in-Progress – Every Friday, Technology Drive X students present their on-going work to program mentors and other students in their cohort. These weekly meetings are an informal venue for the students to discuss their progress, develop oral presentation skills, and practice asking and answering questions about research projects. The summer program culminates in a written abstract and public presentation of the students’ research projects.
Summer 2023
In Summer 2023, the Aging Institute welcomed Hillman Academy four high school students and one undergraduate student from the Pittsburgh area: Vanessa Gonzalez-Rychener, Lucas Hertzel, Tabo Mkandawire, Sophia Song, and Lauren Weaver. These students worked full-time over the summer to complete individual research projects at the Aging Institute with oversight from faculty mentors and their labs:
- Vanessa Gonzalez-Rychener worked on a project entitled “Generation of Reporter Cell Line That Can Visualize Iron Responsive Molecule DELE1” under the mentorship of Shiori Sekine, PhD, and her lab, including Senior Laboratory Research Specialist, Ryan Houston.
- Lucas Hertzel worked under the mentorship of Beibei (Bill) Chen, PhD, and his lab, including Postdoctoral Associate, Travis B. Lear, PhD and Technician, Áine Boudreau on his project, “Determining the Subcellular Location of TFEB Degradation During Viral Infection.”
- Tabo Mkandawire worked on her project, “Pharmacological Activation of IRE1-XBP1s ER UPR for Host-directed Anti-coronaviral Therapeutic Development,” under the mentorship of Yuan Liu, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate, Travis B. Lear, PhD, and Technician, Áine Boudreau.
- Sophia Song worked on a project entitled “To Reveal the Mechanism of Clusterin Degradation Under Glucose-Deprived Conditions” under the mentorship of Yusuke Sekine, PhD, and his lab, including Senior Laboratory Research Specialist, Ryan Houston.
- Undergraduate student, Lauren Weaver, worked under the mentorship of Xiaojun (Jay) Tan, PhD and his lab, including Bo Lv, PhD on her project, “A Cytonuclear Translocation Reporter System Using Split-GFP.” Lauren also provided mentorship and leadership of her own in her capacity as a Resident Advisor for the program.
Archive: Summer 2022
In Summer 2022, the Aging Institute welcomed three Hillman Academy high school students from the Pittsburgh area: Elise Chu, Franco Alvarez, and Oluwatomisin (Tomi) Olaore. These students worked full-time over the summer to complete individual research projects at the Aging Institute with oversight from faculty mentors and their labs:
- Franco Alvarez worked on a project related to the effects of methionine on osteoblasts (“Effects of Methionine on Osteoblast Differentiation”) under the mentorship of Matthew Steinhauser, MD, and his lab, including Postdoctoral Associate, Tânia Amorim, PhD.
- Elise Chu worked on a project aimed at reducing replication of the coronavirus (“Using the Ubiquitin System to Reduce Replication of the Coronavirus”) under the mentorship of Beibei (Bill) Chen, PhD, and his lab, including Postdoctoral Associate, Travis B. Lear, PhD and Technician, Áine Boudreau.
- Tomi Olaore worked on a project to understand the relationship between proteins, mitochondria, and cancer cells (“PARL (Presenilins-associated rhomboid-like protein) inhibitor impairs mitochondria function and causes necrosis in cancer cells”) under the mentorship of Yuan Liu, PhD, and Xiaojun (Jay) Tan, PhD, and their labs, including Graduate Student, Qing Cao.
Program Leadership
Hillman Academy Leadership:
David Boone, PhD, Executive Director of Hillman Academy, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics
Joseph Ayoob, PhD, Associate Director of Hillman Academy, Associate Professor in Computational and Systems Biology
Steven Jones, Project Manager
Technology Drive X Site Directors:
Andrew Duncan, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology at McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Serafina Lanna, Project Manager at the Aging Institute
Current and Previous Aging Institute Faculty Mentors: Toren Finkel, MD, PhD; Beibei (Bill) Chen, PhD; Aditi Gurkar, PhD; Yuan Liu, PhD; Andrey Parkhitko, PhD; Shiori Sekine, PhD; Yusuke Sekine, PhD; Matthew Steinhauser, MD; Xiaojun (Jay) Tan, PhD
Contact
Technology Drive X:
- Andrew Duncan, PhD ǀ duncana@pitt.edu
- Serafina Lanna ǀ sml203@pitt.edu