REU Site: Research Opportunities in Systems Biology

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This REU Site award to the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), located in Seattle, WA, will support the training of 10 students for 10 weeks during the summers of 2022-2024. It is anticipated that at least 30 students, primarily from schools with limited research opportunities or from an under-represented group, will be trained in the program. Students will learn how research is conducted, and many will present the results of their work at scientific conferences. Assessment of the program will be done using an online instrument. Students will be tracked after the program in order to determine their career paths. The program aims to support undergraduate students to develop interest, build confidence, and generate the knowledge to pursue careers in scientific research, specifically systems biology. All students will participate in a research project developed with the guidance of a mentor; be included in all events at ISB, including lab meetings and retreats; participate in ongoing professional development course that includes deepening research skills, learning systems biology specific skills, and exploration of the responsible conduct of research; and complete a poster with the support of their mentor and other ISB staff to be shared at an ISB-wide mini-symposium. Potential projects include a variety of wet lab focused, computationally focused, and mixed wet and computational focused research. Potential research projects include: quantifying diatom resilience in changing oceans, using microbial communities to characterize denitrification, in silico pathogen invasion assays, developing new technologies for analyzing extracellular vesicles, and network analysis of a stochastically activated bacterial metabolic pathways. Students with a demonstrated interest in fields such as systems biology, computer science, information science, applied mathematics, and/or engineering are all good fits for the types of research projects available. Students are selected based on their interests and the steps they’ve taken to pursue those interests, including courses taken, skills developed, and other activities. More information about the program is available by visiting https://isbscience.org/about/careers/internships/summer-undergraduate-research-experiences-program/ or contacting Dr. Jen Eklund at jen.eklund@isbscience.org. This award is supported by the Department of Defense ASSURE Program in partnership with the NSF REU Program.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.