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4 minute read
Inside the Lombardi Lab
By Donna Klinger
THE SCHOOL OF NATURAL SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS (SNSM) is committed to ensuring that students are prepared not only to enter practice careers but also to advance into research careers and doctoral-level studies.
This focus on student success is especially evident in the Lombardi Lab. When Assistant Professor of Chemistry Patrick Lombardi, Ph.D., heard that his lab had received a $433,784 National Institutes of Health grant, he immediately shared the good news with students who have conducted research in his lab and whose work helped win the award. Lombardi’s successful grant proposal, to better understand how the cell’s DNA repair machinery is recruited to sites of DNA damage, included important preliminary data collected from a research group of Mount undergraduate students.
The grant provides students increased summer research opportunities to travel to scientific conferences to present their work and learn from others, and access to experimental approaches with state-of-the art laboratory equipment. Lombardi says that the work of students in the Summer Research Internship Award program that SNSM has invested in was essential for his group to generate the materials and collect the data necessary for this grant application.
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Students in the lab
“In my three years at the Mount, I’ve noticed the tremendous positive effect that working in the laboratory over the summer has on our undergraduate researchers,” he observes. “By immersing themselves in the laboratory, students are able to master the experimental techniques that are necessary for their projects and become independent researchers. Given their proficiency in the laboratory, these students are then able to continue with their research during the academic year and can accumulate a significant body of work during their undergraduate careers. The laboratory skills and records of accomplishment garnered by these students make them strong candidates for external fellowships that enhance their scientific training even further.”
Funds from the NIH grant will support six undergraduate researchers working full time in the laboratory for nine week periods during each of the next three summers and fund equipment use costs at collaborators’ laboratories at Johns Hopkins University. Funds will also pay for reagents necessary to perform the proposed experiments and purchase additional cell growth and protein purification equipment to increase research capacity.
“I’m very grateful to the 20 students who have been part of our research group over these last three years,” Lombardi adds. “In August 2017, our laboratory, Coad 123, was an empty room with a wooden crate of unboxed research equipment. Through their hard work and determination, the students transformed that empty space into a functioning biochemistry laboratory. Eleven of the 20 students are graduating seniors this year, and it’s hard for me to imagine the Mount without them. While it will be difficult to see these lab members leave the group, I’m very excited for all the wonderful accomplishments that lie ahead in their futures.”
Of the seven student researchers who are in the first group of grant-sponsored summer researchers in summer 2021, six are new to the Lombardi Lab. Two of the undergraduates who have conducted research in the lab throughout this year have external fellowships this summer: sophomore Rita Anoh, who will be participating in the Caltech WAVE Fellows program in the laboratory of Douglas Rees, Ph.D., and junior Elaina Perry, who was awarded a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF REU) fellowship to study biomedical engineering at the State University of New York at Binghamton.
“Joining the research group early in their undergraduate careers gives the students ample time to become proficient in the molecular biology, protein biochemistry, and biophysical assays their research regularly requires,” Lombardi says. “Furthermore, the research experience these students accumulate during their years in the laboratory makes them better candidates for external fellowships during the summer.”
Several of the student researchers have racked up accomplishments in their undergraduate years. Anoh, who began working in the Lombardi Lab as a Summer Research Internship Award scholar last summer and continued throughout this year, recently was awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the preeminent undergraduate scholarship for students intending to pursue research careers in the fields of natural science, mathematics and engineering. Senior Julia Baer received a Goldwater Scholarship last year and was awarded an NSF REU fellowship to work at the University of Connecticut Avery Point in the summer of 2019. Senior Dhane Schmelyun spent the summer of 2019 working in the laboratory of David Ginty, Ph.D., C’84, at Harvard Medical School.
The graduating seniors provide evidence of Lombardi’s belief that early undergraduate research experience puts students on the path to success.
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Lauren Gray, C'21
Accepted a position as an analytical investigator at Minerals Technologies. She interned at the company in summer 2020 and winter 2020-21.
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Emmanuella Osei-Asante, C'21
Accepted a position as a research technician in the laboratory of David Ginty, Ph.D., C’84, Harvard Medical School.
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Kate Burke, C'21
Accepted a position as an ORISE fellow with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Viral Disease Branch.
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Dhane Schmelyun, C'21
Will pursue a doctorate in the chemistry-biology interface program at Johns Hopkins University.
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Julia Baer, C'21
Will pursue a doctorate in ocean sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz.