SURE 2009 is off to a great start

This year, we have 86 fellows, placed in 30 different departments or research units. 26 colleges, including Emory and Oxford College, are represented. This brings us to over 1172 SURE students served since 1990. And this is also SURE’s 20th year.

This year’s program is funded by our Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant, with additional contributions from
• The SIRE program, Office of Undergraduate Education, Emory College
• the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and NSF’s FACES grant to the Graduate Division,
• the NIH, via its Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute
• the NIH, via the training grant held by the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics program (GDBBS)
• Concerned Parents for AIDS Research is supporting 5 students to conduct research with Vaccine Center faculty
• and a number of mentors from various departments

We would also like to recognize several Emory students who received awards to support their stipends:
Esther Yim, for her award from the National Fragile X Foundation
Brian Parton, who was awarded Jackson Award for Undergraduate Research in Physics and Astronomy
Carla Heyler, recipient of the first SURE / Emory Scholars award (honoring former dean Peter Dowell)

Above is a photo of today's activity, a day-long Research Ethics training where our students bravely fought to cure the dread disease Moralysis...

Emory student receives National Fragile X Foundation Award

Emory Undergraduate Esther Yim has been awarded a William & Enid Rosen Summer Student Fellowships via the National Fragile X Foundation. The award will help support Esther's participation in our SURE program.

Esther will be working with Dr. Gary Bassell, in the Department of Cell Biology. Dr. Bassell is a huge supporter of undergraduate research, so a big congratulations to him as well.

Should you wish to apply for this award next year, visit http://www.fragilex.org/html/request_for_application.htm

Undergraduate research authors: Please read

Undergrad researchers: see below and discuss with your PIs!

To highlight the research achievements of the next generation of scientists, on behalf of Jo Handelsman and the Senior Editors of DNA and Cell Biology, I invite you to submit papers to a special issue of the journal focused on undergraduate research. Many studies establish that conducting research is a critical part of attracting, retaining, and teaching young scientists. Undergraduates also contribute to research in unique ways. As novice researchers, many undergraduates are less confined by previous work and paradigms. Unlike graduate students, undergraduates receive their degrees whether their experiments work or not. Thus, they may be less afraid to ask questions, propose unusual experiments and instigate out-of-the-box thinking.

Science is about inquiry, not just about establishing knowledge - and we owe our undergraduate students the authenticity of the research laboratory. Please join DNA and Cell Biology in highlighting their findings and encouraging their efforts. All papers must be submitted by November 1, 2009 for inclusion in the special issue and at least one of the authors of the paper must have been a college undergraduate at the time the experiments were performed. For more information on manuscript submission, please see the journal website (www.liebertpub.com/dna) or contact the editorial office (dnacellbio@bact.wisc.edu).