University: Rutgers University
Hometown: Hillside, NJ
NIH Research Project:
Study of Cerebral Mechanisms for Auditory Recognition Memory in the Rhesus Monkey
Mentor: Mortimer Mishkin, Ph.D.
Section on Cognitive Neuroscience
National Institute of Mental Health
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In my home country, Ecuador, the accessibility to research is readily none, so by age 16 my sole interest was becoming a physician. During my senior year of high school, however, I learned-through an anatomy and physiology professor-how countries like the United States support scientists who spend a lifetime on finding alternatives in medicine and cures for rare diseases. This was a huge inspiration to me, so I committed myself to sharing my life with this kind of people.
Today, I am majoring in biology at Rutgers University. My research in cell biology has focused on the spindle dynamics of mammalian epithelial cells, their effects during cytokinesis (cell division), and ultimately, their possible link to cancer cell dissemination. However, because my interests are still broad, this summer I am interested in experiencing a type of research that examines science at a "system level."
As a UGSP Scholar, under the mentorship of Dr. Mortimer Mishkin, Laboratory of Neuropsychology at the National Institute of Mental Health, my research focuses on the mechanisms by which visual and auditory memory works. I find this type of research very exciting because the learning and memory mechanisms uncovered in the research on monkeys serves as the basis for a search for homologous mechanisms in brain-damaged humans. In contrast to cell biology, I am being exposed to a more cognitive type of science.
Through a joint M.D./Ph.D. degree, I hope to become a physician-scientist, someone who understands both the scientific and medical languages. Being able to determine the needs of patients and carry the unknown answers to the laboratory bench is a gift that I vehemently aspire to learn. |
