Year 2

The CIRM-STAR High School Summer Research and Creativity Program is an 8-week summer science research experience that takes place at the USC Health Science Campus. This program is integrated with USC’s existing STAR Summer Research program. CIRM-STAR focuses on stem cell and developmental biology. During week 1, students complete a 5-day course on stem cells which prepares them to conduct stem cell research. Each CIRM-STAR summer intern then joins a research team at the CIRM USC Broad Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Once the students are placed in their respective labs, they conduct research as a member of a scientific team which includes USC faculty, CIRM pre-doctoral, postdoctoral and clinical fellows, as well as CIRM Bridges to Stem Cell Research interns.

Weekly forums:

Week 1: Training Course on Stem Cell Research
Week 2: Ethics and Oversight of stem cell research
Week 3: Journal Club I: Bioinformatics and Literature Searching
Week 4: Developing a professional science career, communication skills and networking opportunities
Week 5: Intellectual property, biotech, regulatory affairs relevant to stem cell therapies
Week 6: Stem cells, media and public perception
Week 7: Journal Club II: Critiquing Scientific Articles
Week 8: Colloquium and Poster Presentation

CIRM-STAR Summer Intern Projects:

Ariana Gonzalez: Epigenetic Regulation of NANOG in Tumor-Iniating Stem Cells

Bryan Ruiz: Embryonic Stem Cell Self-Renewal Pathways Converge on the Transcription Factors Klf2 and Tfcp2l1

Chisom Onyea: Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cells: Promoting Regeneration in Aging and Alzheimer’s Brain.

Lisa Yanuaria: iPSC Derivation from Mucopolysaccharidosis type 1 (MPSI) disease mouse model

Omar Lopez: Relative Amount of Oct4 Expressing Cells in Fetal Murine Amniotic Epithelium with Age

Philbert Mach: Site Directed Mutagenesis of the Gene PHF6: A Study of Borjeson-Forssman-Lehman Syndrome

Shapatur Badhur: Identification of LGR5 as a Potential Stem Cell Marker in the Tongue

Viraj Bhakta: Impact of Allopregnanolone Analogues on Proliferation and Differentiation of Rat Neural Stem Cells

Yevheniya Shevchenko: The Role of BS69 in Maintaining Pluripotency

Aimee Mendoza: Elucidating the Function of Heregulin Signaling in Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Human Embryonal Carcinoma Cells