About Chris

Hometown:
San Jose, CA

University Partner:
University of California, Berkeley

Degree:
B. A. in Molecular and Cell Biology

Grant Partner:
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Senior Mentor:
Dr. Gregory Hannon, Professor

"I'm grateful for the opportunities to build friendships with a diverse group of passionate and intelligent fellow Steamboat Scholars and alumni. The opportunity to meet current leaders in other fields was eye-opening. The diversity of the Steamboat experience was the perfect complement to the science-focused URP experience, where I was inspired by the passion of the scientists at CSHL."

Scholar Background

Motivated by both his scientific curiosity and his desire to improve public health, Chris aspires to conduct biomedical research as a future physician-scientist. He spent most of his time as an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley working in Professor Jeremy Thorner’s lab, where he conducted experiments on a family of cytoskeletal proteins in baker’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, to investigate their ultrastructure in complexes and the kinetics of their filament formation. Chris received the 2008 Jesse Rabinowitz Prize, an academic achievement award given to one junior per year in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. Chris combined his high school interests in journalism with his interests in science and public health through his involvement in various student-run publications. Chris was a science and technology writer for the Daily Californian, and a copy editor for the Public Health Advocate.

Internship Description

Intrigued by the explosion of discoveries in the relatively new field of RNA interference (RNAi), Chris joined the lab of Professor Gregory Hannon as a member of the Undergraduate Research Program at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Chris's summer research project involved identifying small RNAs in complex with mammalian Argonaute proteins to see whether some small RNAs preferentially associate with specific members of the Argonaute family, which could illuminate the mechanisms underlying Ago2 mutant developmental defects in mouse embryos. In addition to working in the lab, Chris benefited from attending CSHL faculty talks and building his scientific presentation skills by presenting the results of his project to fellow URP participants, CSHL faculty members, and Steamboat executives.

Where are they now?

Chris is pursuing an M.D./Ph.D. combined degree at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's Medical Scientist Training Program.