Genetic Engineering

GE students have the opportunity to participate in paid summer internships at Cedar Crest College and at other universities through out the United States. Here are just a few of their recent internships:

Summer 2011

Katie Brown (’12) had an internship with Blue Sky Biosciences doing contract molecular biology.

Lauren Mascibroda (’12) was in the Undergraduate Research Experiences in Cellular and Molecular Biosciences Program at Carnegie Mellon University, where she worked with Dr. Alan Waggoner studying Floppy Fluorescein: A novel fluorogen exhibiting pH sensitivity.

Molly McQuilken (’12) was an Amgen Scholar at the University of Washington in Seattle, and worked with Dr. Beth Traxler studying the type IV secretion system of Burkholderia cenocepacia, which is a pathogen that often infects people with cystic fibrosis.

Kirsten Nole (’12) participated in the The Food Science Summer Scholars Program at Cornell University and worked with Dr. Ramón Mira de Orduña studying malolactic bacteria, commonly used in fermentation to soften the texture of a wine.

Shannon Ronca (’12) participated in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the lab of Dr. Pinghui Feng studying Human Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV).

Lizzy Sunderhaus (’12) did an internship in the Office of the Ohio Attorney General.

Summer 2010

Jamie Dombach (’11) interned under Dr. Yingying Tang, who is the head of the Molecular Genetics team at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York.                 

Sarah Klein (‘11) and Molly McQuilken (‘12) received American Society of Microbiology (ASM) Undergraduate Research Fellowships and carried out research in the lab of Dr. André Walther at Cedar Crest College. They presented their findings at the General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans, LA in May 2011.

Beth Bachert (‘11) spent her summer at Duke University doing genetics research on recombination in Drosophila pseudoobscura with Dr. Mohamed Noor.

Elizabeth Saunderhaus (‘12) did research at the University of Washington in Seattle as part of the Amgen Scholars Program.  She worked with Dr. Joshua Akey doing research on polymorphisms in the human genome.

Kayla Hager (‘11) spent the summer at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Summer Undergraduate Research Program in the lab of Ming-Ming Zhou studying the C5 Domain of EZH2 and VEFS Domain of SUZ12 From Human Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2).

Summer 2009

Gina Dougherty ('10) interned at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) Forensic Biology Laboratory with their Molecular Genetics Group. She worked on natural death cases, specifically sudden infant death syndrome and sudden unex- plained death syndrome (SIDS/ SUDS).  
 
Danielle Pilla ('10) was an intern at Thomas Jefferson University during the summer of 2009.  She, did research in Dr. Michael Root's laboratory studying HIV glycoproteins and the escape mutations that confer resistance to entry inhibitors.

Christina Matika ('10) was the recipient of an 2009 undergraduate research fellowship from the American Society for Microbiology.  She carried out research in the lab of Dr. André Walther using yeast molecular genetics to study telomeres and DNA double-stranded breaks.  She presented her findings at the General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego in May 2010.

Beth Bachert (‘11) worked on an NIH funded research project with Dr. Richard Kliman at Cedar Crest College studying the effect of gene expression on codon usage in Cryptococcus neoformans.