At Great Falls College MSU Friday, the future of science was on full display. Eight high school and college students wrapped up their summer internships at McLaughlin Research Institute where they worked alongside top scientists, postdocs, and research assistants.
“We have eight interns this year, and I have to say, it feels almost like graduation, just a celebration,” said McLaughlin Research Institute CEO Dr. Renee Reijo Pera.
During the internship program, they’ve studied many areas including Alzheimer’s disease, macular degeneration, brain health, and chronic wasting disease.
Claire Earl is a 2021 Great Falls High School graduate. Now a junior at Columbia University in New York, she plans on going to medical school. Her internship focused on ‘Improved Mouse Models of Human Disease.’
“It's interesting to see how the bench work at the lab will translate into clinical medicine or research, and that's what I'm interested is in clinical medicine,” said Earl. “So seeing how this research can be translated to that is really interesting.”
Emma Guter is entering her senior year at Great Falls High. She says her internship study of ‘Mouse Models for Investigation of Neurogenerative Disease’ will serve her well when she also pursues a career in clinical medicine.
“I think this was a great experience to just see the different sides of the medical field and how that can translate to what you do in office and how these techniques are used in the real world for real medicine,” said Guter.
For 67 years, the McLaughlin Research Institute has been welcoming summer interns. For the past two years, the internship program has included a two-week bootcamp.
“It allows you to teach really intense two week session on methods, technologies to make sure that everybody's up to that, up to the same speed. Then they can go into laboratories,” said Dr. Reijo Pera.
McLaughlin is already looking forward to next year's crop of interns.
The application process opens in December and runs through March.
Stipends, made possible by community supporters, are available for students accepted into the program.
“I feel good about the future of science and just the future in general when you see the students,” said Dr. Reijo Pera.
“I definitely recommend the internship is great learning opportunity,” said Earl.
“You don't really know if you're going to like it until you do it,” said Guter. “I think this is a great chance for kids to be able to do it and try it out and see if they like it for sure.”
“I think our future is really looking good for science, but also for our community,” said Dr. Reijo Pera.
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