SURF helps develop next generation of scientists
By Deborah Wormser
During a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), select undergraduates can expand their horizons working in the laboratories of world-class investigators during an intense, 10-week training program at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
From the organizers’ perspective, the various SURF programs are an ongoing experiment in controlled growth, said Dr. Nancy Street, SURF Director and Associate Dean of the UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. SURF programs, while continuing to expand, strive to remain small enough to provide a personal experience for mentors and participants.
“We are maintaining at 100 participants because you reach a point where you lose the opportunity to get to know the fellows individually if it gets much bigger than that,” Dr. Street explained.
The success of the program can be measured in several ways: The number of SURF students has more than tripled since Dr. Street became program Director in 1998. Additionally, two discipline-focused SURF programs have been added; 20 of this year’s fellows are in the Quantitative and Physical Sciences Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (QP-SURF) Program that celebrates its 10th anniversary this year and 13 are in the recently created SURF program devoted to kidney disease (Summer Undergraduate Research Institution for the Study of Kidney Disease, (SURISKD).
This summer, the Office of Diversity & Inclusion and Equal Opportunity held its second annual student intern mixer. The event provided an overview of educational programs offered at UT Southwestern Medical School, the Graduate School, and UT Southwestern School of Health Professions, as well as an opportunity to distribute 2016 recruiting materials. Next year, SURF will offer a SURF-Cancer Intervention and Prevention Discoveries track.
Ravi Srivastava, a master’s degree candidate in chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar in Gujarat was UT Southwestern’s first SURF student from India and its first S.N. Bose Scholar, part of a prestigious India-U.S. student exchange program named for the pre-eminent Indian physicist whose work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s led to a collaboration with Albert Einstein. The class of particles that obey Bose-Einstein statistics, bosons, is named after him.
Mr. Srivastava worked in the laboratory of Dr. Uttam Tambar, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, on a project to study the potential of using fluorescent, synthetic versions of a class of chemicals called diazirines to mark tumor cells in the body.
While the Texas food and the University’s weekly seminar series for fellows were unlike anything he had experienced, the most striking differences from his Indian education were personal: Dr. Tambar picked him up at the airport and listened to his perspective at lab meetings, Mr. Srivastava said.
“The student-mentor relationship gives a lot of independence, more than we have in India,” he explained.
Mr. Srivastava said he was struck by the maturity of U.S. students and changed by his experience. “I’m more serious, more responsible, and more reliable to myself since I’ve been here and they’ve treated me as an independent person,” he said.
That sense of responsibility is planned. “SURF participants are forced to take ownership of the project they are working on,” Dr. Street said. “Because of the great environment in the labs at UT Southwestern, these students learn a great deal about themselves and make tremendous progress during the 10 weeks. They are called fellows so that their mentors will think of them as young scientists.”
At the end of the summer, fellows present their work at a poster session.
Dr. Kenneth Westover, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and Biochemistry, started his research career as a SURF fellow, learning the basics of biochemistry in the lab of Dr. Michael S. Brown and Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, 1985 Nobel Laureates. The experience convinced him to become a physician-scientist.
“I had no experience working in an actual research lab prior to UT Southwestern,” Dr. Westover said. “The SURF program was much smaller back then, and I was very fortunate they accepted me and gave me a chance.” This summer, Dr. Westover hosted his own SURF fellow, Faviola Baez-Cruz from the University of Puerto Rico at Ponce.
Dr. Westover said he wasn’t surprised that Dr. Brown presented a seminar to this year’s SURF fellows.
“His enthusiasm for science, generous spirit, and consideration for younger generations of scientists permeates UT Southwestern and makes it a special place. It is one of the big reasons I wanted to come back as a faculty member once I had completed my formal training,” he said.
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Dr. Brown, Director of the Erik Jonsson Center for Research in Molecular Genetics and Human Disease, is a Regental Professor and holds the W.A. (Monty) Moncrief Distinguished Chair in Cholesterol and Arteriosclerosis Research, and the Paul J. Thomas Chair in Medicine.
Dr. Goldstein, Chairman of Molecular Genetics, is a Regental Professor who holds the Julie and Louis A. Beecherl, Jr. Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Research, and the Paul J. Thomas Chair in Medicine.
Dr. Tambar is a W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research.
