On July 18, fourteen students woke up, ate breakfast, and nervously prepared for their first day in their labs. They had all anticipated this moment for the past few months, and had read background materials, met their faculty mentors/principal investigators, and even toured their labs.
These students are all participants in the Summer Research Program who will do research at UNMC for 8 or 12 weeks. They come from some of UNMC’s closest Chinese collaborators: Shandong University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Tongji University.
A few had been to the US before on exchanges to other universities, but this was the first trip to the US or even outside of China for most of them.
They had chosen UNMC for various reasons. Some are looking for answers. Chaoran Ji from Shandong University says her Parkinson’s Disease research team in China "has a lot of troubles making an MPTP-induced mouse model. Dr. Howard Gendelman is an outstanding expert in Parkinson’s Disease study…. I’m sure I’ll find the answer here under his guidance."
Others are hoping to gain experience they cannot get at home. Yiqin Wang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University says that she chose UNMC to gain experience in a lab because "we don’t have formal lab training in our courses back in China." Also, "senior students who attended the program last year told me that it would be really rewarding to spend a summer here!"
When I saw some of the participants in the afternoon of the 18th, they had lost their initial nervousness and were immersed in tasks around the lab like they had been there for weeks.
One reason for this seemingly easy transition to the lab was the kindness and patience of their PIs and lab members. Rui Fang from Shandong University says that her Dr. Keshore Bidasee and a postdoc in the lab "teach me a lot about the specific details of each experiment." Dingfeng Liu from Tongji University says that she began her day by meeting her lab members and talking with her PI. "Dr. Peng Jiang gave me a small project to work on with Andrew [a research assistant in the lab]." This project helped her warm up to her time there. Deyue Liu from Shanghai Jiao Tong says, "For the first part of my research, I need to learn techniques to start my project. Everyone in my lab is willing to teach me and that really moved me."
Another reason is their projects. Ran Jing from Shandong University says, "I’m greatly interested in my project, and from the moment I began, I could feel my enthusiasm for research growing."
Finally, the participants found their PI’s and lab mates’ enthusiasm to be contagious. Xiaoyun Cheng from Shandong says, "Dr. Kaustubh Datta and his co-workers … think biochemical science is so beautiful that they always learn and investigate new things out of curiosity. They taught me not only skills of performing an experiment but also a serious attitude toward science." Chaoran spoke highly of Charles Schutt, a student in her lab: "I am inspired by his hardworking spirit and critical thinking. He sets a good example for me."
Since 2008, UNMC has welcomed more than 100 summer research students from our China collaborators. Around 10-15% of these summer students return to UNMC later as PhD or health professions students, or as short-term scholars.