Four Local Students in The Jackson Laboratory's Prestigious Summer Program

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Bar Harbor, Maine -- Four of the 32 high school and college students participating in The Jackson Laboratory's Summer Student Program this year are "home-grown talent" from Hancock County.

Lukas Jordan of Ellsworth, Emily Miller of Lamoine, Rebecca O'Donnell of Southwest Harbor and Chloe Taub of Castine were selected from more than 300 applicants, representing top high school and college students from across the nation.

Lukas has finished his first year at the University of Maine, and this summer is in the laboratory of Dr. Joel Graber, a physicist-turned-computational biologist. Lukas' project is creating a computer program that produces visual representations of the slight variations in proteins known as isoforms.

Emily, also at UMaine, is working in the laboratory of Dr. Kyuson Yun, who studies pediatric brain tumors and cancer stem cells. Emily is the secretary of the Maine Society for Microbiology and recently went the American Society for Microbiologists' 110th annual conference. She says she applied to the Jackson program because of "the great reputation the Lab holds worldwide, the opportunity to work with exceptional scientists, and the incredible environment I am surrounded by every day."

Rebecca, a rising senior at Mount Desert Island High School, spent last summer riding a bicycle across the United States with her family to raise funds for diabetes research. A type 1 diabetic herself, Rebecca is working with Professor David Serreze, a leading diabetes researcher. Her career goal is to become a physician, specializing in obstetrics.

Chloe will start at Stanford University this fall after graduating from Ellsworth High School. Having already conducted a summer of research at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory last year, she will be continuing research she started as an academic-year intern at Jackson, working on a reproductive biology project with Dr. Anne Greenlee in the laboratory of Professor Bob Braun. Chloe, who hopes to become a physician-researcher, recently won a Maine Education Association Clyde Russell scholarship.

For 85 years, the Laboratory's Summer Student Program has given high school and college students the chance to conduct biomedical research and develop laboratory skills under the mentorship of a Jackson Laboratory scientist. About 80 percent of the program's more than 2,200 alumni have gone on to careers in medicine or biomedical research.

The Summer Student Program also boasts three Nobel Prize-winning alumni: Drs. David Baltimore and Howard Temin, who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and 2009 Laureate Jack Szostak.

The students live at Highseas, a Jackson Laboratory residence overlooking Frenchman Bay, and throughout the summer participate in hikes, camping and rafting trips and other outdoor activities.

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution and National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif. Its mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and education for the global biomedical community.

Contact(s): Joyce Peterson, 207-288-6058

For information on automatic email delivery of news releases (journalists only), please send an email request for details to news@jax.org. Please address other inquiries to pubinfo@jax.org.

Media Relations, Communications Office

The Jackson Laboratory

600 Main Street

Bar Harbor, Maine 04609-1500

Phone: 207-288-6058 (journalists only)

Main Jackson Laboratory phone: 207-288-6000

Fax: 207-288-6076

Email: news@jax.org

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