Coming out of high school, I already knew that I wanted to pursue biology, particularly how current advances in genetics and biotechnology are translated into medicine.
Macalester funded my travel to Washington, D.C., to present my research at the 2007 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Meeting.
—Ian Malm '08
During my sophomore year, one of my professors mentioned the Oak Ridge Science Semester, a study away opportunity that brings students from small liberal arts colleges to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for an intensive 15 weeks of research. During my semester at ORNL as part of Dr. Brynn Voy's lab, I was involved in an ongoing project looking into the relationship between obesity and type II diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis and other related co-morbidities in mice. When I returned to campus in the spring, Macalester funded my travel to Washington, D.C., to present my research at the 2007 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology meeting.
After my junior year, I participated in the Mayo Clinic Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. At the clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, I worked on cardiovascular genetics with patients for mutations in genes that we believed would confer susceptibility to dilated cardiomyopathy, the leading reason for heart transplants, or atrial fibrillation, the most common cardiac arrhythmia.
My Macalester classes and my research experiences at Oak Ridge and Mayo have deepened my interest in the medicinal applications of biological research and broadened my understanding of the field. I am confident that I'm graduating armed with the knowledge and experience I need to pursue my academic and professional goals.
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