A ‘transformative’ summer abroad researching gut health
From left to right: Duván Rojas-García, Chris Casarez, Audrey Ferrand and Léa Magne
For Chris Casarez, a first-generation college student and senior biology major, the chance to study in France this past summer was a life-changing experience.
Casarez, from Balch Springs, Texas, was one of six UTA scholars who received grants for summer study through the University of Texas System’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program. Casarez spent his summer in Toulouse, France, working on a project aimed at developing a therapeutic screening platform for intestinal pathologies at the Institut de Recherche en Santé Digestive.
“The whole experience, from traveling internationally to getting to study with researchers from around the world, has really influenced my decision to pursue a career in science and technology when I graduate in spring 2024,” Casarez said.
The LSAMP Summer Research Academy Abroad provided selected students with a $4,000 stipend to offset costs related to a 30-hour per week intensive research experience. Additionally, each abroad scholar was given an additional $4,000 for housing, food allowance and international airfare.
“The LSAMP has demonstrated how collaborative efforts can reap large rewards and serve as an impressive example of statewide commitment to improving enrollment, retention, performance, and graduation of underrepresented groups that traditionally have not had access to higher education,” said Kayunta Johnson-Winters, interim director of the Office of Undergraduate Research at UT Arlington and an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry.
Kayunta Johnson-Winters is UTA's LSAMP campus director
During the program, students worked alongside nationally and internationally recognized professors performing supervised research and attending meetings related to their fields of interest. In addition, students received support to attend the UT System LSAMP’s conference, located at the University of Texas at El Paso, following the end of the research program.
The full list of UTA scholars selected for the 2023 UT LSAMP Summer Research Academy (SRA) are:
- Ana Ledesma Gonzalez, whose research project “Population Cage Experiment Dntf-2r and Ran-Like Retro-Duplicated Genes in Drosophila Melanogaster” was supervised by Esther Betran, professor of biology at UTA.
- Bryce Vilaysane, whose research project “Adjunctive Doxycycline Treatment Normalizes Blood Vessels in Central Nervous System Tuberculosis Mice” was supervised by Catherine Wei Min Ong at the National University of Singapore.
- Christina Nguyen, whose research project “Transcriptional Regulation of Lipoproteins Lpp1 and Lpp2 in the Nosocomial Pathogen, Acinetobacter Baumannii” was supervised by Joseph Boll, assistant professor of biology at UTA.
- Chris Casarez, whose research project “Development of a Therapeutic Screening Platform for Intestinal Pathologies: Gut on a Chip” was supervised by Audrey Ferrand at the Institut de Recherche en Santé Digestive.
- Colton Dry, whose research project “Confirming a Plasmid Using Colony PCR” was supervised by Piya Ghose, assistant professor of biology at UTA.
- Jeremiah Joseph, whose research project “Beat to Beat Blood Pressure Variability and Heart Rate Variability in Young Adults with Depression” was supervised by Jody L. Greaney, assistant professor of kinesiology at UTA.
The UT LSAMP is a national program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Since 2012, the UT System has been awarded nearly $10 million through two NSF grants to increase the number of underrepresented minority students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The UT system LSAMP program is a 14-member alliance comprising eight four-year colleges and six community colleges.