2008 Summer Research Internships - June 9, 2008 to July 18, 2008
Applications will be open for 2009 in January.

By Stephanie Nardei
July 30, 2008

 

In a partnership between the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center and the BIO5 Institute, the University of Arizona KEYS (Keep Engaging Youth in Science) Research Internship is a six-week summer internship program for highly motivated high school students who have a strong interest in pursuing advanced education or training in the bioscience or biomedical fields. Funding for the paid internships came from a variety of sources, including the BIO5 Institute and the Joint Technological Education District.

Learning takes place under the guidance of the Outreach Director of SWEHSC, Marti Lindsey, and Nadja Anderson, the Director of the BioTech program at the University of Arizona.

The past summer of 2008 was the 2nd KEYS program. In 2007, the first year, there were nine students in the program, five of which interned with a SWEHSC investigator or researcher. In 2008 there were nearly three times as many interns. Out of 25 students, eleven interned with a SWEHSC investigator or facility director. Eighty-seven students expressed and interest, fifty-six completed applications from students with high credentials attending top-notch schools throughout the Tucson area.

The KEYS goal is to have the interns fully participate in the community of scientists at The University of Arizona during their six-week summer internship. Thus, the students learn to do both bench science, such as pipetting, gel electrophoresis, and PCR, and science literacy, learning to read and present research papers and prepare a poster for the culminating event of the summer.

This program gives students a jump start on real-world hands-on laboratory experience before they even enter college. This boosts their exposure, knowledge, insight and of course, self-esteem when going into the biomedical or biosciences field. Some students who are incoming UA freshman for Fall 2008 were offered and accepted employment in the same laboratories they interned with this summer, thus continuing their training.

The KEYS program received local media attention in both the Tucson Citizen in 2007 and the Arizona Daily Star in 2008.

The program is a partnership between multiple programs across The University of Arizona (UA) campus, coordinated by the BIO5 Institute and the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center (SWEHSC), in collaboration with the Joint Technological Education District.

For more information about the KEYS Internships, contact Marti Lindsey, (520) 626-3692, lindsey@pharmacy.arizona.edu and please visit the website, http://keys.pharmacy.arizona.edu for additional information and applications.