Options: Volunteer, UROP, Work-Study, Credit

Project READY is funded by a five year grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of alcohol in dating abuse perpetration and victimization, and to develop a brief motivational interview-style intervention for the emergency department setting. Recruitment for the study is occurring at Boston Medical Center and participants in the study complete a survey and brief time line follow back (TLFB) interview.

JOB DESCRIPTION: Research assistants are needed in this phase of the study to clean and code the surveys and TLFB interview, and to perform data entry. Research assistants will also have the opportunity to engage with the research team in discussions of the project and possibly assist with preliminary data analysis. Job duties must be performed on the Boston University Medical Campus during normal business hours (9-5).

TIME COMMITMENT: During the semester, at least 5-10 hours per week. Research team meetings currently occur every other Monday morning. Please note that research assistants will also be required to participate in a web-based training on protecting human subjects research participants (2-3 hours).

REQUIREMENTS: Attention to detail is required. Experience with ACCESS databases is preferred. Experience with data entry is also preferred.

Please contact Allyson Baughman at allysonb@bu.edu if you are interested.

Options: Volunteer, UROP

Research assistant needed for study examining military and deployment experiences among Army National Guard women service members. Student will learn about Institutional Review Board (IRB) procedures, informed consent and confidentiality regarding research participants, participant tracking and follow up, developing statistical databases, and data analyses. Strong writing and organizational skills as well as experience with MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint are needed. Statistical Program for the Social Sciences (SPSS) experience preferred. Contact Nikki R. Wooten, PhD at nwooten@bu.edu for additional information.

Options: Volunteer, UROP, Work-Study, Credit

The Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology at the Boston University School of Medicine is involved in translation research on memory and addiction, as well as basic research on receptor pharmacology. Lab activities can broadly be divided into electrophysiology (in vivo and oocytes), behavioral studies, molecular biology and biochemistry. We are currently looking for students to help us with two projects:

1) In vivo electrophysiology is a powerful technique that allows to record neuronal activity in awake, behaving animals. Our laboratory uses multi-array electrodes to record from the rat hippocampus, a brain region important for memory. We are looking for 1 or 2 students to help us prepare a manual detailing this method and the related data analysis.  This would be an opportunity for students to familiarize themselves with one of the most cutting edge techniques in neuroscience.

2) As part of an on-going project in the laboratory, we are studying the role of neuroactive steroids in drug addiction. Neuroactive steroids can modulate receptors involved in the reward pathway and thus are an interesting target for substance abuse therapy. In these experiments, rats are implanted with a jugular vein catheter and trained to self-administer a drug of abuse. Following training, compounds of interest can be tested to see if they decrease drug self-administration or prevent relapse after a period of abstinence. Because experiments are conducted 6-7 days/week, preference will be given to students can spend at least 12h/week in the lab and who are willing and able to work on weekends.

If you are interested in applying for a position, please contact Sophie Desbiens (sophie@bu.edu). In your email, specify which project you are interested in and include your resume and unofficial transcript.

Options: Grant, UROP

Summer project to study the effect of mutations in the structure of the muscle regulatory protein tropomyosin. The work will take advantage of Molecular Dynamics protocols using the program CHARMM to compare in silico work with results obtained by electron microscopy.

(refer to Dr. Lehman’s home page – biophysics.bumc.bu.edu/faculty/lehman/ and his recent publication in the Journal of Molecular Biology – Li et al., http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WK7-4XKBYYH-7-S&_cdi=6899&_user=489277&_orig=search&_coverDate=10%2F31%2F2009&_sk=999999999&view=c&wchp=dGLbVtb-zSkWA&md5=2df2f1c1712ae8991f87cd7ef8590877&ie=/sdarticle.pdf
or doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2009.10.060

The expectation would be that the summer student would work full-time on the project with time off for vacation.

A strong background in Physical Sciences (preferably with experience in Computational Chemistry) is highly recommended.

Contact:

William Lehman, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology & Biophysics
Boston University School of Medicine
72 East Concord Street
Boston, MA 02118

Options: UROP

Skin and oral cancers are common malignancies at field of Otolaryngology Head Neck Surgery, in the United States. Current agents and strategies used in clinic are far from being satisfactory, and new approach is highly desired. Recent studies showed that recently FDA-approved Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) has great potential as a new agent for cancer chemotherapy, due to its treatment efficacy and particularly safety. Unfortunately, this agent alone did not demonstrate such efficacy for both cancers, regardless of encouraging results from other tumors. In this study, we will determine if SAHA will become effective, if combining it with either of low-dose retinoic acid (RA) or cisplatin, in cultured cell lines and tumor xenografts of nude mouse skin model. This is the first study to use this SAHA co-treatment for treating such cancers, and we expect its success will have great benefits to clinic.

Options: Volunteer, UROP, Work-Study, Credit

Automated Analysis of Flow-Cytometry data: Flow cytometry technology is widely used for diagnosis and treatment of many diseases by immunophenotyping of a variety of specimens, including whole blood, bone marrow, serous cavity fluids, cerebrospinal fluid, urine, and
solid tissues.
Flow cytometric analysis allows rapid single cell interrogation of surface and intracellular determinants by measuring fluorescence intensity of fluorophore-conjugated reagents. With new platforms available the the task of Live-gating and determination of cell population is becoming an important yet extremely labor intensive task. We are developing automated Live-gating techniques using  partitioning and visualization of high-dimensional non-normal data. We seek a student willing to implement some of the algorithms. Basic knowledge of statistics and statistical software e.g R or Matlab is necessary.

Options: Volunteer, UROP, Work-Study, Credit

Functional Data Modeling of Climate-Ecosystem Dynamics: The goal of this project is to develop better methods for analyzing the response of vegetation to changes in climate. Satellite observations of the earth’s surface can be used to track changes in vegetation over the last three decades, and the task of relating these changes to changes in climate is both important and challenging. The tools developed in this project will also be applicable to a variety of problems at the intersection of statistic and earth system science. Students interested should have standard knowledge in statistics and acquainted with statistical softwares e.g R or Matlab.

Options: Volunteer, UROP, Work-Study, Credit

Department of Radiology at Boston Medical Center would like to develop small applications for tracking academic activities of faculties, to improve daily workflow and to create user friendly teaching database. The candidate should have interest in development and testing of these applications. Please contact Dr.Holalkere at nh@bu.edu with your CV if you are interested.

Options: Grant, UROP, Credit

The aim of our multiple projects (IRB approved) are to establish the value of PET/CT molecular imaging in evaluation of human solid tumors.

Students will be very closely mentored by the faculty and will be involved in data collection, analysis and writing manuscripts and presenting the work in national meetings.  Progress of the projects will be monitored on a weekly basis in our research group meeting where many students, residents, fellows and Masters students participate.

Options: Volunteer, UROP, Credit

Junior or exceptional sophomore wanted for analysis of primary blood cells from type 2 diabetes patients to identify roles of immune system cells in chronic inflammatory disease. Successful candidate will work with PhD student and faculty member to design, complete and interpret experiments.  Attention to detail is a must. Prefer individual with goal of entering graduate program in biomedical sciences following undergraduate work. Contact bnikol@bu.edu.