Each summer, in collaboration with the volunteer offices at Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition and FCCC, Students and Scientists Environmental Research Scholarship Program, we invite carefully selected high school students to the Breast Cancer Research Laboratory (BCRL) to experience first hand what biological research entails.
Students gain exposure in all areas of the lab, from histology and cell culture, to molecular biology. During their time here, they are assigned one project to work on, under the guidance of one of our mentoring scientists.
At the end of their internship, each student must give an oral presentation to the group in which they discuss their project’s methodology and results, as well as their experience in the lab and what they learned. This time is also valuable for us as organizers because it helps us understand how to make these experiences more fruitful, for both the students and researchers.
Ms. Rehman was supported in the summer of 2007 by a fellowship granted by the Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition of NY. She is a student of Walt Whitman High School, 301 West Hills Road Huntington Station, NY.
Ms. Rehman worked under the supervision of Drs. Fathima Sheriff, and Johana Vanegas, Julia Pereira and Patricia A. Russo. During her stay she was engaged in learning the tools for evaluating the role of xenoestrogens in the genomic profile of the rat mammary gland.
 Pictured from left to right: Shirou Wu, Emily Lopes, Dr. Jose Russo, Zack Rotter, and Julia Pereira |
Shirou Wu, Emily Lopes and Zack Rotter were supported in the summer of 2008 by fellowships granted by the Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition of NY. Ms Wu and Lopez are students at the Commack High School, and Mr. Rotter attends Walt Whitman High School.
The students were under the supervision of Dr. Fathima Sheriff, Ms Julia Pereira, and Ms Kara Snider. During their staythey learned theanatomy of the rat, animal dissection, organ identification, sample collection, processing of collected samples, storage of collected samples, embedding and sectioning, sample staining and whole mount preparations.
After learning the basic tools, they were assigned specific projects which involved evaluating the whole mammary glands of animals that had been previously treated with xenoestrogens like BBP, BPA and TCDD.
See The Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Center (BCERC)
At the end of their projects they provided a final report and made a power point presentation to the Breast Cancer Research Laboratory members and invited relatives.