UHSP and Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience Partner to Provide Research Opportunities for High School Seniors
A unique partnership between University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis and the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience is providing St. Louis high school students with the chance to conduct research at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in Saint Louis.
UHSP serves as one of Collegiate’s partners in providing its students with internship opportunities during the second semester of their senior year. The internship opportunities are designed to extend classroom learning and help students learn how the academic content of their coursework is applied on the job, while also providing students with valuable exposure to many facets of medicine and bioscience.
Real Research Experience in High School
This spring, Collegiate senior Chloe Ong had the opportunity to do her senior internship experience at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in Saint Louis, where she worked alongside Lamees Hegazy, Ph.D., associate professor of medicinal chemistry at UHSP, to learn more about computational chemistry.
I’ve had an interest in the field of medicine for a long time, but I’ve also been interested in computer science. Computational chemistry provides a way to meld both of my interests together.
During her internship, Ong’s research efforts were focused on computational methods examining alanine transaminase (ALT), an enzyme found in the liver.
“A previous study conducted by Washington University found that people with liver disease have an increased amount of ALT which is expressed,” Ong explained. “Dr. Hegazy’s team is working to model this protein with the goal of potentially creating inhibitors to block or stop this ALT from being expressed.”
Ong is the second student to intern with the Hegazy lab through UHSP’s partnership with the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience.
“I’ve had an interest in the STEM field for a long time, and I chose to attend high school at Collegiate because of its focus on medicine and bioscience,” Ong stated. “Through my school’s senior internship program, I was partnered with UHSP because of my interest in doing pharmaceutical-related research. My time at UHSP has been a great experience. I had done an internship focused on computational chemistry and drug development in the past, but Dr. Hegazy helped me learn about a different side of computational research that I hadn’t explored before.”
With her graduation approaching, Ong is planning to attend the University of Nebraska in the fall to study biochemistry, and she says her internship experience at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy has provided her with a solid foundation to continue to explore computational systems in college.
I have loved being on the UHSP campus and working in UHSP. I think there’s something here for anyone who wants to conduct bench research. I’m grateful for this partnership between my high school and UHSP, which has allowed me to work in a research lab during school hours and become immersed in a field of study that I will continue to investigate as I work toward getting my bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D.
Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience
Senior Internships and Capstones
The Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience is committed to providing students with a rigorous, state-of-the-art educational experience that prepares its graduates for college and for potential careers in medicine or bioscience.
The culminating experience for students is an internship during the second semester of their senior year. For some selected students there will be a capstone experience in lieu of an internship. Internships extend classroom learning and help students learn how the academic content of their coursework is applied on the job. Internships also provide students with valuable exposure to many facets of medicine and bioscience. The internship experience allows Collegiate to showcase its outstanding students to the community.
Each year, we have students placed at internships and capstone research projects all over St. Louis. They gain career experience and contacts for future networking. Below are some of the sites that our seniors have and will be placed at. See the photo gallery for pictures of our current seniors and alumni on site at their internships.
Participating Institutions
○ BJC Healthcare
○ STL Zoo
○ Missouri Botanical Garden
○ SLU
○ Goldfarb
○ Washington University in St. Louis
○ Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
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