Undergraduate Researcher: Sara Reardon
Sara won an Undergraduate Research/Creative Activity Award as a junior in microbiology. Her research involves the DEAF-1 gene, a potential tumor suppressor, and the role it plays in male reproductive anatomy. Using mouse models, she is studying how genetic and possibly epigenetic inheritance of a knocked-out copy of this gene affects sperm development.
Sara's message:
"I believe biomedical research to be one of the most urgent and crucial enterprises to our society today, and it is the one to which I plan to devote my career. My lab experience has taught me invaluable techniques as well as biology beyond what I would have learned in class alone. This opportunity to do real research as an undergraduate has enforced in me that this is indeed what I want to do with my life."
Note: Sara was selected as one of only 60 students nationwide to present her research at the 2007 Posters on the Hill event, sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research. Sara's research poster, which won second place at the inaugural St. Louis Area Undergraduate Research Symposium in 2006, was displayed at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on April 25. More...