IGERT Student Profile: Laura Beasman
Laura Beasman. Credit: Mary Spiro/JHU
Laura Beasman works on creating surfaces with chemical cues that coax the growth of cancer and stem cells. Beasman, an IGERT* fellow with Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT’s) and recent recipient of the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, hopes that her research will one day lead to treatments or cures to blood vessel disorders.
Using hyaluronic acid (HA), a molecule present in large quantities during the early stage development of the body and during tumor development, Beasman and Sharon Gerecht, assistant professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and INBT affiliated faculty member, are developing surfaces that tell stem cells how and where to grow.
“The ultimate goal is to direct the cells to become blood vessels,“ Beasman says. Part of their initial success in this project was simply getting the HA, which is a large sugar molecule, to stay where she put it on the surface. Recently, Beasman has started working with adult stem cells. Her work is co-advised by Kathleen Stebe, John Hopkins research professor, INBT affiliate and IGERT program director.
Beasman boasts extensive training in chemistry from her undergraduate experience at the University of Maryland College Park and a part-time job at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology. “But this is really the first time I have had to work with cells and learn about cell biology,“ she says. “I am learning so much more now about the cell’s machinery.“
In addition to her work on the Hopkins campus, Beasman will be among the first students to conduct research through INBT’s International Research Experience for Students (IRES). This National Science Foundation (NSF) funded IRES program will send Beasman to Belgium to work on a short-term project at IMEC, one of the world-leading research centers in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology.
“I love to travel, and I have always wanted to conduct research abroad,“ she says. “So I am pretty excited about this opportunity.“
Beasman’s love for science grew out of a part-time high school job in a pharmacy. “When it wasn’t busy, I’d pass the time by reading drug pamphlets,“ she says. “I imagined myself as a chemical engineering optimizing drug manufacturing processes. But then, there are so many interesting things going on in chemical engineering that you could do anything.“
Beasman admits to being a self-proclaimed science geek. She enjoys reading what she calls “science fun books,“ such as the history of the development of penicillin, and even named her dog after James Watson, one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA.
*Funded by the National Science Foundation, IGERT stands for Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship.
