You don’t think of a lab coat as summer wear for teens, but we don’t quite feel like it’s summer around here until our research interns have arrived. Early in June, INBT’s undergraduate nano-bio researchers arrived. This week our high schoolers in the Summer Academic Research Experience (SARE) scholars got started.

SARE pairs specially selected teens with university mentors who guide them through a mini research project. At the end of their time here, they hold a small poster session. The students gain valuable work skills, learn about scientific careers, get tutoring help, practice their writing, gather data for their projects and earn some cash for the future. Students in the program are recruited from the Boys Hope Girls Home of Baltimore program, The SEED School of Maryland and The Crossroads School, all of which assist in differing ways with in the education, housing, tutoring  and counseling of promising young people from disadvantaged circumstances.

The SARE program was launched in 2009 by Doug Robinson, professor in the cell biology department at the School of Medicine, and is funded jointly by the medical school and Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology.

This year’s SARE scholars include: Diana Bobb is being mentored by Makoto Tanigawa in the Takanari Inoue Lab in the Department of Cell Biology; Kaleel Byrd is being mentored by Ryan Vierling in the Caren Meyers Lab in the Department of Pharmacology; Milan Dower is being mentored by Tom Lampert in the Peter Devreotes Lab in the Department of Cell Biology; Jewel Herndon is being mentored by Herschel Wade in his lab in the Department of Biophysics; De’Sean Markley is being mentored by Hoku West-Foyle in the Douglas Robinson Lab in the Department of Cell Biology