STAR Research

The STAR program provides opportunities for college undergraduate students to conduct original research under the guidance of an MCG faculty mentor.  As such, the topics and focus of STAR projects are diverse; reflecting each mentor’s special expertise as well as the diversity of the ongoing, cutting-edge research initiatives at The Medical College of Georgia.

Thus, STAR projects focus on questions relating to a broad range of topics including: Alzheimer's disease, brain development, bone metabolism, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, hypertension, cancer, apoptosis, inflammation and viral infection, to name a few.  STARs have utilized model systems from Drosophila, to Zebra fish, to small rodents, to humans and have learned techniques and approaches including PCR, DNA sequencing, confocal microscopy, tissue culture, immunofluorescence microscopy, microinjection, patch clamping, Western Blotting and the  use of hypoxia incubation chambers, and more!

If you are interested in a future in biomedical research, then this is your chance to gain knowledge of a particular area of science that interests you most or to learn about an area of research that you previously new little about.  In addition, you can become skilled at exciting techniques and laboratory methods. Importantly, you can interact with scientists to plan, discuss and interpret your data and your experiments. By the end of the session, you will have first hand experience as to what a career as a biomedical research scientist entails on a day-to-day basis.  

A primary goal of the STAR program is for each STAR participant to leave the program with an understanding of their personal contribution to their own particular laboratory project as well as with a comprehensive understanding of the broader scientific research area in which he/she was involved in. Towards this aim, STAR participants, with the guidance of their faculty STAR mentor, prepare a poster based on their summer research and present it at the end of the session. 

If you are considering a future as a biomedical research scientist, then this is program is for you!

STAR Workshops  >>>